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Fraser International College’s creeping boundaries

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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.

Board unqualified to make SUB plans

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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.

 

Hockey fans are brainwashed

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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.

To be Woo-ed and not made to Woo

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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.

Where are the microwaves?

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By Katie Maki

With all the shit going on at SFU right now — levies stolen from our pockets and the whole catastrophe between the SFSS and the CUPE — I began to try and think of the things we could change, and the things we are changing. In order to do so I took a tip from my fourth grade teacher: “You can never go wrong with a Venn diagram.” Under the ‘could change’ column, I began listing off things that would be possible in accordance with money. Of course, not many things made the list. So I began to list things I’d honestly hated about my first year, which are things that were not necessarily within SFU’s budget. Slowly going down the list, I started to see a pattern of stupid trivial things that probably would never change, until I landed on it: “SFU needs more microwaves.” I know you’re all thinking that’s a frivolous request, but microwaves could actually save students a lot of money while also make the campus more environmentally friendly.

I remember waking up early in my first year — excited for the day’s lectures and tutorials — making myself a nice hot lunch, and stuffing it into my lunch pack so it would stay fresh throughout the day. Needless to say, bringing chili was a bad idea. As a first-year student, with no knowledge of the campus, I walked around for almost two hours looking for a microwave. And of course, that day just happened to be the one day I didn’t bring any money.  I was not impressed. So for the rest of the day I had two options: starve and deal with my notoriously loud rumbling tummy, or eat nasty, cold, congealed chili. I eventually gave in to hunger, but the taste of that lunch will forever haunt me.

Besides having to go through that grueling ordeal, bringing a bagged lunch could actually help students save money. Consider this: say you go to SFU five days out of the week, and each day you buy lunch and (obviously) lots of coffee. Each day you’d spend around $10, or maybe $5 if you’re lucky, and semesters go for about three months. $10 per day multiplied by 25 days per month equals $250. $250 multiplied over three months equals $750. So you end up spending $750 each semester, which could easily be saved towards a new car or spent on your textbooks for the next year. But I’m not here to lecture you, because it’s not your fault.

SFU used to offer microwaves that were easily accessible to all students down in the West Mall cafeteria. Since Tim Hortons arrived, SFU has taken out the microwaves. But why? Simply to sell more food and make us spend more money? It seems implausible that students would spend so much money on food when we’re constantly paying hundreds of dollars for textbooks and insurance, and thousands on tuition. Many students still live at home, so to eat food your parents buy you could save you thousands of dollars! So why don’t more people bring bagged lunches?

Personally, I’m sick of eating the same cold-cut sandwiches I’ve been eating since middle school, so to bring homemade soup or “mom’s special lasagna” leftovers would just brighten my day. I think people don’t bring lunches because of inaccessibility. If SFU offered students the option, they would take it. If you’re still not sold, picture this: it’s snowy and windy up at SFU, and you’re stuck inside the cold concrete walls just like every other student. Shivering from the low thermostat setting in the AQ, you take out your lunch and voila! A lovely chili. You warm it up in a nearby microwave and hold the bowl in your hands. You suddenly think, “Hell, screw wintery weather, this chili is fantastic!”

Besides a hot lunch helping defrost your hands during the winter months, it would also help the environment. Take last semester when SFU launched the Go Green Container Exchange Program and apply that to a bigger spectrum: what if no one bought food on campus at all? Think about all the stuff that wouldn’t become trash! Although this is a far-fetched idea, it’s not as far off as one might think. If microwaves were strewn across campus, more people would bring bagged lunches. And those people coupled with the Go Green Container Exchange Program could really make a difference on the environment.

Because the idea of SFU needing microwaves isn’t at the top of everyone’s petition list (if you have one), it can be a little hard to make someone agree with such a trivial thing. However, you could also approach the issue like this: how can we solve the big problems if we can’t even find solutions to the little ones like access to microwaves? Although I don’t believe the student body should necessarily consider microwaves on campus at the top of priorities for SFU’s spending money, it’s a good idea to look into for in the future. With the plans for the student union building being discussed, I think that microwaves along with social space could really encourage more people to bring bagged lunches. Social space and microwaves together is a nice thought — no one wants to eat cold soup while sitting on the floor. But that’s just my food for thought.

