A new social data analytics (SDA) minor will be catered to students in the faculty of arts and social sciences. According to the SDA website, the program is the first in Canada to teach students how to harness the concepts of big data through the social sciences.
There are no prerequisites or minimum GPA necessary for program application or entry. The program emphasizes big data and its components of “communications, ethics, [and] statistics.” Applications to the program are open to anyone, but are based on grades and coursework, a statement of interest, and whether the SDA minor can enhance students’ field of study.
In addition to SDA courses, students will take statistics, and data science courses. Beyond these disciplines, students can take courses from a variety of departments and faculties across SFU, including gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, geography, economics, political science, English, linguistics, philosophy, and communication to count as electives towards the minor. In total, students will complete a minimum of 27 credits for the minor. The program will culminate with a final capstone course.
Steven Weldon, director of the minor program stated at the SDA minor launch: “I think all of us understand and recognize how much data is out there, how much data is probably being collected about us as individuals.” The program will focus on looking at issues such as, “Social, cultural, political, and economic challenges” in data.
Students who finish the program will have the skills to analyze and evaluate big data concerning human behaviour. Weldon noted at the information session that “one of the reasons that we created this program is [because] data alone is not knowledge.” Beyond the analysis process, students will also learn how to communicate their findings to decision makers such as policymakers or the public. The program emphasizes respecting the privacy and ethical concerns of using data that comes from humans.
To get into the first intake of the SDA minor for Spring 2021, interested students should submit their application by September 30, 2020here.
The Simon Fraser Clan name has officially been resigned. The decision came after pressure from students and alumni at SFU to change the name due its negative connotations, since “clan” was often associated with white-supermacy group, the Klu Klux Klan. Former SFU President Andrew Petter announced, “The single most important factor influencing my decision is the views of student-athletes on this matter.”
In explaining the initial name choice, Petter explained: “The Gaelic word for a family was chosen to honour friendship, loyalty and connection, commitments that remain deeply ingrained at SFU.” The petitionagainst the nameargued that “the worrisome part about this [name] is it puts SFU’s NCAA Athletes at risk when in the [United States] but it also undermines North American Black history regarding lynching, the KKK, segregation, and more.” The petition received over 13,000 signatures.
The process of investigating the name change began in January 2020, according to Petter. Student-athletes were the leaders of the discussion, as they voiced their concerns for the team name. A survey conducted in the Summer of 2019 by the students athletes’ advisory committee on the name showed that a majority of the students supported the change.
Former men’s basketball student-athlete Othniel Spence was one of the advocates for the name change. “Contrary to intent, this name was seen and experienced as triggering and traumatizing by those who played for the school; especially so for black athletes and athletes of colour,” he told The Peak in an email statement. “This population of athletes alongside allies saw this name for its negative connotation or experienced it first-hand when travelling to the states.”
According to the 2019 petition, many student-athletes vouched that this name had caused uncomfortable conversations with family down South, and had even further possibly dangerous implications. “This new name will also not require athletes to explain the intent behind it to fans, peers, and recruits like how the retired name previously did,” Spence says. He believes that this signals a more diverse athletic community and that he fully expects it to be reflected in the athletic teams’ demographics in the coming years.
Theresa Hanson, Senior Director for Athletics & Recreation, credits the name change to the approach taken by the student-athletes. “Their respectful approach to the nickname dialogue was both helpful and influential, and greatly contributed to the decision process” she explained in an email statement. Hanson added, “It takes a community to make positive change, and I am very grateful to our student-athletes, coaches, staff and athletic alumni who passionately advanced this issue.”
Spence said, “this will create a new avenue for Black recruits to feel welcomed by Simon Fraser University; thus, increasing the likelihood of signing more Black student-athletes in the upcoming years and creating a space for Black and POC Athletes.”
“Key groups within the university community will be involved in the process, and our student-athletes, coaches and staff will help inform our new team name” Hanson concluded. The new name is aimed to be announced by the end of 2020.
Indigenous people from the Grassy Narrows First Nation in northern Ontario protest the long-term health effects of mercury contamination in their waterways. Toronto Star.
By: Kelly Chia, Peak Associate
On June 19, CBC published an article investigating allegations of a “game” being played in the emergency room where health officials would guess the blood alcohol level of Indigenous patients. While these are allegations, they point to a deeper problem of discrimination in health care. This is far from the first instance where Indigenous peoples have been treated differently because of racial prejudice, and it makes sense that many Indigenous peoples report that they aren’t surprised by this game.
