By Michael McDonell

Since 2006, a spectre has haunted SFU. No, it isn’t the spectre of international communism, it’s actually the opposite — creeping privatization, as exemplified by the Fraser International College (FIC).

FIC has steadily grown on the southeastern part of campus, located in the Discovery Research Park near to the University Industry Liaison Office, and Environmental Health and Safety, but it remains non-existent or invisible to most students. It is very out of the way, but can be reached by going along University Drive East or walking from South Campus Road. The goal of FIC is to prepare students, the vast majority of whom pay bloated international student fees, for completing a degree at SFU. However, unlike the SFU governance structure that includes faculty and students on various committees and decision-making bodies, FIC is accountable only to shareholders and the university administration.

I worry that international education is becoming an exclusive jet-setting credential, rather than a transformative experience open to all. I also worry that the profits accrued from FIC are being used to mask the effects of provincial funding cuts to public education on the quality of our education.

As a university transfer program for SFU’s growing international student population, FIC claims to enroll more than 1,300 students every semester from across the world. Enrollment has increased dramatically from 85 students in 2006, and SFU is trying to draw in students from countries other than China, which has so far dominated the demographics of FIC (not to mention recently signing an agreement with the board of governors). FIC thus potentially contributes to making a more diverse student experience on campus. As previously reported by The Peak, FIC renewed its contract with SFU in 2010 and will offer courses and programs until 2020. No one knows how much FIC will expand over the coming years.

A prep school allowing students to transfer directly to SFU after a year or two of study somewhat justifies FIC’s location on campus, since it allows students to become more familiar with aspects of SFU, such as how the library works and other good things. It also addresses the fact that there are numerous college transfer programs at smaller institutions in the lower mainland, but not ones that international students may seek out or know about. FIC offers Stage I (pre-university) transfer programs for $13,976 over two semesters, and offers Stage II (university-level) UTP’s in business administration, engineering science, computing science, and arts and social sciences, among other disciplines. On paper, FIC appears to be justified.

Unlike SFU however, Fraser International College is owned by a private, for-profit multinational corporation, based out of Australia. So far, FIC has arranged for courses to be taught by every faculty, and almost every department, with the exception of Sociology/Anthropology, which has questioned the presence of this public-private partnership. Most departments have bowed to pressure from the university administration to offer materials, consultation, and even instructors to FIC to boost enrollments and thus secure continued university funding.

Every semester at Burnaby, the section dedicated to FIC gets larger, as they offer more courses outside the democratic control of curriculum and appointment committees, and of direct accountability to departments, faculty, and students. While this is a P3 agreement, the logic of privatization and the profit-motive looms large, and FIC could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of privatization.

Students at Fraser International College, like all international students, pay exorbitant tuition fees for their education. While SFU’s student paid $163.80 per normal course unit this Spring, FIC students pay $546.34 (soon to be raised by $27 per unit), depending on their program, a figure that is even more than what international students normally pay. Because they do not choose the exact number of credit hours they enroll in, they pay a per-term athletics and recreation fee of $125, while an SFU student taking three courses pays about 60% of that.

International education is a worthwhile pursuit that should be encouraged by universities around the world, as SFU has done by bringing in over 13 per cent of its enrollment from abroad. However, prices like these ensure that this credential will only be available to the upper-middle classes who can afford such education and the cultural and social benefits it adds to  their social mobility. It also makes computers and study spaces less available to students, the latter a major justification for spending $65 million on a new student union building.

Furthermore, while the university administration is not supposed to profit off of international students fees or rely on them for funding its operations, it is de facto heading in this direction by receiving rent equal to a third of tuition revenue at FIC, and, with, its 2011 agreement with the Chinese Scholarship Council, to send 20 top graduate students to SFU every year from elite Chinese universities. Ordinary students pay increased tuition fees and have high student loan interest rates, while international students themselves are milked for revenue.

The Simon Fraser Student Society, meanwhile, has said very little on what this development means for public education or student experiences on campus. If our goal is to create community, it makes no sense to give up space that could be used by students for what amounts to an export processing zone for educational commodification. This has not been an issue on campaign platforms. Nor has it been a major subject at SFSS all-candidates debates, where the main subject seems to be, how can we run our non-profit student society using for-profit methods, and still claim democratic legitimacy in doing so. This is partly because Fraser International College keeps itself hidden on the eastern part of campus near UniverCity, and keeps adding enrollment every year in such a way that we don’t notice.