————

Microwaves on campus:

In Residence:

  • Residence dining hall

In the Rotunda:

  • SFPIRG
  • Women’s Centre

In MBC:

  • Forum Chambers
  • The Peak
  • SFSS Board Office
  • Atrium cafeteria

In the AQ:

  • McKenzie Cafe
  • Education Building
  • TASC 2
  • Various student union common rooms

SF-ood

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After a 50-year food fight, can changes to SFU food services really make the cut?

By Ariane Madden
Photos By Mark Burnham

It’s 5:21 p.m. on a Tuesday, and you suddenly find yourself running from Images Theatre to McKenzie Café in the hopes of grabbing a snack to tide yourself over until your evening tutorials are over and you can actually have dinner. Alas, you arrive at the cafeteria only to find that it’s entirely closed down and your only option is a squeamish-looking muffin at the nearby Renaissance stand.

This little narrative seems to be a common one here at SFU, along with never-ending complaints about the price of food and the quality of ingredients served at many of the campus’ food service locations. The vegetables are never fresh, the spaces aren’t inviting, and the line-ups are just too long. Packing a lunch is an admirable feat that some people certainly are able to do, but when you know that your soup is going to sit dangerously sideways in your backpack from South Surrey to Burnaby every morning, it just doesn’t seem worth the hassle.

Food services at this commuter campus can be frustrating at best. Indeed, food service at SFU has been rated as some of the worst in the country and is consistently at the top of the ‘must improve’ list when students are surveyed about campus initiatives.

Students in residence have struggled with the food options on campus perhaps most vocally over the past few years. With nearly 600 of the 2000 residents on a mandatory meal plan, any student who dares take a class at Surrey or the downtown campuses is hard-pressed to spend all of their $1,350 at Chartwells-run locations at Burnaby. A trip to UBC residences almost always incites jealous groaning from residents frustrated with high-priced food that is often over-cooked and tasteless. So where did it all go wrong?

While it may seem like SFU’s food woes are a recent complaint, the cause of our belly aching goes back much farther — 10 years. The very fabric of the SFU community has been entwined in the food services debate from day one.

The hatred started early, and it started strong. Students in the ‘60s went so far as to stage a “Burger Boycott” which saw hundreds of students and faculty refusing to eat at on-campus eateries for days, costing the businesses money until they finally caved to student demands and promised better prices and higher quality food. However, the promises proved empty when food services on campus did not improve significantly enough to prevent a full review in 1972.

SFU was just a baby university, yet it was already experiencing the kinds of hiccoughs that would have repercussions for years to come. The food services report opened up with some rather telling — and sad — commentary. It seemed, as the committee said, that the original vision of the university community was not being realized and that the sense of community was “beginning to break apart”.

They recognized that food services are an essential part of the sense of community on campus and yet were stuck with a situation where everything including the kitchen sink seemed inadequate to serve the students. The report talked about a feeling of “coldness” in the dining spaces, and how food itself was of low quality and lacked variety. The students were tired of monotony and the administration needed to address it.

A later report spoke of the inefficiencies of campus dining on the mountain, and that the school was only built for grab-and-go service. In the space that is now Triple O’s, the kitchen was cramped and had inadequate ventilation for food service because the building was simply not designed for it. SFU was haphazardly trying to put together the kinds of amenities that the school had no knowledge or ability to administer. From the time SFU opened its doors, to the time of the report, it had already been through at least three campus food providers and not one of them was able to meet the needs of the student body. After the two reports in the mid-1970s blasted the existing system, some small changes were made and the topic was left mostly untouched until the early 1990s.

After 10 years of the then-food service provider “consistently turn[ing] a deaf ear to student concerns, while stretching the boundaries of digestion”, a new American provider only brought new skepticism from the student body. Such critics were proven right when the company moved in with another high-priced menu that lacked variety and basic standards of quality. Then, after the service provider shut down a DSU barbecue in Convocation Mall, citing its near-monopolistic contract with the school, students staged a one week boycott of the cafeterias which ultimately led to the surrendering of the food contract within a few short months.