The racism in health care that affects Black and Indigenous peoples (BIPOC) is a systemic problem, not just the individual actions of racist health professionals that they may encounter. As currently constructed, the health care system for BIPOC is not built to serve their needs.
The primary objective of this article is to break down what factors prevent BIPOC from accessing health care compared to the rest of the Canadian population. This article is divided into the history and circumstances that have created systemic barriers for BIPOC, and how these circumstances now lead to BIPOC facing racial prejudice when they need medical help. A final section will be dedicated to educational resources to learn more about this topic, and organizations that alleviate BIPOC health barriers in BC by giving financial support to mental health organizations and vulnerable communities.
As a disclaimer, I am writing this as a Chinese immigrant and I recognize that my voice may not be the most appropriate one to frame these issues. I don’t claim to be an expert on this topic because I have not been affected by it like BIPOC have. However, I also feel that it is important that I use my privilege and platform to do the work in discussing structural racism that hurt BIPOC, which doesn’t just exist in criminal justice, but in institutions like health care.
Contextualizing medical racism as a structural problem
The racism that is being discussed in this article is not just interpersonal, but systemic: this means that it is not exclusive to BIPOC experiencing discrimination in their daily lives within the health care system. Systemic racism in health care is how legacies of colonial trauma continue to affect BIPOC because they experience socioeconomic barriers, better known as social determinants, to accessing health care.
Statistics Canada notes that Indigenous peoples have problems with accessing health care facilities as they live in remote areas. For example, most of the Inuit people (73%) live in Inuit Nunangat, where many of the communities are only accessible by air. As a result, 82% of the Inuit living in Inuit Nunangat report that they don’t have a family doctor. Even for Indigenous peoples living closer to or within populations, Statistics Canada reports that nearly one in five Indigenous peoples living off reserve and 16% of Métis people do not have a family doctor.
In the same report, Statistics Canada notes that as many as 18.3% in 2016 of the Indigenous population lived in “unsuitable” housing, which refers to the house not having enough rooms for the size of the household. According to the report, the low-quality housing leads the peoples of Inuit Nunangat to experience poor respiratory health and overcrowding, which lead to higher rates of tuberculosis (TB) infection compared to the rest of the Canadian population.
Statistics Canada also found that high levels of the Indigenous population have pre-existing health conditions: 36% of Indigenous peoples 50 and older that live off reserve have high blood pressure, and 20% of them report having diabetes. Comparatively, 33% of all Canadians that are 50 and older have high blood pressure and 14% report having diabetes.
These are social determinants that have strong, long-term impacts on Indigenous peoples, and similar ones exist to enforce health inequities for Black people in Canada. Black Health Alliance (BHA), a community-led charity that works to improve Black health in Canada, finds that Black Canadians are overrepresented in the Canadian prison population (9.4%), while representing only 2.5% of the Canadian population.
BHA also finds that 24% of Black Ontarians are “low income,” compared to 14.4% of the general Ontario population. 18% of Black Canadians live in poverty, though they make up less than 3% of the population. These social determinants have a direct impact on the chronic illnesses that Black people inherit. BHA states that while diseases like sickle cell disease may be inherited at greater rates in some ethnicities, many chronic illnesses are a result of not having strong access to education, support networks, and stress.
A distinctive lack of race-specific research data in health care can also lead to misdiagnosing fatal illnesses, or missing symptoms that are race-specific. In a paper published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Undeserved, researchers Onye Nnorom, Nicole Findlay, Nakia K Lee-Foon, Ankur A Jain, Carolyn P Ziegler, Fran E Scott, Patricia Rodney, and Aisha K Lofters write that Black Canadian women are under-screened for breast and cervical cancer, despite evidence from the United States suggesting that Black women may be predisposed to increased risks or worse outcomes from these diseases.
While I used statistics for Black and Indigenous peoples here, I would like to stress that my intention is to compare how they fare in accessing health care compared to the rest of the Canadian population, not to pit them against each other. Racism is embedded in multiple institutions, including denying equal health care to BIPOC. In order to fully alleviate the playing field in the health and welfare of BIPOC, we must first look at how to take care of these social determinants.
How structural racism manifests today
The effects of these social determinants trickle down into more than just an issue of individuals in health care, although that does contribute to the general tension between BIPOC and the medical system.
