Volume 49 - Issue 18March 2, 2016

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Wednesday, March 2, 2016 NEWS 3

By Nicole Schmidt

The past three months have seen a wave of mixed responses af-ter the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) made a controversial move to eliminate its executive director of communications and outreach (EDCO) position, resulting in the layoffs of two employees.

Gilary Massa, who was laid off while on maternity leave, said she’s looking to be reinstated. On Feb. 29, she announced that she filed a complaint with the Hu-man Rights Tribunal of Ontario against the RSU. Her lawyer, Sa-ron Gebresellassi, claims the RSU made several breaches against the Ontario Human Rights Code.

“I did it all right. I got an educa-tion, I had a job and then started a family, but it all got taken away in one fell swoop … I loved my job, and the best thing for me and my family is to be reinstated,” said Massa, adding that her layoff has affected her financial stability and her ability to raise her daughter.

Massa was employed by the RSU for almost seven years and is also a representative of the Cana-dian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). One day before her posi-tion was eliminated — a decision RSU president Andrea Bartlett said was made over financial con-straints — Natasha Campagna, former student engagement and business development coordina-

tor of the Ryerson Commerce Society, started as the RSU’s new full-time general manager.

The RSU said in a previous statement that after they took of-fice, they were “dismayed to find the organization facing serious operational challenges.” They said challenges included inadequate human resources policies, training and oversight. According to the statement, an assessment done by an independent third party found that a non-unionized GM position would be more sustainable than the EDCO role.

In the weeks following her ter-mination, Massa received support from numerous organizations, both on and off campus. CUPE made a Facebook post urging people to contact Bartlett, while the University of Toronto Students’ Union released a statement saying their willingness to engage with the RSU was “severely undermined.”

Most recently, Board of Directors member Angelyn Francis resigned because she felt “blindsided” by some of the restructuring decisions.

Massa spoke at the Fairness and Equity for Women at Ryerson rally and march against sex and gender discrimination in the workplace on March 1. Winnie Ng, event orga-nizer and CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson, said Massa’s case speaks to larger issues of social justice on campus. “We have to continue to

be vigilant … we can’t afford to fluff these things off,” she said.

At the march, a group of more than 50 supporters marched from the Student Learning Centre to the RSU executive offices, calling out Bartlett and Campagna. Ng encouraged everyone to write to administration.

Former RSU v.p. equity and co-founder of Black Lives Mat-ter Toronto Pascale Diverlus said the RSU wasn’t thinking “what it would mean for a black, visibly Muslim woman to lose her place of work.”

The Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination on grounds of gender and family sta-tus, which Gebresellassi said is part of the breach that the RSU made.

According to Social Justice Tri-bunals Ontario’s procedure, the Human Rights Tribunal of On-tario will mediate the dispute if Massa and the RSU both agree to mediation. Gebresellassi said this is the desired outcome, in addition to raising awareness about human rights violations against women. “The tribunal doesn’t look kindly on this kind of conduct on the part of employers. Part of the goal is to prevent reoccurrence,” she said.

If both sides can’t reach an agree-ment, a hearing will be held for the application. If the application is not dismissed, the tribunal can or-der the RSU to provide remedies, including monetary compensation or a change in RSU policy.

But Bartlett said in a statement

that Massa’s Tribunal application is “redundant,” and she expects it will be dismissed. “Clearly, Ms. Massa’s statements are not about having a job — they are political,” she wrote.

When Massa was laid off, her union publicly declared it would fight the layoff through a griev-ance procedure (a type of dispute resolution used to address com-plaints by employees). The proce-dure is confidential, but, according to Bartlett, Massa is seeking public-ity by filing a complaint. She added there’s an RSU election underway, which wasn’t happening in Decem-ber when Massa was laid off.

“Massa can make her allega-tions in whatever legal venue she sees fit. The executive stands by its decision,” wrote Bartlett.

A group of protesters march from the SLC to the SCC’s RSU executive offices. PHOTO: AL DOWNHAM

By Al Downham

Ryerson is bent on adopting a unique approach towards outlin-ing its potential law school.

“It’s not just adding a new law school to the system,” said inter-im president Mohamed Lachemi. “But adding something that will be meaningful, and something that will differentiate Ryerson.”

A Feb. 16 release states an origi-nating and feasibility group is as-sessing how Ryerson can possibly create a law school that will prepare graduates “for today’s fast-paced le-gal industry.” Town halls were held Feb. 24-26 for faculty, staff and stu-dents to discuss the initiative.

A Ryerson law school is being considered, but is not confirmed.

According to Mark Lovewell — a retired Ryerson faculty member involved in the initiative — the originating committee is writing a Letter of Intent (LOI) outlining a possible curriculum, societal need and unique approach for the law

school, while a feasibility study will determine its structural needs.

Darrick Heyd, a feasibility com-mittee member and Ryerson’s se-nior advisor on academic space planning, said there “hasn’t been a call by the provincial government for new law schools.”

However, members supporting an on-campus law school argue traditional law schools are outdat-ed. Law and business department chair and feasibility committee member Avner Levin said tradi-tional law schools teach the sub-ject similar to humanities courses.

“The challenge with legal educa-tion is that it hasn’t kept up with changes in society,” said Chris Bentley, executive director of the Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) and Law Practice Program. Bentley has advised the initiative. “We prepare lawyers pretty much the way we did when I left law school decades ago.”

Anver Saloojee — politics and public administration professor, and chair of the feasibility com-

mittee — said Ryerson can address societal needs by improving out-dated aspects of legal education. The chair said Ryerson’s particular mandate of “bringing theory and practice closer together” could help modernize legal education. Saloojee sits on both committees.

Levin said Ryerson’s potential law school could use practitioners, placements and simulated firms to give students practical experience. Saloojee said courses could also tackle modern law concerning pri-vacy, big data and cybercrime.

“Many lawyers aren’t trained in that kind of technology,” Saloojee said.

Initiative members are consider-

ing adopting a social justice lens in some courses, tackling issues like high legal costs and accessibility of legal education or representation. The curriculum could also discuss alternatives to by-hour pay, which is popular among lawyers.

“I think the thing that’s more pressing is traditional legal repre-sentation is not affordable because lawyers, the way they work and the way they build up, puts them out of reach,” Levin said, stating law graduates struggle with high tuition costs. “It becomes very ex-pensive for people.”

According to Levin, some of these ideas have been tested in Ryerson’s law practice program and at the LIZ. Both are informally connected to the law school initiative.

In terms of feasibility, Saloojee listed three factors in the study: space, faculty and library resources.

A 2014 statement states Heyd’s role as senior advisor on academic space planning is to be “first point of contact with academic units for

their new space needs as well as renovations and alterations.”

Regarding faculty, Levin said roughly 50 Ryerson faculty mem-bers have gone to law school.