But we have reached a turning point where quantitative accumulation has produced qualitative change: the good potential has been outweighed by the bad actuality. We have to take a stand in defending public education rather than allowing this wave of neoliberal privatization to continue indefinitely.

By Benjamin Lee

The proposed SFSS student union building is an extravagant $65-million luxury that students ought to critically inquire, and despite an ongoing period of fiscal restraint across Canada, a referendum question has been presented to fund the SUB exclusively through student levies.

Since there are no initial and startup funds available from the university or province of B.C. to assist in funding of the SUB, the SFSS board is turning to students to foot a 30-year open-ended bill, beginning in 2014. Upon the success of the referendum, the SFSS board claims they will reach out to the university and the provincial government; my concern is there would be no incentives to do so, because there is no need for the SFSS to “stay hungry,” especially when the funds are guaranteed each semester and will increase each year.

However, this SFSS board will stay foolish. Despite there being five business students on the 14-member SFSS board; they have presented a spectacularly unsophisticated fundraising strategy. Look at the Build SFU website: why isn’t there a PayPal link that would encourage the SUB’s early supporters to make an initial contribution? There is no outreach strategy to prominent SFU alumni to earn their endorsement of the SUB, which would, frankly, impart credibility. There is no mention of any joint partnerships between current donors to SFU and the SFSS to partner in fundraising. Why isn’t there an initial fundraising cap, say $2—3 million from investors, before proceeding to ask the student body for money? Build SFU’s justification is that they have consulted for six years, but this due diligence has not been accorded to fundraising for the $65-million SUB. The SFSS may not be shy asking students for money, but I would bet on a more embarrassing reaction if they had the gall to approach the CBC Dragons.

Let’s examine the authority of the SFSS board to manage a $65-million project. SFSS directors are elected to one-year terms, make under $100,000 (actually they make between $20,000 to $30,000), but somehow feel they are competent in making million-dollar decisions — how can they fully appreciate the significance of $3 million, $3.5 million and $35 million, when they themselves have never earned such an amount? Rather, a $12 burger and $800 monthly rent are expenses that resonate with everyday students; it raises the question: how deeply out of touch is the SFSS board?

Is this the realization of fiscal responsibility that the SFSS board campaigned on in the last election? To date, there is little praise associated with the current SFSS board, except their delicious hypocrisy in locking out the society’s staff for three months, citing the society was in a deficit of $800,000, yet during the lockout, the board raised their own wages! Furthermore, the SFSS has called on DSUs and clubs to endure cuts, but the board remains unwilling to face fiscal restraint themselves. Perhaps, the SFSS should fix their own affairs, before going to students for help.

From March 20 to 22, think twice, but vote once.

By Ryan McLaughlin

I’m sorry to start an off with a piece of such unsavory news, but it’s best to say quickly, like tearing off a Band-Aid. We live in a totalitarian state. I know this is depressing to hear, especially since you planned on thinking freely later this afternoon, but the fact is we live in a state where the minds of its citizenry have been hopelessly and irreversibly brainwashed. You might ask who the culprit of this indoctrination is. Is it a sinister U.S. government with plans to crush Wikileaks and implement dastardly legislation like SOPA?  Or perhaps an evil corporation like Monsanto somehow putting brain altering chemicals in our drinking water?

No, I’m afraid the best brainwasher is the one you suspect least of all: it’s the institution of hockey in Canadian culture. That’s right, if you enjoy watching hockey then it’s quite likely you’ve been indoctrinated and may suffer from some form of permanent brain damage. The first step to recovery is accepting your beliefs are false. Try repeating in your head, “Hockey is boring and only crazy people enjoy it”, until you feel the delusion leave your mind.

You may not want to hear this, but living in a society of mass sports is really no different than living in Nazi Germany; in fact, both ideologies actually had similar beginnings. Mass sports came about in Europe and North America in the early 20th century as a response to fears that society was becoming weak and feminized. Men felt the need to prove their masculinity and increasingly began watching sports like hockey.

Like the Nazi, the hockey fan is driven by his desire to preserve his masculinity and to create a society of new-men: emotionless, aggressive, and able to take a puck in the grapes without as much so a grimace.

Like any successful totalitarian ideology, the hockey team begins by attacking the minds of the young. Children are swiftly taken from their mothers and their Pokemon and forced into strict, early morning hockey practices where they are taught to love the hockey team like a family. They are given trading cards to collect and when they get home, they watch hockey on the television with their parents. They wear identical uniforms to remove their individuality and liken themselves to a cog in the machine. Uniqueness is considered contrary to the hockey doctrine. I don’t think there is much doubt regarding the similarities between Tim Bits Hockey and the Hitler Youth.