In this next section, I have asked BIPOC from the SFU community to give their input on their experiences with inadequate health care. Two people responded, one of which chose to remain anonymous. The commonality in both of their responses is that they feel they were either ignored or had their symptoms dismissed.
In 2016, Amelia Boissoneau, an SFU student, was sick with what she knew wasn’t a normal flu. She went to a clinic to get it checked out, and saw that it was completely empty. “I approached the receptionist and handed her my ID [ . . . ] one was my status card. I was in pretty rough shape, and asked to be squeezed in to see the doctor.” Boissoneau was promptly dismissed at the receptionist desk, and told that she would recover in a few days. “I knew I had more than the flu. I tried to explain to her how I knew it was not just a flu. But she refused to listen to me and sent me off.”
Days later, an intense pain started to develop from her ear canal into her jaw. Boissoneau cited this as some of the worst pain that she had ever felt. “I ended up developing a horrible ear infection that was so painful it had me bedridden. My hearing was so sensitive [that] any sound hurt my ears. This all happened because the receptionist wouldn’t let me see the doctor when I knew they had no patients at the moment.”
Boissoneau’s story echoes what many Indigenous peoples experience when they seek health care — they are ignored. The report maintains that racism is prevalent from 39 to 78% in multiple Indigenous survey studies across geographic settings in health care. Indigenous peoples also have to be wary about the racist assumptions of their health care providers. This may lead to them not seeking medical help until it is urgent because of their distrust in health care.
In an article investigating Indigenous access to health care, Moira Wyton writes that because Indigenous peoples may not seek health care until it is urgent, they are often redirected to emergency rooms. Emergency rooms are not equipped to handle chronic illness because it’s not a one-time fix, nor are they necessarily aware of how to properly handle the cultural weight of treating them.
Additionally, the CDC found that in the United States, Black women were 4 to 5 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes compared to White women. An anonymous student wrote that in their experience, people in health care did not believe the pain of Black people, leading to delayed treatment, or worse, none whatsoever..
“Anti-Black racism in medicine has [gotten] to the point where if a doctor refuses to treat my friends, they ask for the doctor to note refusal to treat them in their medical record. Then [suddenly,] the doctor backtracks, changes their mind, and decides to treat them because they fear consequences. It’s sad that doctors are more afraid of being perceived as racist than actually perpetuating racism.”
Doctors, nurses, and medical professionals have joined countless others across the country to protest against police brutality and the killing of George Floyd. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images.
Not having enough BIPOC represented in health care is also what leads to doctors not understanding how systemic racism affects BIPOC. This is especially prevalent in mental care. “As a Black and Muslim student, I find counselling services at SFU inaccessible because of the lack of cultural competency to understand the context of my experiences and how I must navigate the world. I constantly have to go through the emotional and triggering burden of giving a “Racism 101” or “Islam 101 lesson” before even going into the medical reason I’m there, which is typically for mental health support, which is intertwined with facing anti-Black racism anyways,” the student writes.
“When SOCA was being evicted, and safe Black space was at threat of not existing on campus[,] I, as well as other students that rely on SOCA, faced heightened anxiety as Black students had to explain basics of structural racism while facing racist backlash. People failed courses or withdrew from semesters, all while SFU was complicit in the refusal to protect Black students. I speak from anecdotal experience and witnessing other’s experiences, but unfortunately there is not even race-based data to show what I’m talking about because SFU does not collect it, to the detriment of Black students.”
To increase the level of trust for BIPOC in health care, we do not just need more health care training in how to handle implicit bias and BIPOC issues, but also BIPOC in health care positions. They understand how systemic racism impacts their patients, and this will help in alleviating some of the inequalities in the medical system..
We also need to push for more ethnocultural data to better support BIPOC with chronic illnesses. In June, BC Human Rights Commissioner, Kasri Govender, joined human rights commissioners across Canada in calling for the collection of such data. More recently, she agreed to provide advice to the B.C. government about the human rights implications of disaggregated data collection and recommendations for action.
Simply put, we need to educate, fund, and uplift more BIPOC voices in health care. I have attached some resources here that you can learn about and support. While not all of these are strictly related to health care, they help alleviate the factors that affect healthcare distribution to BIPOC communities.