Library resources will undoubt-edly need beefing up, according to Saloojee, who said most law schools have their own libraries. University of Ottawa’s Brian Dick-son Law Library director Margo Jeske says the library received $1.5 million of a 2014/2015 acquisi-tions budget. The Law Library of Osgoode Hall Law School at York University is the largest library of its kind nationwide; the library has over 500,000 volumes.

The initiative is in early stages, but members said they’re consid-ering town hall attendees’ advice in the study. Levin said the LOI will be posted for community re-view — after further comment, a full proposal will be developed and presented to the Ryerson sen-ate, which will continue to exter-nal stakeholders if approved.

RU considers unique approach to legal ed.As Ryerson discusses the possibility of a law school, on-campus groups are looking to modernize the way law is taught and practiced

“We prepare lawyers pretty much the way we did when I left law school decades ago”

Human rights complaint filed against the RSUGilary Massa responds to last semester’s layoff

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4 EDITORIAL Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Former RSU president Melissa Palermo at a 2013 Drop Fees rally. PHOTO: JESS TSANG

By SeanWetselaar

Sometime in my high school years, I remember seeing a birthday card that joked about tuition fees. It had a family crowded around a campfire with horrified looks on their faces. A young boy, in the middle of telling a ghost story, was saying, “...and that’s how much my college tuition will cost.”

I laughed. At that time, still years away from the realities of at-

Tuition, and ghost storiesProposed changes to tuition could save future generations from a scary fate

tempting to afford a post-second-ary education, the joke was funny. Today it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Paying for school right now is increasingly more than just un-reasonable. With the average cost of many programs in excess of $7,000 per semester, simply cover-ing the costs of courses and addi-tional expenses like textbooks and other supplies can land a student in debt to the tune of tens of thou-sands.

Everyone in my generation has heard our parents’ cohort talk

Editor-in-ChiefSean “Qui-Sean-Jinn” Wetselaar

NewsKeith “Publicasean Ban” Capstick

Nicole “Sean Solo” SchmidtAl “Star Trek 2: The Wrath of

Sean” Downham

FeaturesFarnia “Sean Bon Jovi” Fekri

Biz and TechJacob “The Real Sean Shady” Dubé

Arts and LifeKaroun “Sa-sean-mi” Chahinian

SportsDevin “Demar Derozsean” Jones

CommunitiesAlanna “House of the Rising

Sean” Rizza

PhotoAnnie “Long Sean Silver”

ArnoneJake “Sean Swanson” Scott

Chris “Charlie Sean” Blanchette

FunSkyler “It’s Always Sean-y In

Philadelphia” Ash

MediaRob “Rage Against the Mach-

sean” Foreman

OnlineIgor “Seanold Drumpf” MagunTagwa “Ce-sean Dion” MoyoLee “Sunsean of your Love”

Richardson

General ManagerLiane “Seantal Kreviazuk” McLarty

Advertising ManagerChris “Sean on, you crazy

diamond” Roberts

Design DirectorJ.D. “Sean C. Reiley” Mowat

about how we’re just complaining about something that doesn’t mat-ter. “Just work over the summer,” they say. “You’ll get a job when you graduate and pay off what-ever loans you take on.”

Maybe there was a time in the 1970s when that was true. Or maybe they all did way too much LSD. But you’d have to be on some kind of hard drug to think that was anything close to today’s reality.

Here’s the truth — many stu-dents will spend a serious portion of their adult lives paying off loans in an economy that far from guar-antees a job after they graduate.

And who is disproportionately affected by these problems? Low-income and marginalized students.

I should pause here to note that I was very lucky — my family was able to help pay for a chunk of my education and I was able to offset the costs of going to school and living downtown with enough jobs that I kept my debt fairly low. But I’m a priviledged white kid from the suburbs — whether or not my family made boatloads of money, society didn’t need to be worried about me.

They did need to be worried about an increasingly large per-centage of society that either couldn’t, or would not in the near future, be able to afford an educa-tion. University, many people fear, could become a luxury for an idle elite.

But as a cynical young journal-ist, I never imagined we would see lawmakers take action in the way they have. When the most recent provincial budget was ta-bled it came with the ambitious claim that tuition would be free for students whose families make less than $50,000. Many of those whose parents make a little more would see tuition rates heavily subsidized.

That statement shocked me and many of my coworkers here at The Eyeopener. If you’re like most students that have followed this news, you’ve probably seen a mixed bag of coverage, with pun-dits and activists declaring unadul-terated victory and others saying that the goals are unrealistic and impossible in this economy.

So, as we posited on our cover this week, what the fuck is going on?

We’ll try to answer that and other questions this week. But it’s worth remembering that it wasn’t so long ago even this discussion would have felt impossible. And if nothing else, the government has acknowledged there is a problem.

So maybe that ghost story could be just a story after all.

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Wednesday, March 2, 2016 NEWS 5

By Nicole Schmidt

While Ryerson’s equity service centres were supposed to see in-creased funding this semester, some coordinators say the oppo-site has happened and their bud-gets have been scaled back.

At the December 2015 Semi-Annual General Meeting (SAGM), students voted in favour of a mo-tion requesting that the equity ser-vice centres receive funding based on Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) membership, as opposed to a lump sum of allocated funds. It was re-quested that the budget reflects two dollars per student, which translates into roughly $60,000 ($10,000 for each centre).

RyePRIDE coordinator Dani-ella Enxuga said she was told in early January that the new budget would be a top priority for RSU executives, and that the equity centres would have it no later than the end of that month — which never happened.

“There’s a month left to our contracts and there’s been no re-

allocation so it’s essentially irrel-evant for us now,” she said.

According to Markus Har-wood-Jones, a coordinator at the Trans Collective, what the equity centres have been told doesn’t match up with what they’ve seen. “We’ve been told to cut funding as much as possible,” he said, adding that the Trans Collective had a budget of $60 per member meeting, but now he said they’ve been asked to spend $40 due to a lack of overall funding for events and services.

Harwood-Jones added that he’s repeatedly asked about the budget, but was met with a verbal warning.

RSU president Andrea Bartlett said equity centre funding has not been cut, and that the centres are still operating under what they were promised when the budget was ratified by the membership. “We are still working on the bud-get. It has been difficult on our end because some of the accounts haven’t been fully updated. Be-fore we can specifically say this is where we stand financially, those

accounts need to be reconciled,” she said.

The equity centres have seen consistent growth in recent years — when the Trans Collective launched in 2014, they had five members. Now, the group has 15. Similarly, Enxuga said the size of RyePRIDE has quadrupled. As liv-ing costs increase the Good Food Centre has also seen an increased need for its services, with more than 350 registered students.

Corey Scott, equity and cam-paigns organiser, said that all areas of the equity centres have felt the crunch. The initial motion brought forth at the SAGM was intended to reflect growth, as well as address a shortage of supplies and staff.

In the past, each centre has been staffed with three employees. But this year, a third hire was only done for the Good Food Room and the Centre for Women and Trans People. The current budget can also be stressful when plan-ning events, added Scott.