The power was finally given to some local hands, ICL services, which was the catering arm of White Spot restaurants. New services were added that helped keep the university competitive even after the Maggie Benston Centre cafeteria and newly-expanded pub had opened to expand student choices around campus. There seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel and food services on Burnaby Mountain were improving, but a few years and a corporate take-over of ICL later, SFU signed a contract with Chartwells in 2001.

The current main food services provider for SFU and the only provider for residence is the now-infamous Chartwells. Chartwells is the university catering arm of one of the largest food service employers in the world — Compass Group — who also caters to the U.S. military. Though the university’s relationship with Chartwells has never led to a full-blown boycott as has been the case with previous generations of SFU students, the agreement hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing either.

In 2005, the institution of mandatory meal plans for the new residence towers caused a stink when residents realized that any left over money from the fall semester could not be carried over to the following spring. While the university ate the costs of allowing the carry-over to take place that year, the concession only came after much fuss from both sides of the argument. And the fuss didn’t end at the meal plans: complaints of dismal food quality coupled with sky-high pricing garnered SFU national attention when a Facebook-based “food-fight” broke out in 2007. Students organized Facebook groups en masse protesting the dismal state of affairs and the national media blew up with reports about the situation. SFU rated the lowest in Maclean’s university ratings in the food category that same year and has remained consistently low since. When Tim Hortons opened in 2009, students rejoiced at finally having a cheap and reasonable food option available to them west of Cornerstone.

Finally, 11 years after Chartwells first moved onto campus and after 50 years of (sometimes literal) food fighting at Simon Fraser, the newly-minted Ancillaries Director Mark McLaughlin has high hopes and sky-high visions for changes and improvements to food services at SFU that, if done right, might have a fighting chance of creating the kind of food community that students have been begging for decades to get.

“SFU needs to determine its own needs and tell the companies what we want,” said McLaughlin. “That’s what all of this [consulting students] is supposed to do.”

Originally hailing from Bishop’s University, McLaughlin speaks of SFU as having a diverse community with diverse cultural needs. With some students living at Burnaby’s residences and commuting to Surrey regularly, meal plan money often goes to waste when they can’t spend it at satellite campuses. Similarly, students from Fraser International College get short breaks between classes and there are no food options in the Discovery Park for them to turn to.

On the retail side, contracts to Tim Hortons, Subway, and White Spot have helped bring money back to the university and have helped to calm some of the gripes of previous years, but if the results of recent surveys have anything to say, food services at SFU is still not satisfying student needs. McLaughlin hopes to turn this around as early as September.

The first step has been consulting with students and faculty. Numerous surveys about food services have been sent out in recent months with overwhelming results. Ancillary services has also sought the assistance of external consultant David Porter — a specialist in university food services with a business degree from Harvard and whose consulting firm has catered to dozens of American universities.

One of the primary goals of any and all changes that will take place, says McLaughlin, is for catering services at SFU to recognize how food can be a social gathering place, central to the community in creating a ‘home away from home’ whether it be at the residence dining hall or at other places on campus. McLaughlin sees this project as an attempt to bolster the community at SFU and to integrate the needs of the diverse population that now inhabits our hallways.

A food services committee has also been created which includes representatives from the SFSS, GSS, Residence and Housing, and Health and Counseling, as well as Sustainable SFU. The university is taking the issue seriously and wants to make it better.

Residence-specific surveys are likely to be rolled out within the coming days, the data from which will add to the thousands of views already expressed to the university in recent months. Altogether, the information will help McLaughlin and the food services committee to spell out our exact needs. The hope, explained McLaughlin, is for the university to have a solid plan in place by June.

If all goes well, the changes won’t be temporary either. A new dedicated food services manager for the entire campus will help to make sure that standards are maintained for years to come. Furthermore, with programs like food waste composting and the Go Green Container Exchange, SFU is already being seen as a leader in campus food services sustainability. Adding in that the university is working towards incorporating fair-trade products to vendor offerings, and the desires of more ethical consumers will be better met on campus.

While only time will tell if the university can right almost 50 years of food turmoil, SFU’s food fight might actually be coming to a close. McLaughlin certainly hopes so.