Black Therapy and Advocacy Fund, which have been working to connect licensed therapists in the Lower Mainland to recipients during their intake period. This fund was created in recognition of the need for Black therapy resources that are accessible to the Black community in Vancouver.
Black Health Alliance, which I referenced earlier as an organization that works to improve Black communities. They also provide resources for learning about Black social inequity in Canada. In 2018, they secured one million dollars towards Black Youth Mental Health with CAMH, TAIBU, Wellesley Institute, and East Metro Youth Services.
Black in BC Community Support Fund for COVID-19. They’ve been providing one-time, non-refundable $150 payments to Black people who reside mainly in Vancouver, but in BC, Canada, more broadly.
Black and Indigenous Care Fund, seeking to give funds for self care and body work to Black and Indigenous (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) peoples on the frontlines. To access or ask questions about these funds, please email [email protected].
Indigenous Community Fund, which is funded by the Government of Canada at $380 million. It should support vulnerable community members, help alleviate food insecurity, provide mental health assistance, and educational support for children, and more. To find more information, contact regional officers.
Determinants of Indigenous Peoples’ Health in Canada. This book is edited by Margo Greenwood, Sarah de Leeuw, Nicole Marie Lindsay, and Charlotte Reading about the health disparities that affect Indigenous people in Canada.
Medicine Unbundled: A Journey through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care. This book is written by Gary Geddes, where Songhees elder Joan Morris first relates the story of her mother’s seventeen year institutionalization as well as her own experiences of racism in the health system. It also navigates other Indigenous elders’ experiences with contemporary Canadian medicine.
From Enforcers to Guardians. This book is written by Hannah L. F. Cooper, and Mindy Thompson Fullilove. It examines how the way police violence targets Black communities through a public health lens to see how far its suffering is extended to. Assessing
Differential Impacts of COVID-19 on Black Communities. Conducted by Gregoria A. Millett, Austin T. Jones, David Benkeser, and many other researchers, this study shows how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected Black communities in the United States.
Originally scheduled for completion in August 2020, the SFU Stadium Project on Burnaby campus is now anticipated to be completed in November 2020. In an email interview, Theresa Hanson, senior director of Athletics & Recreation, spoke with The Peak on the current status of the project.
The SFU Stadium Project is a student-led initiative that will provide SFU students and athletes with a home stadium on campus, as well as a space for Canada’s NCAA teams. The anticipated Stadium will include sightlines, 1,800 seats, and a canopy roof. Other amenities will also be featured, including accessible concourse, washroom facilities, broadcasting and media spaces, an integrated sound system, a fully accessible VIP box, and booths for coaches.
Hanson explained, “COVID-19 has impacted the construction schedule in several ways, including off-site fabrication delays, supplier delays as well as restrictions to the overall work capacity to meet provincial health guidelines.”
The project is being led through COVID-19 by Chandos Construction. In compliance with maintaining a healthy environment, the construction company’s safety measures have included mandatory masks, reduced workers for social-distancing protocols, and site inspections. Hanson added that a full safety plan by Chandos Construction is publicly available on their website.
“At this time, all varsity athletic competitions have been suspended through to November 30, and the NCAA Division II has cancelled all fall championships [ . . . ] [so] the delay in the stadium has not impacted the athletics schedule,” Hanson explained.
“We have been really pleased to see the progress of the stadium construction [ . . . ] we look forward to the completion of the project, and to a bright future where we can celebrate in person and welcome the SFU community back to campus and our new stadium.”
To communicate updates to the SFU community on the construction of the stadium, Athletics & Recreation has two informative sites. According to Hanson, the next update is expected in the next couple weeks.
There is also a live webcam that shows the Terry Fox Field and the construction site of the new SFU Stadium, which is updated every 15 seconds for 30 minutes.
Progress shot of Late Bloomer located in the Strathcona neighbourhood in Vancouver. Photo courtesy of Vanita Grewal
By: Sara Wong, Peak Associate
Vancouver hosts a lot of festivals in the summer, and while I appreciate the ingenuity of event organizers in making festivals such as the Vancouver Pride Festival and Powell Street Festival work online, the energy of an in-person event is difficult to translate to a laptop screen. Thankfully, the Vancouver Mural Festival (VMF) is carrying on as per usual, with the exception of eliminating its street party. 2020 marks the fifth year of this massive street art event, with 60 new murals being created across nine Vancouver neighbourhoods.