Last year, Enxuga said event planning was budgeted based on

past spending. An annual work-shop on asexuality, in partnership with an outside Toronto organiza-tion, had a former budget of $150. But this year, Enxuga said she was only given $50. Some attendees required an ASL interpreter, but the decrease created a struggle in making the event accessible. The money was eventually allocated from a separate fund outside of RyePRIDE, said Enxuga.

According to Bartlett, it’s been communicated to equity staff that if they need more money for an event they can submit a request to the executive meeting agenda, which will be voted on. “It’s not that we’ve cut any funding ... it’s a breakdown in communication and a misunderstanding of finances.”

The RSU is working toward making the funding adjustment by the end of the semester.

Equity centres still waiting on funding A motion passed at the last SAGM called for increased funding within equity centres, but employees say their budgets have been cut

International student cards lost abroad

Until late February, Ryerson stu-dents were having trouble getting their International Student Identity Cards (ISIC), causing a major in-convenience for those who plan to study abroad.

The ISIC card is proof of your student status worldwide allowing you to receive discounts and ben-efits in over 130 countries, accord-ing to the ISIC website. Because of this issue, students are not getting the discounts and benefits on ex-penses that they should be getting such as education, travel, enter-

By Sarah Krichel tainment and software. According to Ryerson Students’

Union (RSU) president Andrea Bartlett, the union had been at-tempting to fix a machine intend-ed to print the cards since it was found to not function correctly in September. The Canadian Federa-tion of Students (CFS) is respon-sible for the cards, Bartlett said, and resolved the issue on Feb. 26 after not showing up to a sched-uled meeting the week before.

Bartlett wrote via email that until the machine was fixed, the RSU tried to do everything in their power to solve the issue. She said

the CFS was not cooperative. Last semester, representatives

of the CFS did not respond to re-quests from the RSU to rectify the issue, according to Bartlett.

But Rajean Hoilett, chairper-son of CFS-Ontario and former RSU president, says otherwise. He said that CFS has been in ongoing communication with the Member Services Office (MSO) coordinator of the RSU.

“We actually were able to go by their office [last week],” Hoilett said. “[The RSU is] currently able to print student ISIC cards and we have already scheduled another follow-up appointment.”

Simona Sustova, a student who is currently on exchange from Amsterdam in the business man-agement field at Ryerson, said in an email that she didn’t even know the card existed.

“Possessing this card might be a helpful way to reduce a lot of costs with travel and shopping in world-wide brand stores,” Sustova said.

Until the machine was fixed, Bartlett said that Ryerson stu-dents’ only option was to go to the Ontario College of Art and Design University or to George Brown College to be given the identity cards for free.

Former Eyeopener editor Nata-lia Balcerzak was sent to the Uni-versity of Toronto (U of T) to be issued a card but was charged $20

for it. Obaid Ullah, the RSU’s vice president finance said the Member Services Office never instructed any student to go to U of T.

“We are not sure why students would be charged to get one,” Bartlett said in an email. “It’s stat-ed pretty clearly in their materials the card is free for CFS members.”

Ryerson pays $385,000 per year in CFS membership fees, approxi-mately 20 per cent of the budget, according to Ullah.

Ullah said the CFS’s failure to show up to a meeting is “unpro-fessional and disappointing.” He

said it is fair to expect a certain level of service from the organiza-tion considering the amount Ryer-son pays for the membership.

Ullah wrote via email that the RSU was disappointed “given that we [had] been trying to contact the CFS to fix the machine and system that makes our ISIC cards since September.”

Hoilett said that they would have appreciated a more direct line of communication with the RSU.

“This is the first time that we had been aware that this is an es-calating issue,” Hoilett said.

PHOTO: JESS TSANG, ILLUSTRATION: ANNIE ARNONE

CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE CONTENT THIS WEEK, INCLUDING A BOMB-ASS STORY ON THE O’KEEFE LANE DESIGN CHALLENGE

PHOTO: PAOLO BRINDLEY-PANTALONE, ADAM HARRISON, ARASH OTURKAR, MICHAEL UTTLEY

The equity service centres have run into funding issues. PHOTO: CHRIS BLANCHETTE

6 Wednesday, March 2, 2016NEWS

The Ontario government an-nounced on Feb. 25 that new bud-get changes will allow students coming from families with an an-nual income of less than $50,000 to receive free tuition.

But many people who’ve been involved in the movement to im-prove access to education say that the amendments aren’t enough for students’ fi nancial needs and that “free tuition” might not be the most accurate portrayal.

Student leaders at Ryerson, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Univer-sities (MTCU) are all watching intently to see the next steps that will follow this momentous event.

In addition to free tuition for low-income students — which will be made up primarily of grants, as well as loans and tax credits — those coming from slightly bet-ter fi nancial backgrounds will be receiving additional grants and support, but not the full average tuition supplement.

The budget, however, bases its commitment on an average pro-vincial tuition of $6,160, while Statistics Canada places this aver-age at $7,868. Furthermore, the promised grants and loans don’t seem to account for more expen-sive programs like engineering, or

general mandatory student fees.One of the key points in the

presentation was that students will also be made aware of their fi nancial support statistics well in advance. The details of how the province will be implementing these changes will be revealed in the coming months.

“Looking at how quickly the progress is being made and wheth-er or not all the logistics seem to line up, is something we’ll be look-ing at,” said Zachary Rose, OU-SA’s executive director.

OUSA’s budget-suggestion mod-el, which they drafted through research and frequent meetings with the Ontario government, was nearly identical to Ontario’s announced budget updates. Al-though excited, Rose said there are a lot of questions left unanswered.

“There’s going to be a lot of implementation questions coming around, particularly around net billing, which we think is one of the most signifi cant improvements that have been announced,” said Rose. Net billing allows students to receive the total cost of their tuition without reductions being unaccounted for, a step meant to improve transparency around the cost of post-secondary education.

In addition to Rose’s imple-mentation concerns, Glen Jones, a University of Toronto professor and Ontario Research Chair on Postsecondary Education Policy and Measurement, said that he thinks this is a step in the right direction for the province. But he notes that there’s a specifi c need to continue to fi ght the boundar-ies marginalized communities face

when accessing education. “We know that we’re doing well

overall — the question is are we doing well enough for the popu-lations that are under-represented in our universities and colleges?” said Jones. “That’s about low-income families, that’s about Ab-original populations, and that’s about other under-represented populations — students with dis-abilities, et cetera.”

Rajean Hoilett, last year’s Ry-erson Students’ Union (RSU) president and current Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario chairperson, reiterated Jones’ sen-timent about the disproportional access to education for marginal-ized students. He also looked to the provincial tuition framework re-assessment as a key next step.

“In the coming academic year the province is going to be review-ing the tuition-fee framework, which is the thing that allows tu-ition fees to go up,” said Hoilett. “We have an opportunity in this review to ensure that a new tuition fee framework doesn’t continue to increase tuition fees. In fact we’re working towards reductions and the complete elimination of tuition fees.”