Once grown up, hockey fans serve one god and one god only: hockey. Always at war, these militarists are easily stirred into a hateful fervor against the enemy, whoever that may be. Like in George Orwell’s novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, where the state continually switches between which nations it is at war with, the hockey team is always fighting a different opponent. This keeps hockey fans in a state of perpetual fear and renders them incapable of critical thinking. In Orwell’s book, citizens practice the act of “doublethink”, which allows a person to both love and hate Big Brother. Canucks fans will recognise this practice with their attitude toward the team’s bi-polar goalie, Roberto Luongo.

The Mass Sports ideology has eyes and ears everywhere. If a citizen discovers a subversive element in their midst, that person is rounded up and dealt with severely. Like in Nazi Germany, the Mass Sports ideology gathers supporters in the beer halls to watch the games. If you happen to be an innocent patron simply there to get your drank on, you must suffer the noises of the unruly crowd or else leave the pub and risk not getting sufficiently slizzered. Like the Nazis, the hockey fans occasionally arrange a putsch where they exit the beer hall and try to violently overthrow the municipal government. Vancouver residents recently witnessed an attempt at a coup d’état last spring.

Of course, all authoritarian governments employ the use of slogans and imagery to stir the public into a rage, and the Mass Sports culture is not different. While the Nazis had the black eagle, the Canucks have the killer whale. The Leninists declared “Peace, Land, and Bread” while the Canucks yell “Go, Canucks, Go”. The parallels are uncanny.

Canadians are in the grip of an extreme regime — if you question the authority, you are ostracised and outcast, or worse. Vancouverites must find the courage to throw off the shackles of oppression and free their minds from hockey’s insidious grip. Perhaps only then can we begin to heal as a nation and as a people.

By Will Ross

When it comes to approaches to filmmaking, it’s difficult to think of more dissimilar approaches than those of Alfred Hitchcock and John Woo. Hitchcock cared exclusively about his character’s psychologies and little for the spectacle of their adventures; Woo elaborates and emphasizes the latter almost entirely at the expense of the former. So it may seem odd for John Woo to have remade the Hitchcock film Notorious, and even odder that he did so in the context of an existing franchise with Mission: Impossible 2.

Both plots involve a suave spy as a male lead (Cary Grant in Notorious, Tom Cruise in M:I-2), who attempts to bring down an “enemy of freedom” (a Nazi and an ex-U.S. agent, respectively), by recruiting a female lead with whom the villain was once in love (a drunk Ingrid Bergman/a thief, Thandie Newton), to seduce them and act as an informant. The spy and his informant fall in love, forming an espionage love triangle.

Mission: Impossible 2 has a limited reputation as a remake because when we watch movies plot is less important to us than the style and approach to storytelling. For instance, consider two versions of the scene wherein the male lead reveals his status and power to his prospective informant. In Notorious, Bergman drunkenly drives Cary Grant home after the party at which they met. Grant grins to placate her, even as she accelerates to his private discomfort.  When she is pulled over, he simply shows the officer his credentials and gets her off the hook. The whole scene is played with rear screen projection, that old technique where the car is placed in front of a screen playing footage of a road, and the driver pretends to drive. It’s not very convincing, but the focus is their dialogue and reactions. Grant nervously glances at the speedometer; Bergman resents his patronizing attitude and deliberately unsettles him: “I don’t like gentlemen who grin at me.”

The same scene in M:I-2 has them driving in separate cars on the edge of a dangerous canyon road. Cruise follows Newton’s car, and she accelerates to escape him while endangering herself and other drivers. Cruise follows her, nervous but determined. When Newton ends up dangling over a cliff, Cruise pulls her to safety. Then they make out.

I’m not here to say M:I-2 is stupid and Notorious is smart. Okay, it’s true, but my point is that story and character-wise the same things are going on in this scene: The female quarry resents the male’s attempts to possess her, and tries to reassert herself by toying with death at high speed. The male reluctantly follows before saving her at the last minute. The scenes aren’t different because John Woo changes it to a car chase; they’re different because he doesn’t give a shit about any of that character stuff. The cinematography’s aim is to stylize the bashing, zooming, spinning cars as much as possible. Hitchcock didn’t care about high speed driving, he cared about what it revealed about his characters. That’s why he didn’t worry about the fake-y rear projection, and sure enough, while watching we quickly forget all about it. This is why the common notion that Hollywood has ‘run out of stories’ never struck me as a real problem: which story is told doesn’t matter nearly as much as how it’s told.