To me, the most enticing part of the VMF is being exposed to new artists who are invited to contribute each year, allowing an ever-expanding pool of talent to be recognized. Additionally, as every artist is expressing a message through their mural, the VMF serves as a giant platform for unveiling stories that reflect the city’s social fabric. Thanks to the new VMF app (available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play), I found it very easy to discover and learn about the festival’s newcomer artists, one of whom being Laura Kwok, who I was already familiar with from seeing cards from her stationary brand Art + Soul Creative Co. at the SFU Bookstore.
Kwok’s piece for VMF is titled Late Bloomer. The mural, located in Strathcona, is a white wall that bursts to life with a colourful variety of flowers. Running in between the two diagonal crops of flowers are a couple of animal guardians. In an Instagram post, Kwok shares that her mural “is super close to [her] heart and reflective of [her] art + life journey.” Curious, I asked her to expand on this journey in an email interview.
“I loved art as a kid but throughout my teen and university years, I stopped drawing and didn’t have much direction in my life. I didn’t even think being an artist was a possible career choice,” Kwok explains. “After a decade-long drought, I rediscovered my passion for painting and started making art again. I gained confidence through creating and am continually learning to improve my art and grow at my own pace. After all, there is no standard timeline for growth.”
Part of Late Bloomer featuring one of two animal guardians. Photo courtesy of Laura Kwok
Every flower depicted in Kwok’s mural symbolizes a moment in her life. As the artist explains, “the flowers in the top left corner represent memories from my childhood — the purple clover that speckled the school fields, the white moonflowers that crept along the alley fences, and the majestic sunflower in my childhood home that grew alongside me and my siblings.” Meanwhile, “the blooms in the bottom right corner are ones that [Kwok] observed this year throughout the evolving seasons — from the budding crocuses and irises of spring to the dewy snowdrops of winter.” Together, the separate groups of flowers portray the theme of duality which, according to Kwok’s artist statement on the VMF app, “explore[s] the notion that two seemingly opposing forces can coexist harmoniously, forming a delicate and beautiful balance.”
The mural festival generates a lot of hype on social media, and with many Vancouverites craving an outdoor adventure this summer, artists began garnering an audience while they were working on their murals. “I really appreciated all the people passing by who would yell out encouragement,” Kwok says. “One particular driver stopped in the middle of the alley, got out of his car, and gave us a huge smile and a big thumbs up.”
Kwok is no stranger to creating murals. Nevertheless, painting for VMF was new territory for her. At the start of the project, Kwok had some volunteers working with her and noted that “one of the challenges was actually having extra help. I normally work alone so when I map out a design with a rough sketch it’s easy for me to follow [ . . . ] I had to work a bit differently. I learned to delegate tasks and clearly communicate instructions to my lovely helpers while keeping the big picture in mind.”
Now that her mural for VMF is complete, Kwok is jumping straight into another project. “I actually start a new mural for the City of Richmond this coming week at West Richmond Community Centre so the painting streak continues!”
In addition to Kwok, here are a few honourable mentions of first time artists to the Vancouver Mural Festival scene this year:
Part of Annie Chen’s Sea to Sky mural located in Strathcona. Photo courtesy of VITA Daily
Annie Chen (Instagram: @lemonni) – Chen has created not one, but two murals for her VMF debut. Each represents a popular Vancouver locale. The first mural — found in the Strathcona neighbourhood — is dedicated to the Sea to Sky region. The second mural symbolizes the West End with an image of Joe Fortes (the city’s first official lifeguard and namesake of a popular seafood restaurant off Robson St.) featured prominently, along with images of bicycles and local wildlife.
Oakland Galbraith’s mural located in Mount Pleasant. Photo courtesy of @wondershare via Twitter.
Oakland Galbraith (Instagram: @oakland.galbraith) – At twelve years old, Galbraith is the youngest artist to ever contribute to the Vancouver Mural Festival. His piece is going up in the Mount Pleasant area. In cartoon style, the mural depicts a future city of Vancouver that is greener and more inclusive.
Progress shot of Ocean Hyland’s mural Love, Knowledge, and Peace located in Mount Pleasant. Photo courtesy of VMF 2020
Ocean Hyland (Instagram: @dropletformthesalishsea) – Hyland’s mural, which can also be found in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, narrates the interaction between colonial settlers and Indigenous peoples in Vancouver from an Indigenous point of view. The settlers are seen as the alien group, quite literally as they arrive via spaceship.