Current RSU vice-president edu-cation Cormac McGee is also tar-geting the provincial re-assessment as the key to fi guring out whether this push from the Ontario gov-ernment is part of a larger plan.

Tuition fees are currently al-lowed to be increased by up to three per cent each year, and ac-cording to McGee if that number is allowed to rise then this win for students will be meaningless.

Breaking down the barriers to get “free tuition”INVESTIGATING

THE IMPACTOF THE ONTARIO BUDGET

Low-income Ontarians under 18versus non-low-income, in 2013

THAT’S 19 per cent,

or almost

1 in 4kids younger than 18 who were classifi ed as low-income in Ontario in 2013.

Currently, Ontariouniversity students pay a yearly average of around $7,500

By Keith Capstick

It was announced last week that students from low-income families will soon receive tuition grants while thousands in addi-tional funding will be handed out to middle-income students. But the push for increased provincial funding and better access to edu-cation has been present at Ryerson for decades.

Various Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) executive teams have participated in student ac-tion campaigns with names rang-ing from Freeze the Fees to Drop Fees. Former Ryerson president Sheldon Levy left the school last semester for the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universi-ties while provincial and national student advocacy groups like the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and the Ontario Under-graduate Student Alliance (OUSA)

have developed researched sugges-tions for how the government can change its approach to budgeting for education.

“We saw action in the Freeze the Fees campaign and the action that was organized at Ryerson was one of the initiatives [that] paved the way for these types of conversa-tions to happen,” said Rajean Hoi-lett, last year’s RSU president and current CFS Ontario Chairperson.

Hoilett said that this latest an-nouncement is an example of how student action can really make a difference.

“I know that a lot of students are skeptical about how effective

student activism is and I think that this announcement very loud and clearly has affi rmed and pro-claimed that student activism does work,” said Hoilett. “When we get organized, when we’re united, when we stand together with stu-dents across the province we have an opportunity to be able to bring about real change.”

Over the past few years, the RSU has seen a number of insti-tutional changes with new slates coming and old slates going — but the one constant has been the stu-dent union’s fi ght for increased ac-cess to education on campus.

Cormac McGee, this year’s vice-president education, has tackled fi nancial constraints a little dif-ferently this year by focusing on unpaid internships and looking ahead to the 2017 tuition frame-work review.

McGee was present for the reading of the budget and also met

Freezing the fees, kind ofBy Keith Capstick

with the minister of fi nance on be-half of Ryerson a few days earlier. He said the experience felt like a “photo-op” but maintained that being a part of the conversation in any way will allow students to pitch real change to the province.

Reza Moridi, the Ontario minis-ter of Training, Colleges and Uni-versities, is looking to implement this new legislation for the begin-ning of the September 2017 aca-demic year. Moridi said the day

this announcement was made was the most “important, signifi cant and pleasant day in [his] life as a politician.”

But even he admits that there is a lot of work to be done, saying that Ontario has a cap on tuition fees and with the tuition frame-work being up for reconsideration in 2017, the ministry will “again start working on it and see what [they] can do.”

Read more on theeyeopener.com

That’s about $1,500 more than the federal average.

Infographic: Farnia Fekri. Info: Statscan

Many people ... say that the amendments aren’t enough for students’ fi nancial needs

“This announcement very loudly and clearly has af-fi rmed and proclaimed that student activism does work”

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 COMMUNITIES 7

Ryerson Lifeline Syria Challenge reaches goals

By Maddie Binning

The Ryerson Lifeline Syria Chal-lenge has now surpassed each goal it set out for itself. But the logisti-cal demand of supporting so many refugee families may force the team to limit any more growth.

Ryerson’s challenge was inspired by Lifeline Syria, a Toronto-based initiative that began in June 2015.

Shortly after the initiative formed, Ryerson responded by creating the challenge.

Ryerson’s original goal was to make 10 sponsorship groups to support 10 families, or about 40 refugees. In September, the team increased the goal to 25 sponsor-ship groups and families. After the University of Toronto, York University and OCAD joined the

challenge, the goal was raised to 75 groups and families. As of Jan. 20, exactly six months after the launch of the challenge, that goal has been met and $3 million has been raised.

“When we started, we really didn’t anticipate the tremendous outpouring of support in the Ry-erson community and then the ex-tended university communities,” said Wendy Cukier, the executive lead of Ryerson’s Lifeline Syria Challenge and the vice-president re-search and innovation at Ryerson. “Students are our secret weapon because they have been the bedrock of the support and being able to of-fer translation support, support in finding jobs, accommodation and so on has really led many people to want to work with us at Ryerson and the other universities.”

The challenge has about 1,000 volunteers and has brought about 100 refugees to Canada so far through Ryerson’s initiative.

“We have to figure out when we declare victory,” said Cukier. “At some point, we need to de-cide when we’ve done enough and that’s really a discussion of the four universities and also a matter of resources.”

Each of the sponsorship groups are responsible for providing not only living spaces and basic necessi-ties for the refugee families, but also many other types of support for the year after their arrival to help the family become self-sufficient. This includes assisting them in finding jobs and learning English.

The Prince Edward County Syr-ian Refugee Fund (PEC Syria), one of Ryerson’s sponsorship groups, has depended on Ryerson for many resources in supporting the Al Jasem family, but the student translators have been particularly helpful. The translators completed paperwork for the family prior to their arrival in Canada, helping them receive important documents

like their social insurance numbers and health cards.

“There’s no way we could have done this without [Ryerson],” said Ryerson alumna Kathleen Pow-derley, one of the sponsors and co-chair of PEC Syria. “The Ryerson translators have been invaluable.”

PEC Syria was assigned four stu-dent translators due to the size of the family, but most families are as-signed one or two translators each. And while they’re a great help to the families, it’s not always easy to organize so many volunteers.

“Every additional family [and] every additional volunteer requires more support and more coordina-tion, so that’s part of the discussion around how much we can grow because currently the team that’s providing support is really tapped out,” said Cukier. “[Still] at the end of the day, everybody who’s in-volved is pretty thrilled with what we’ve been able to achieve in a very short period of time.”

Finding affordable housing in To-ronto is difficult. But finding af-fordable housing that is accessible is almost impossible.

“I think there’s this pre-con-ceived notion, like a stereotype almost, in [people’s] minds what renting to a person with a dis-ability is like. That we won’t pay rent, that we aren’t going to go out and get a job to pay the bills and just some really nasty things that aren’t true,” said Michelle Wool-frey, a third-year arts student.

Woolfrey is visually impaired and has a service dog named Thompson. She said the biggest struggle for her was finding a building that allows dogs. Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), people cannot be denied a service because of their service dog, and landlords can’t deny them either. But Woolfrey said this has hap-pened to her about a dozen times.

“I got turned away at the door or even at a phone call with peo-ple saying, ‘Please don’t come, we don’t want a dog living here.’”