“It’s a complex issue, but it’s important. We’ve got one chance to do it right . . . Students deserve [better food on campus], and in the end we’re here for the students.”

 

A questionnaire whose questions reflects the feedback provided in the November 2011 food surveys is currently online at www.sfu.ca/foodforthought.html for students interested in providing feedback about SFU’s food services.

SFU research team finds potential cure for Alzheimer’s

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By Alison Roach

 

 The SFU team hopes their solution will slow or stop the disease altogether

A research team at SFU has created a treatment that may slow down or even prevent Alzheimer’s disease. David Vocadlo, a chemistry professor at SFU and Canada Research Chair in chemical glycobiology, led a team of seven researchers on the project. Vocadlo specializes in the structures and roles of carbohydrates in biology, bringing him to this project and breakthrough. The team’s paper, “Increasing O-GlcNAc slows neurodegeneration and stabilizes tau against aggregation”, has been published in the latest edition of Nature Chemical Biology.

It’s known from previous research that the impaired use of glucose in the brain is an early feature of Alzheimer’s. This decreased ability to use sugars in the brain potentially leads to clumping of a protein called ‘tau’. According to Vocadlo, it is this clumping of tau that causes the death of neurons in the brain, the process that leads to these impairments. This degeneration causes many different brain diseases and deficiencies such as motor control impairment, dementia, and Alzheimer’s.

The SFU team has been working since 2008 with the basic idea that they could chemically boost sugar levels in the brain to lessen or eradicate the development of these problems. Two researchers in the study, Scott Yuzwa and Xioyang Shan — both of whom were graduate students at the time of the study — discovered that an inhibitor that the team created slows down this removal of sugars from the tau protein. This compound inhibited O-GIcNAcase and increased tau O-GlcNAc, slowing down the formation of these clumps and the resulting neuron death.

The research team completed an eight-month trial, in which several mice were fed the inhibitor while the rest of the mice were not. After the trial period it was found that the mice who had been treated showed significant improvement in the health of their brains; an average of 50 per cent improvement. The mice that were treated had 40 per cent more neurons in their spinal cord, better motor control, and had lost less weight and muscle than their untreated counterparts. Basically, the results showed that the degeneration of their brains had been greatly slowed down.

“I think this could lead to therapeutics that slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s,” said Vocadlo of the results. The SFU team is interested in following up on their previous study to find a stronger treatment that might eradicate the disease entirely in mice.

For now, the goal is to work to improve these results, which may require more knowledge on the specific processes at play. Vocadlo is quick to point out that while this breakthrough has been made, it’s still unknown what causes the decreased ability to produce glucose in the brain. “We need to know at a more specific level what’s going on . . . We need to understand the process with the sugars better,” he said.

The final message from Vocadlo concerning this project is how important continual support of basic scientific experimentation is. Vocadlo said, “I would emphasize that it comes from basic research from before, from when we first started; the key is to be digging in a new area, to be exploring new things. What’s cool isn’t what we know, but what we don’t. There’s so much more that remains.”

Suspect charged in the murder of SFU prof

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By Benedict Reiners

Man charged with second-degree murder had prior assault charges

Nearly eight months after the murder of SFU chemistry professor Melanie O’Neill, who was found dead in her Vancouver home July 26 of last year, police have laid charges against a suspect.

Charges have been laid against 25-year-old Matthew James Scott, who is reported as having been in an “on again, off again” relationship with O’Neill. The arrest took place on Saturday, March 3, with Scott being charged with second-degree murder. This charge comes after an investigation that saw the participation of upwards of 40 officers from varying jurisdictions in Vancouver as well as others as far away as Victoria and Abbotsford, in addition to the Behavioural Sciences Group of the RCMP.

Scott is no stranger to the justice system. His past charges include assault causing bodily harm, obstructing a police officer, and breach of recognizance, all of which took place in 2011. However, verdicts have yet to be assigned in any of those cases.

Police also stated that Scott had been an early suspect in the investigation, but only recently was there sufficient evidence to provide grounds for an arrest.
O’Neill had been a professor at SFU for six years prior to her death. She has been honoured at the university at which she worked with the addition of a bench adjacent to the AQ pond, in addition to an undergraduate student research endowment set up in her name.