Part of Pearl Low’s mural Precious Fruit located in the West End. Photo courtesy of @vancouverpride via Twitter
Pearl Low (Instagram: @fumichun) – Queer Afro-Asian artist, Pearl Low, known for her work on the Oscar award-winning short film Hair Love, has painted a mural in downtown’s West End showcasing Black joy; a portrait of a smiling Black woman is front and centre, with a deconstructed sun behind her and branches of orange trees surrounding the portrait.
While the festival itself is nearing the end, these murals and more will be found all across the city and can be pinpointed using the VMF app.
The talk covered the history of plants such as monkey puzzle trees, chrysanthemums, gladiolus, and topiary trees trimmed in shapes resembling animals. ILLUSTRATION: Tiffany Chan / The Peak
By: Emma Jean, Staff Writer
In my current home on W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) land on Vancouver Island, I’m surrounded by trees, flowers, and trails as far as the eye can see, but I’ve hardly paid any attention to the deeper history and meaning behind them. This experience may be one that is shared by many. The landscape we live in feels immediate and present, allowing many of us to take it for granted.
New Westminster Museum and Archive’s three part virtual event, Curator Talk: The History of Plants in New Westminster, aimed to bring an awareness to what we often don’t see: the deep and complicated ties many horticultural staples have to the past. Using the photo archives and information acquired by the museum, curator Oana Capota described the pieces of New Westminster and the people who have called it home, through the stories of the plants that grow there.
Having only learned of this event prior to the third part of this talk, it was the only one I was able to catch. Despite this, it was packed with information as Capota traced the history of prominent nature in New Westminster today and the individuals who nurtured them. The monkey puzzle tree, now found in backyards and parks in BC, has its origin with the Mechupa people in South America. From there it was smuggled to Europe, and then introduced to New Westminster by colonizers to assert their wealth and power.
The horticultural ties to the vibrant and uglier parts of human history was a recurring theme. During a segment on plant enthusiasts in New Westminster history, Capota explained that chrysanthemums were often seen in lush civilian gardens, as seen in two different early 20th century photographs. The people who owned the photographed gardens, however, both died under cruel circumstances in WWII: one in an internment camp for Japanese-Canadians, and the other while serving in the Air Force.
Other topics included the history of the groundskeeper and topiary trees in Queensborough Park, the gardening program at the defunct BC Penitentiary, and the development of the New Westminster rose.
The event itself wasn’t just about the people who took care of natural life in New Westminster in the past. Thanks to the active participants, it was just as engaging in the present. The backgrounds of the group varied; some were professors and educators in the horticultural field, some were amateur enthusiasts — but all were wild about plants.
The interest and excitement as participants jumped in to offer knowledge and their own stories with these plants was palpable. When I asked a question about the Indigenous history of New Westminster, Capota informed me that the previous two talks had focused on that, but summarized the history of New Westminster as a trading hub for Indigenous people from across the west coast, telling us the story of a Skookumchuck woman who would travel there to sell what she had collected along the way. After Capota finished, another participant immediately chimed in to provide more details about Indigenous plant propagation based on their own research, even offering to send me the resources I might find helpful. These participants carry on the tradition of taking care of plants and each other, drawing parallels between the past and the present.
While I admire the plant moms in my life, my own relationship with horticulture, until this point, went about as deep as my tiny aloe vera plant’s roots. I expected the Curator Talk to act as an opportunity to dig a little deeper into the intentions behind the use of it in an urban space, and its relationship to the unrestricted natural world. Instead, I saw a testament to how the growth around us tells a story of not just of plants themselves, but the human history around them.
Once you can see each plant as part of a greater lineage, perhaps part of a deep local heritage, perhaps the product of colonization, you can find that living artifacts of history are all around us. Learning about them has given me greater insight for my home on Vancouver Island, and can be applied to your home too.
As of September 2, the New Westminster Museum and Archives has reopened to the public.
Image Courtesy of Simon Fraser University via Facebook
Written by: Michelle Young, News Editor
SFU’s Vice-President Academic and Provost pro tem Dr. Jonathan Driver announced on September 3 via email that the university anticipates the continuous use of remote instruction for the upcoming spring semester. Select in-person components for courses that require “research and experiential learning” will also continue during the spring. Students in programs that require on-hands learning “will hear directly from their faculties with ample time to make arrangements.”