Woolfrey said she never took further action after being turned down because she wouldn’t want to live in a place where people didn’t accept her because of Thompson.

“There are days and there are times when I just don’t feel like fighting,” she said.

Woolfrey’s main living require-ments include outdoor space for Thompson and an accessible el-evator.

Woolfrey said a major difficulty

was finding a building in a safe neighbourhood. The apartment she lived in last year was at Dun-das and Sherbourne.

“There were shootings, some-one broke into our apartment, there was fighting all the time. So it was really unsafe,” she said.

Woolfrey and her roommate fi-nally moved out after a year. Wool-frey then applied to the Housing Stabilization Fund under the On-tario Disability Support Program but had to wait six months to hear back. Woolfrey said she called three times to ask if the letter was sent and when it finally was, she was rejected.

She said this discouraged her from applying to any other pro-grams, so she and her roommate looked for apartments on their own.

After an “extremely stressful” process of three months of search-ing, Woolfrey and her roommate finally found their current apart-ment. They have been living there for six months and plan on staying there for as long as possible.

But the hunt to find affordable and accessible housing in Toronto will only get more difficult due to the increase in demand from the aging population and the general growth of Toronto’s population, according to documents provided by Rob Cressman, director of To-

ronto’s social housing administra-tion.

These documents were used in a panel discussion last week where Cressman discussed the lack of affordable and accessible housing units in Toronto.

Other reasons for the lack of affordable and accessible housing include “insufficient funding for things like retrofits for those with low-incomes, housing allowances, housing subsidies, social housing repairs and retrofits,” said Cress-man in an email.

Cressman said there are cur-rently 598 households on a cen-tralized wait list for subsidized wheelchair accessible units. The centralized wait list is managed by Housing Connections, an organi-zation that manages applications and wait lists for subsidized hous-ing in Toronto.

But these applicants are includ-ed in the regular chronological wait list. According to a Housing Connections report, as of Decem-ber 2015, 95,280 households are on the wait list for social housing. Those who are requesting wheel-chair accessible units are not con-sidered priority applicants.

“Those who suffer the most are often the most vulnerable. Stu-dents should be seeking assistance from their college or university. Those looking for accessible units have even fewer housing options and that can mean a longer search for housing and consideration of other geographic locations,” said Cressman.

Ryerson’s Off-Campus Hous-ing office assists students in find-ing places to live that are not Ry-

Students struggle to find affordable, accessible housing By Alanna Rizza

erson residences. Valerie Bruce, who is the coordinator of Housing Operations and Administration at Ryerson and oversees the Off-Campus Housing office said, “To be honest, nothing,” when asked if there’s any specific initiative to help students with disabilities to find housing.

Jessica Geboers, a recent Ryer-son graduate, lived in Pitman Hall for just over two years and said she was satisfied with the build-ing’s accessibility. Geboers has a mild form of cerebral palsey (CP) and uses a cane and occasionally a wheelchair. Her biggest living requirement is a central location.

When she moved out of resi-dence, for about three months

Geboers and her roommate, who also has a mild form of CP, were looking at 10 to 20 listings a day but only went and saw five build-ings that met their living require-ments.

Eventually they found a unit that is about a 10-to-15 minute walk to Ryerson. But she found herself coming late to class, espe-cially during the winter. “It was an adjustment for sure,” she said.

Geboers said that the lack of affordable and accessible housing is an issue because it’s something that a lot of people don’t know about.

“The provincial government needs to be more open with people with disabilities, and talk to them about what they need and how to achieve it,” she said.

Cressman also said there needs to be “significant, ongoing fed-eral [or] provincial funding and financial incentives to even begin meeting the housing needs of low-income and disabled residents.”

Michelle Woolfrey and her service dog Thompson. PHOTO: ANNIE ARNONE

Wendy Cukier and a sponsor, Ali Ebrahim. PHOTO COURTESY: WENDY CUKIER

“There are days and there are times when I just don’t feel like fighting”

“The provincial government needs to be more open with people with disabilities”

8 ARTS & LIFE Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Rodney Diverlus performing in Footsteps Across Canada at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre. PHOTO: CHRIS BLANCHETTE

Rodney Diverlus: The Artivist

By Karoun Chahinian

Many people are lucky to have one passion that drives them fur-ther every day. Rodney Diverlus, a Ryerson dance graduate and a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Toronto chapter, is blessed to have two passions that define him: dance and activism.

Diverlus was told at a young age that he had a “personality for the stage,” but growing up in an immi-grant and traditional household, he was taught to go for a more realistic career route.

“I ended up choosing dance in the long run, but I still had that voice in the back of my head that said it wasn’t the most viable op-tion,” said Diverlus. “But there was always a part of me that knew that I wanted to make a life and a career out of this as an artist.”

He moved to Toronto from Hamilton in 2008 after being ac-cepted into Ryerson’s dance pro-gram, which he admired for its “deep technical focus.”

During his time there, he de-veloped a close relationship with dance performance professor Vicki St. Denys, who is now the director of the program.

“The one thing that struck me about Rodney is his passion and his need to always say something with his dancing and choreography,” said St. Denys. “That was some-thing that I noticed the very first moment I laid eyes on Rodney and that certainly never stopped.”

Along with realizing his dream of making a living out of dance, Diver-lus also discovered his love for ac-tivism during his time in university through community outreach work in the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU). During the drop the fees campaign in 2008, Diverlus mar-shalled a rally and became “really heated into the issues.”

Diverlus attended the Fall gen-eral RSU meeting in 2009, which was when the VP Equity position was created. He was also the Equity Commissioner at the Board of Di-rectors at the time, which made him

aware of campus issues, that he said he could only fix by running for the position himself.

“I saw that these issues needed to be addressed at this level, so I ran as VP equity in order to do that,” said Diverlus. “I ended up having a real-ly good year and I started so many projects like Queering Black His-tory Month, Global Issues Aware-ness Week that we just started that made me want to have another year to continue them.”

Diverlus then re-ran for the po-sition in 2011, and eventually be-came the RSU president in 2012.

“When I ran for president, my goal was to help support the stu-dents union to continue with activ-ism and to continue being a force on campus,” said Diverlus.

Outside of Ryerson, he was in-volved in community work in To-ronto, specifically the Black Lives Matter Toronto chapter.

While waiting for the verdict from the murder case of Michael Brown versus police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson in 2014, Di-verlus received a call from his close friend Sandy Hudson who wanted to take action and show support.

“There was a desire to do in-ternational actions of solidarity for Ferguson, so people from all around the world were asked to be ready for a 24-hour act of solidar-ity through a protest if the decision is what we expected it to be,” said Diverlus.

By creating a Facebook page ad-vertising the solidarity protest at the U.S. Consulate, word quickly spread and 4,000 Torontonians came out the next day.

“From then on, we knew that this couldn’t stop there because of the amount of momentum that had gone into that protest,” said Diverlus. Black Lives Matter started off as a hashtag and grew into a conversation. We continued to meet and do these actions and events, and while we were doing it in Toronto, people were simulta-neously doing it in dozens of other cities internationally as well.”