“The location of the bench was chosen because Melanie O’Neill started her day there,” stated Don MacLachlan, director of SFU Public Affairs and Media Relations. “She would hike up Burnaby Mountain, take in the beauty of the mountains and garden at that spot, and then head to her research lab.”
On the bench there is a quote by Rabindranath Tagore: “The fireflies, twinkling among leaves, make the stars wonder,” which MacLachlan stated was selected in order to reflect “Melanie’s love of poetry, nature, and the wonders of science.”

In addition to the bench erected in her honour, the Melanie O’Neill Chemistry Undergraduate Research Award has also been set up. The award fund has already received $50,000 to support the award, coming from donations given to the fund by both family and friends alike, as well as her former colleagues. The award will be granted annually to an undergraduate student in chemistry who “demonstrates research excellence”, as stated by the donation form for the fund. The endowment is still accepting donations, and the form for the fund can be found online.

Though O’Neill continues to be honoured by those who knew her and the university at which she worked, the eventual result of the case remains unclear.
Police, due to the case now being before the court system, have withheld many details of the case, including the cause of death. Though standard practice as dictated by laws regarding the release of information pertinent to an ongoing court case, this leaves further advancements in the case up to the courts.
In the meantime, Detective Sally Davies said family and friends remain “sad at her death, but pleased that someone has been charged.”

CFS funds to be directed to DSUs

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By Graham Cook

The SFSS has announced a proposal for the next fiscal year’s budget. It involves reallocating money from the society development fund, which had money set aside for the legal dispute with the Canadian Federation of Students. There was a settlement reached between the society and the CFS, making it possible to free up the remaining funds from that account.

The majority of the extra available funds will be put towards departmental student unions, clubs, and organizations such as the Women’s Centre and Out on Campus. SFSS treasurer Keenan Midgley spoke with The Peak, outlining the plan. The available funds for DSUs will apparently increase approximately $20,000 from $80,000 to a total of $100,000. Student clubs are also scheduled to receive a similar increase.

As far as groups such as Out on Campus and the Women’s Centre go, Midgley stated that he has “taken into consideration their requests” and that they will be at or above their 2008 levels, which is what was requested. In addition, he stated that “some levels are actually higher than what they requested because we think some of those services are really important for the school’s community and our outreach.”

Album review: Said the Whale – Little Mountain

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By Benedict Reiners

Said the Whale branches out from their original sound while remaining true to the Vancouver zeitgeist

Following in the footsteps of Dan Mangan, another B.C. actgaining international recognition, Said the Whale will be performing at the Sasquatch Music Festival this year. This comes after the release of their new album, Little Mountain, last week.

Little Mountain may seem mildly foreign to some who have followed the band in years past, with many tracks differing from past hits like “Camilo (The Magician)” off their album Islands Disappear, and more recently, “Lines”, a track off their New Brighton EP, which was released November last year.

However, even those who have been listening to the band for years will quickly adapt to their new, more diverse sound. This diversity is reflected both in each arrangement, with the use of additional instruments, notably brass, and the mood of each piece being played, including the haunting chants of “Safe Harbour” and soft melodies of “Seasons”.

Long-time and new listeners alike will appreciate “We Are 1980”, which revisits and build on the successes of their previous rock-heavy tracks.

The most notable change between Little Mountain and Said the Whale’s previous work is in the vocals. This record sees members other than frontmen Ben Worcester and Tyler Bancroft taking on more visible roles in the music. This progression is especially defined by the final song “Seasons”, in which both keyboardist Jaycelyn Brown and drummer Spencer Schoening are featured in the vocals. Adding to this is Brown’s solo parts in the track “Loveless”. The increased use of other members shows the band settling into its setup and developing more cohesion as a band, resulting in greater musical diversity.

Collaboration between local talents is afoot throughout the putting-together of Little Mountain. The Zolas’ Tom Dobrzanski produced the album, while independent film production company Amazing Factory created accompanying music videos for each song.

All told, Little Mountain is a departure from their traditional sound, but still builds off of it. Though that may be initially a bit disheartening for old fans, once one’s listened to the album all the way through, it’s clear that it proves that just because it hasn’t been tried, doesn’t mean it’s not true.