The email addressed to SFU students, faculty, and staff explained that on-campus activities plan to be expanded. This could include certain academic events, such as thesis defences, and select on-campus services, like the W.A.C. Bennett Library and Health & Counselling Services. Expanding in-person activities will require an approved Safety Plan for services and events, and the guidance of public health officials.
At this time, international travel will only be permitted for “essential university-sanctioned travel and in accordance with approved guidance for exceptions.”
There is also potential for some graduate classes to move towards in-person instruction, as they’re typically smaller in size, according to Driver. The announcement noted that more details on the approval process for in-person classes will be communicated at a later date.
Driver concluded by stating that SFU “[continues] to work with public health authorities to ensure the health and wellbeing of students, faculty and staff.”
Alanna (left) and Brianne (right) Finn-Morris’ Everyone’s A Critic is the short but sweet local pop album you need in your ears.
By: Michelle Young, Staff Writer
Vancouver-based Fionn released their second record, Everyone’s A Critic, on July 17. The folk-pop duo consists of twin singer-songwriters Alanna and Brianne Finn-Morris who hail from White Rock. Their name is derived from their Irish roots — “Fionn” being the Irish spelling of their last name “Finn.” Everyone’s a Critic features versatile tracks ranging from the upbeat “Modern Medication” to the slower, “Let Me Be A Flowerchild.” The two have been active musicians since the age of 12, performing at local cafes and busking by the White Rock pier and Granville Island throughout their teen years. After the release of singles like “Magazine Face” and their self-titled album Fionn, they’re back with new sounds. The Peak had the opportunity to chat with them about their new album.
The Peak: Over the years, you’ve gone through various genres — from country to folk to pop. Could you tell us about how your sound has evolved and what motivated that?
Brianne: I would say that what really motivated that change is that you feel like you change. We wrote the first album when we were still living at home with our parents and it was our first time recording an album, so we were kind of unsure about what sound we wanted. Going into [Everyone’s A Critic], we were more clear-headed about our direction. Many of the songs were a bit more mature, based on our experience after moving out of our parents’ place and gaining our own independence, so we just wanted to fit into a genre that suited that change. And it’s also, I think, a personal taste change. We’ve both been doing the folk-singer thing for a long time and we wanted to try something different and move into the alternative pop world.
P: There seems to be an ongoing theme surrounding societal expectations on your new EP. What was your inspiration for the album concept?
Alanna: Actually, you know, it’s funny because we wrote the songs individually and we didn’t expect them to all be on one album when we wrote them. But they all clicked together to create this theme. We were kind of basing the whole thing around the idea that everybody’s a critic — obviously because of the title of the album — but the song “Everyone’s A Critic” is a very lighthearted song about being judged at a party. It’s supposed to be kind of funny and not to be taken super seriously. But then, that idea that you were always being judged kind of cascaded through the album.
B: I’m just going to add to that. We’ve been spending a lot of time on social media and it’s something that we’ve noticed about how we behave in the modern-day. We’re always having advertisements thrown in our faces and it’s kind of dangerous with social media because you’re carrying it around in your pocket, all the time. It’s like 24/7, in your face messaging, like “here’s what you should be,” you know? And so we wanted to put that theme into the album. It kind of goes with the “everyone’s a critic” thing as well because we’re constantly criticizing ourselves, like trying to measure ourselves up to this expectation that is not even real.
A: I was talking about “Everyone’s A Critic,” the song, and how it’s supposed to be kind of lighthearted and a little bit silly, but at the same time, I also wrote that about people’s expectations of women, and how they’re a bit different from people’s expectations of men. If you’re at a party and you’re having a little too much fun as a girl, everyone will kind of judge and go “oh she drank too much or she went too crazy.” But if a guy does it, then it’s “Oh, it was hilarious that he drank the entire bottle of wine and fell face first on the floor.” There’s a line in “Everyone’s A Critic”: “if they’re all high all the time, it’s fine you’ll take it” — because, you know, he’s a guy. So that was an underlying theme in that song as well.
P: What did the creative process look like? Were there any songs on the album that were particularly hard or easy to write? How long did it take to put this album together?
B: I would say that a lot of the songs, I think, came quite easily — at least for me. Like, ‘Let Me Be A Flowerchild,’ I wrote that one and it was one of the easiest songs for me to write, like ever. But I think it also kind of varies because usually you need rewrites and stuff, so I think it all depends on the song — each song is kind of its own animal, you know? Some take more time than others. As for the whole album, I think it took about a year to figure out which songs we wanted to record.