Diverlus ended up stretching his degree over six years due to invest-ing so much time in activism and student politics. Once he graduated in 2014, he fulfilled his dream of working in one of the largest and oldest dance organizations in the country, Decidedly Jazz Dance-works (DJD). He moved to Calgary

in September 2014 after signing on to his first dance contract where he toured and performed with the company.

While Diverlus said working in a company is great for gaining con-nections and employment security, he wanted to further explore his op-tions as an independent black artist, which was how he got involved in Dance Immersion in Fall 2015, an organization that aims to support dancers that are part of the African diaspora.

“Launching my own indepen-dent voice was something that was foreign to me,” said Diverlus. “So when I was contacted last sum-mer for Dance Immersion by their curator and she extended an invi-tation for me to come and create a piece as part of this ‘Footsteps Across Canada’ showcase, I gladly accepted.”

Footsteps Across Canada is a dance showcase that highlights the original works of six ac-claimed African-Canadian cho-reographers. Diverlus was one of the choreographers and presented his piece from Feb. 26 to 27 at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre.

“The piece is about conversa-tions that go awry. They’re a re-flection of the power of language and the ways that language can be misconstrued,” said Diverlus. “It’s very personal, but it also connects with the work that I do in the community as well, for example my work with Black Lives Mat-ter Toronto when words had been used as tools of violence against black communities.”

This deep use of dance to com-municate social issues is not a for-eign concept for Diverlus, who found a way to pair his two pas-sions into one, resulting in what he likes to refer to as “artivism.”

“To be able to say that I profes-sionally work in dance and activ-ism is something that I’ve always wanted to say that I could do,” said Diverlus “What I love about dance is that you can’t lie. It’s also a crucial part of community work and is a crucial part of black lib-eration because movement is in-grained in all of us. We are able to surpass the need to be politically correct, to surpass the need to ap-pease people’s guilt. It’s a way of surpassing a lot of different filters that we have put on each other as a society to talk about things.”

Diverlus’ next self-choreo-graphed project is a two-year process and deals with the themes of anti-black racism and police brutality.

“It’s always been interesting to watch him unite these two worlds and find places and ways for these two worlds to intersect,” said St. Denys. “And I think he’s done a great job of that.”

“To be able to say that I professionally work in dance and activism is something that I’ve always wanted to

say that I could do”

SEMI FINALS • THURS. MAR. 3rd 5:30 pm vs QUEEN’S

Register at www.ryersonrams.caYour Ryerson OneCard is required to claim your ticket for the game!

All games played at University of Toronto, Goldring Centre.

BRONZE MEDALFRI. MAR. 4

5:30 pmOR GOLD MEDAL

FRI. MAR. 48:00 pm

SEMI FINALS • FRI. MAR. 4th 8:00 pm vs WESTERN

Register at www.ryersonrams.ca

BRONZE MEDALSAT. MAR. 5

6:00 pmRegister at www.ryersonrams.ca

GOLD MEDALSAT. MAR. 5

8:00 pmOR

Your Ryerson OneCard is required to claim your ticket for the game or join the Fan bus!

All games will be played at McMaster University, Burridge

Gymnasium.

Register at www.ryersonrams.ca

Check out twitter and facebook at ryersonrams and www.ryersonrams.ca for updates

Eyeopener final 4.indd 1 2016-03-01 11:44 AM

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 BIZ & TECH 9

Going green, one business at a time

Canning is part of Farmium and Growing North, projects centred on green initiatives. PHOTO: ANNIE ARNONE/ILLUSTRATION: JAKE SCOTT

By Igor Magun

The project is led by Rye prof Xi Huo. ILLUSTRATION: CHRIS BLANCHETTE

By Noella Ovid

Profs create math model to study EbolaA new mathematical model devel-oped at Ryerson aims to signifi-cantly improve survival rates for Ebola and other similarly spread diseases.

Led by Ryerson postdoctoral fellow Xi Huo, Treatment-dona-tion-stockpile dynamics in Ebola convalescent blood transfusion therapy is the first comprehen-sive study of the amount of blood transfusions done on Ebola pa-tients to help create antibodies and fight the virus.

Convalescent blood transfusion therapy means a blood transfu-sion between an Ebola survivor and someone who is still affected by the virus, in order for the pa-tient to develop antibodies to help fight it.

The model then analyzes how much blood you would need to have ready in certain locations such as hospitals, in case of an outbreak in the area, to begin treating patients immediately.

“Ebola is no longer new but if you don’t have medications, it’s actually new to the treatment strategy,” Huo said, adding that it is not the only new virus “that the human being is going to face, so later on you never know how

many new virus diseases [are] go-ing to happen.”

Huo and her team started exam-ining the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which was responsible for over 11,000 deaths in November 2014, after attending an interna-tional conference organized by the York Institute for Health Research (YIHR).

The International Consortium on Anti-Virals (ICAV) workshop “emphasized on building national or international capacity for anti-body treatment,” said York Uni-versity distinguished research pro-fessor Jianhong Wu, the paper’s co-author. “[The model] is part of antibody treatment.”

“We realized that there’s no medication available so we searched online about what kind of strategy you would be able to use and experts had been mention-ing that maybe convalescent blood transfusion is the way,” Huo said. “We realized that maybe that is the new thing in mathematical modelling because this never hap-pened before.”

Huo’s team relied on outbreak data from West Africa and existing blood transfusion service sugges-tions published by the World Health Organization (WHO) for treatment methodologies. “We basically used

that information because this is go-ing to be new and there’s no previ-ously treated or modelling work about that,” she said.

The paper suggested using con-valescent blood transfusion which they then based their model on. The treatment requires finding a recent survivor of the virus to consider do-nating their blood and transfusing it into current patients.

“This is a very ancient and his-toric treatment strategy that peo-ple would think of so that’s why they were thinking of maybe using this to treat Ebola as well,” said

Huo. “Every time with a new dis-ease outbreak, you can do nothing about treatment because it takes time for you to develop new medi-cations. So maybe for such dis-eases, such as Ebola or MERS or SARS, the blood transfusion is the only treatment option you might have at the beginning of the out-break.”

The resulting model is a predict-

able tool that is able to prepare for any future outbreaks.

They then inform the public and the health facilities that if they implement the model, “How much mobility [they] can reduce, how many lives you can save and how many therapies you need in a given population at a particular time,” Wu said.

For instance, if there was an outbreak in a local hospital that required a large amount of blood, the model would be able to predict how well you are performing so that you will be able to maintain a stable level of blood products available in the blood bank.

In order to generate the output for how many people need to re-ceive treatment in one day, the in-put parameters for the algorithm would be how fast you can collect

the blood and do the transfusion. “Ebola is only one example for

us to look at this kind of strat-egy because this strategy is go-ing to save more. This strategy is believed to be the only treatment strategy available when there’s a new virus appearing,” Huo said.

According to Huo, the reason behind conducting this modelling work was to give suggestions to public health authorities and to point out other details they should consider in order to come up with a complete and helpful plan for any kind of new virus outbreak in the future.

“Next time, if you have the emerging epidemic, maybe if you try your best to collect the blood and do the transfusion treatment, maybe you will be able to save more lives,” she said.

“Ebola is only one example for us to look at this kind of strategy because this strategy is going to save more [lives]”

Your produce might be growing on the top of a skyscraper from now on.

Ryerson student Ben Canning wants to turn Toronto’s rooftops green with a new startup called Farmium.

Farmium helps building owners turn their roof space into a green roof where food can be grown.

For his work on Farmium, Can-

ning was named Enactus Canada’s 2016 Student Entrepreneur Pro-vincial Champion for Ontario.

“That was great validation for Farmium, for the idea, for the team,” he said. “And now people are starting to understand this top-ic of food insecurity and globaliza-tion as it pertains to Toronto.”

Canning co-owns the company with Daniel Tabak, as well as Ryerson students Alif Ruhul and Lediona Canellari.

“Five years from now, we’ll be on every second building you see in the Toronto skyline, with any luck,” said Canning, a third-year business management student.

Nicole Almond, president of En-actus Canada, said student entre-preneur champions are chosen by an external panel of judges based on four main areas — business fundamentals, lessons learned, growth and future plans, and their entrepreneurial story.

“[Canning’s] model wasn’t just making money, it was doing some-thing that makes the world a bit better,” Almond said.

Farmium’s goal is to provide locally-grown and readily available fresh produce, said Canellari, who is responsible for accounting and fi-nance at the company. “We see that there are a lot of food miles associ-ated with the produce that we get in our grocery stores.”

According to Canning, 80 per cent of fresh produce travels an average of 4,000 k.m. to get to Ontario, losing 40 per cent of its nutritional value along the way.

“Understanding all these things, and realizing that we’re paying other people for things we can grow here, I realized we’re out-sourcing an economic opportu-nity,” Canning said.

Farmium aims to require no human interaction after the seeds are planted. Sensors will detect when crops are ready for harvest and send an alert to a smartphone. To conserve space, the company also uses vertical hydroponics, a system that allows crops to be planted in a tower-like structure.

“Instead of growing five plants

in five square feet, we can grow five plants in one square foot by growing vertically,” Canning said.

Before starting Farmium, Can-ning was involved with Project Growing North, a greenhouse in Nunavut where fresh produce is grown. Using some of the technol-ogy that carried over to Farmium, its goal was to offset high food prices and shortages in the remote community of Repulse Bay.

“Even when our family was go-ing through economic troubles, we still had food because we could grow it on our land [in rural On-tario],” Canning said. “When I came to Toronto, when I started learning about other parts of Can-ada, I realized that’s not every-one’s reality.

“To be able to give people whole, hearty food, to be able to start generating … money from this, to be able to positively ben-efit society,” Canning said. “That for me is a win-win.”

Canning will go on to the En-actus Canada Regional Exposition on March 11 to compete for the title of Student Entrepreneur Re-gional Champion.

Rye student Ben Canning was named Enactus Canada’s 2016 Student Entrepreneur Provincial Champion for his work on green roofs

10 SPORTS Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Life after hoops has arrived at RyersonRyerson and the Toronto Raptors partner to bring business strategies and basketball to third- and fourth-year students

By Devin Jones

Q&A with Rye recruit Keevon Small

The business of basketball has come to a Ryerson classroom near you.

The new class intends to bring marketing and business strategies with real world basketball experi-ence to a lecture hall setting.

Titled ‘Global Sports Market-ing: The Business of Basketball,’ the class is spearheaded by sports marketing professor Cheri Brad-ish, who partrnered with the To-ronto Raptors.

“Being downtown we’re able to enhance the profile of everything,” Bradish said. “You didn’t even have to be at the all-star game to get that feeling the city generates for basketball.”

The course is co-taught with the vice-president of basketball op-

erations and player development, Teresa Resech. Before joining the Raptors, Resech spent time at the NBA league office from 2006 to 2011.

“I met Cheri briefly at a confer-ence and she mentioned that there was an opportunity to teach,” Re-sech said. “It’s all about exposing the students to the business op-portunities surronding basketball, especially in Toronto.”

Bradish noted that the idea for the class orignally came from her time teaching at Brock university where they ran a similar course on the business side of the NHL — sinspired by Toronto hosting the all-star game in 1999.

“It isn’t common for a partner-ship like this to happen and it’ll be really interesting to see this course develop over the next couple of

years,” Bradish said. “I’m encour-aged by the fact that Ryerson took a chance.”

The class, held in a lecture au-ditorium with space for around 150 students, is set up with an in-formal atmosphere in mind. Black leather seats are placed on an el-evated stage, where on a weekly basis Resech moderates a panel with invited guests. The guests are all business veterans of the indus-try and are often friends and colle-gues of Resech, which adds to the friendly atmoshpere of the space.

“I try to bring in guests who fit the lesson from week to week,” Resech said. “We’re giving stu-dents exposure to industry profes-sionals who can share their advice, which is always great.”

Timing for the course couldn’t have been better. Launched this

winter semester around the same time as the NBA all-star game hosted this past Feburary, Brad-ish notes the added marketing rel-evance to the classroom proceding that specific weekend.

The relevance for basketball on campus is also at an all-time high, as Ryerson hosted the CIS cham-pionships last season. Adding to the hype surrounding basketball culture on campus, both the men’s and women’s teams are charting on the national rankings this sea-son.

Also, students are given access to the Raptors 905 farm team based out of Mississagua, which allows for the hands-on applica-tion of marketing theories learned during lecture.

“Essentially it’s a marketing as-sessment, looking at the potential fans and marketing opportunities for the 905s,” Bradish said.

This past Thursday, Resceh brought in associate director of international development for the NBA, Chris Clunie, who spoke about the various development programs the league is implement-ing. Clunie also spoke about his career path, which led to him go-ing back to school so he could “fill in the gaps necessary to succeed.”

As the impact of the all-star weekend subsides and the Rams head into the playoffs, Bradish and Resech continue to explore the business side of the game. And while the course isn’t directly aimed at the athletes wondering what to do post playing career, Resech does believe the course will show students that success comes in various forms.

“Ultimately I hope they learn that there’s no single path to suc-cess, in basketball or anything else,” Resceh said.

By Tagwa Moyo

The Eyeopener sat down with newly recruited Rams men’s bas-ketball player Keevon Small to talk about the decision to come to Ryerson and who he’s most look-ing forward to playing with. You can check out the full interview at www.theeyeopener.com.Q: So how long have you been

playing basketball?

I’ve been playing basketball since as long as I’ve known it, since I was a young kid about six years old.

Q: When did you realize that bas-ketball was the sport for you? Was there any other sport that you played?