A: Also the vibe as well, we were still a little bit unsure about our direction after our first record. I think our label, [604 Records], wanted us to take a little bit of time to kind of figure it out, because we were a little bit all over the place with the vibe on the first album — which I think is OK when I look back on it, because it was all about growing.
B: We worked with Kevvy Maher, who produced [Everyone’s A Critic], and it was basically the three of us the whole time, spending days listening through sounds and trying to figure out what each song needed. It was a longer process but it was really cool.
P: You two place a lot of emphasis on lyrics, and many of your songs have a certain theme or tell a story. Are there any lyrics that stood out to you while writing Everyone’s A Critic?
B: I wonder if I could say a song that [Alanna] wrote, just because, I don’t want to sound conceited, like, “Oh, I love this one that I wrote.” I really like the bridge part of “Everyone’s A Critic”: “I’ll crawl home like a carnivore, if you say anymore, let the concrete know my knees like you know me, ‘cause it’ll pick them apart, tear me up, tear my heart, let the concrete know my knees like you know me.” It paints a picture and I think a really important part of a good lyric is to kind of paint a picture in the mind’s eye.
A: My favourite song on the album is “Let Me Be A Flowerchild,” [which Brianne wrote], especially the second verse: “let me be a flower child, daughter of the sky, she thought all of my thoughts before me, cynical and wise.” I really love that part because it just sounds so ethereal and just makes me picture a beautiful sunset and colours. Sometimes with lyrics I feel like if it can put me in a place, visually, in my mind, then I really like it. I also think it’s kind of cool because it separates you from yourself, like “daughter of the sky.” I don’t want to say it’s an ego-death thing, but maybe a little bit.
P: Do you have any idea of what you’ll be doing with your music in the future? Are there any particular concepts or genres that you want to explore?
A: Yeah, actually, we’re working on our next record right now and it is a lot more pop, a bit more upbeat. We have quite a few more danceable songs, but we still do have some ballads. We’re kind of switching the direction a bit because of everything that’s going on in the world right now. We decided we want to try and write something that, at the end of this whole thing, can just make people happy and dance. And it’s also a way to just bring ourselves out of the anxieties of the COVID-19 era by trying to write about things that make us happy.
B: But at the same time, we don’t want to sacrifice lyrical integrity — we still focus on our lyrics. But they might just be more suited to the pop world.
P: Do you have anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
B: I’ll just say the quote about “everyone’s a critic.” One thing that we really learned in the last few years is to not care what other people think. It’s just what has to happen if you’re going to put yourself out there. It sounds so cliché but don’t care what other people think, because at the end of the day you will never please everybody.
VANCOUVER, BC — This morning, an SFU student woke up completely emotionally stable. He had fallen asleep on top of his bed covers at 2:37 a.m., still dressed in his T-shirt, shorts, and favourite pair of American Eagle boxers.
“I don’t really ‘choose’ when I sleep,” said Snow Rinking, a fourth year communication student with a philosophy minor. “I just use my bed as a multipurpose workstation, dining table, and rec room until the desire possesses me like in Jennifer’s Body.”
Rinking reports an incredibly deep, good sleep in which he had no feelings or awareness of anyone or anything, including his own personhood. He was especially proud of himself for not rolling over unconsciously and snapping his open Macbook Air in half.
“I’m like super at peace now,” the communication student explained. “The extra few hours in this outfit have allowed my internalized feelings of alienation and paranoia to finally drain fully into my unethically sourced textiles. Usually it just happens a little bit each day.” Today, reportedly, Rinking has not once stormed away from an innocuous Messenger missive to entertain his misplaced beliefs about what his texting partner is really thinking.
His nicest memory of the experience is waking up at 5:30 am thanks to the chilly open window, and then changing into pyjamas to sleep for another half-hour. He cannot wait to intersperse the other four hours of required sleep throughout his day.
“It’s really exciting. I’m going to be so productive,” he sighed. “Now that this one thing has gone right, I’ll be able to completely revolutionize my life today. I don’t need long-term, sustainable personal growth. I need lots of kiwis for my fridge and to go file my taxes.”
At press time, it was 2 a.m. again. Sadly, a lot can happen in one day and all of Rinking’s emotional progress has been undone!