No not really. When I was growing up my brothers played basketball and my mom loved basketball so I was always brought up in a bas-ketball family, I never really played any other sports.

Q: When did you first start get-ting contacted by universities? What were your initial thoughts and feelings?

I was first recruited this year, and last year I got recruited just little bit. I never really got the recog-nition. The school I’m from, John

Abbott, we don’t get a lot of rec-ognition that other schools get. So it was a surprise to me that I was getting a lot of emails, texts, calls from coaches like Ryerson, Car-leton and Ottawa U. It was a good feeling knowing a lot of schools wanted me on their team.

Q: Were there any specific schools that you were interested in?

No, no schools — I didn’t really want to play in Quebec and play against the same competition. I just wanted to get out of the prov-ince I definitely wanted to be in Ontario where all the good basket-ball players come from.

Q: Could you explain how the competition is different?

Ontario is more skills based. More players have a lot more skill, a lot more physicality and a lot more strength. Coming from Quebec there’s not many players with

that skill. You can name maybe 50 players with good skill coming out of Quebec. There are so many people going to the NCAA from Ontario.

Q: How did you make the choice to come to Ryerson?

It was really tough, it came down to education. Ryerson had my pro-gram that I was going into, that’s what stood out and just Ryerson being the school that’s on the come up.

Q: What are you most looking forward to on and off the court at Ryerson?

I’m just hoping to get the leader-ship role. And always hoping to get better in practice, especially going against players like JV. He‘s similar to my skill level. Hopefully get better as a person on and off the court and be my own person in Toronto.

PHOTO: DEVIN JONES

PHOTO: CHRIS BLANCHETTE

PHOTO COURTESY: KEEVON SMALL

The lecture hall where Global Sports Marketing: The Business of Basketball takes place.

Ammanuel Diressa goes for a lay-up in a game against U of T.

COLOURING

CONTEST

Wednesday, March 2, 2016 FUN 11

There’s a criminal among us and the culprit is who? ILLUSTRATION: CHRIS BLANCHETTE

The Grinch who stoleafter Christmas

By Skyler Ash

There’s a thief in our midst whom you know very well. Stealing from the Rogers Communications Cen-tre (RCC) one night he did tell, “I steal, my dear student, because I have a need. And no, you nosy bastard, it’s not because of greed.”

The perp is no other than the great Grinch himself, who has hung his Santa hat back on the shelf. Leaving the life of Saint Nick in the dust, dressing now as a janitor, he said, is a must.

Taking laptops from poor rich kids and a TV from the Venn, it was one quiet night the Grinch knew he’d come again. “It’s such an easy target,” the Grinch said between snickers. “Heck, I even took a few pointless iClickers.”

An amount of thousands he has stolen from this school, and “it’s long gone unnoticed, you educat-ed fools.”

“Why do I steal? Well that’s a very good question,” said Grinch. “So here, you plain creature, this is the reason: I do it to supplement my kleptomania out-of-season.” Kleptomania is the urge to steal for no purpose, “and sometimes the stuff I take is just plain worthless.”

The Grinch laments, “Those students don’t need all this crap!

Ryerson launches new Zone Zone

Following the success of Ryerson’s various zones, such as the Fashion Zone and the Biomedical Zone, Zone Learning has launched the Zone Zone, a zone dedicated to creating new zones.

“This is a great opportunity for students,” said Carlotta Fal-con, head of the Zone Zone. “Zones are great ways to work on innovative ideas, so what bet-ter idea than a zone that creates zones that creates the ideas? It’s genius.”

The zone consists of a team of “fresh new business minds” syner-gizing together to form the newest zones to hit the business world.

“We took the fi rst ten people off the street. One was fi ghting a rac-coon,” Falcon said. “We needed people who have never worked in business. That’s where the real gravy comes from.”

So far, the Zone Zone has spawned three new zones.

The Regression Zone: From the mind of student entrepreneur Jen-ny Gabriel, the Regression Zone focuses on taking a business and undoing all of the progress it has made.

“We make sure every innova-tor that comes in leaves with their precious ideas in unrecoverable shambles, never to see the light of day,” said Gabriel.

Gabriel and his team are cur-rently developing a 4D printer that shreds hopes and dreams.

The Buzzword Zone: The idea for the Buzzword Zone came when a bunch of Scrabble pieces were thrown at a wall and the team went with whatever they got.

“The business world is running out of meaningless words that they can throw around when they don’t want to divulge any real in-formation,” said Horace Tump, VP Buzzwords at the Zone Zone.

“At the Buzzword Zone, we’re just pumping out the next batch of fancy-sounding nonsense.”

The zone has created new words such as “Synergystivize,” “Op-tomifi cation” and “Notarealjoba-preneur.”

The Beanbag Zone: “Regular offi ces are inspiration-suckers,” said Falcon. “And that’s where the Beanbag Zone comes in.”

They’ve added slides instead of stairs, beanbags and exercise balls for chairs, and more foosball tables than is comfortably acceptable.

“Sure, we don’t really have a business plan or a product or any-thing just yet,” said Falcon. “But look at our offi ce! Isn’t it cool?”

“It’s so great to see another Zone open at Ryerson,” said former president Sheldon Levy. “It’s very important for student entrepreneurs to… wait, I don’t have to care about this crap any-more!”

Levy was last seen running through the SLC yelling, “I’m free!”

The Zone Zone is currently doing research for their next cre-ation, the Cal Zone.

By Ina Vashión

Colour in this hippo (Horatio Q. Pennbrooke) for your chance to win a $25 Starbucks gift card! Drop it off with your name, contact info, biggest fear and life goals to The Eyeopener offi ce (SCC 207).

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So why is it that I’m getting such a bad rap?” On a tangent he fl ew; so out of breath his green face soon turned blue. “Don’t you have peo-ple who try to stop crime? Or are they off for the week, do they not have the time, to stop me while I’m in my criminal prime?”

We do have those people, a “crack team” of guards, Ryerson PR insists. “It’s just that some-times when you call them, your messages go a-miss.”

“They call themselves security, but they’re no more than a front for a service in Ryerson that’s run out of spunk,” said Grinch. “They don’t care to work hard, they stand in front of Arbia and pre-tend they’re on guard.”

“We’re fi ne, we do our jobs,” said a security guard through his

sobs. “Why is the Grinch so mean? It’s not like we’re total slobs!”

“I heard about the thefts,” said a guard on the left, “I just didn’t want to get up and leave my fancy desk.”

Security said they have punished the Grinch. “Do you know what I got? A slap on the wrist and a stern talking-to,” said Grinch. “What a joke! What a waste! What a trav-esty at best. Security at Ryerson is nothing but jest.”

The Grinch plans on leaving the 6ix for a spell, “but I shall return in a few months time, to commit some more of my so-called ‘hei-nous’ crimes. Though a kleptoma-niac never sleeps, there are some creatures that have to. They’re called Ryerson security, and it seems that’s all they do.

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