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Top 5 free outdoor movie nights to attend this summer

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Image via Vancouver Sun courtesy of PNG Merlin Archive.

By: Marco Ovies, Peak Associate

Every summer there are tons of free outdoor movie screenings, so it can be difficult, even overwhelming, to decide which one is worth your time. I’ve broken down my top five favourite outdoor movie events happening this year so you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy your favourite movie under the stars.

  1. Burnaby Outdoor Movies at the Civic Square – Thursdays, 8:30 p.m.

If you’re looking for a fun family night out, look no further than Burnaby Outdoor Movies. They are offering plenty of kid-friendly movies, both new and old, to delight audiences of all ages. But make sure to bring a blanket to sit on and a long-sleeved sweater to fight off the onslaught of mosquitoes that come out here at night. If you’re going to attend a movie night with kids, this is definitely the event to go to, as it also starts a bit earlier, but if you’re looking for a more grown-up date idea, this may not be it.

August 8 – Mary Poppins Returns

August 15 – Hotel Transylvania 3

August 22 – Madagascar 3

August 29 – The Wizard of Oz (1939)

  1. Waterfront Cinema at Canada Place – Thursday evenings, dusk

You 100% need to bring a lawn chair or blanket to sit on for this movie night as the screening is set up on a concrete floor. Aside from that, this is a great place to host a movie night. Watch the sunset on the water as you wait for you movie to start and make sure to snuggle up in a nice cozy sweater as it gets quite cold along the water. Additionally, this line-up of movies will please everyone, as the roster includes a wide range of both classics and new releases. 

July 11, 2019 – Captain Marvel

July 18, 2019 – Crazy Rich Asians

July 25, 2019 – Elf

August 1, 2019 – Shazam!

August 8, 2019 – Beauty and the Beast

August 15, 2019 – How to Train your Dragon: The Hidden World

August 22, 2019 – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

August 29, 2019 – Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade

  1. New Westminster Outdoor Movie Night – Friday evenings, dusk

Now this outdoor movie night is one that you should mark down on your calendars. Each screening takes place at a different park in New Westminster, giving viewers a glimpse of the great local parks. But that’s not even the most exciting part: the screening of Bohemian Rhapsody is a 19+ event where there will be food and liquor for purchase. You heard right: alcohol, good movies, and no annoying kids hitting you in the head with a soccer ball in the middle of the film (I’m looking at you Jimmy, you ruined Jumanji for me). 

July 12, 2019 – The Lego Movie (at Sapperton Park)

July 19, 2019 – The Avengers (at Moody Park)

July 26, 2019 – Bohemian Rhapsody (at Westminster Pier Park) (19+)

  1. Stanley Park Summer Cinema at Second Beach – Tuesday evenings, dusk

Stanley Park Summer Cinema is the event that started it all. For the 11th year, you can watch your favourite movies on “one of the largest outdoor screens in the Lower Mainland” (according to Vancouver’s Best Places) for free. 

This event can get very crowded though so make sure to get their early to reserve your seat. Or if you don’t feel like waiting for hours for the movie to start, you can reserve a VIP spot for $20. It automatically bumps you up to right in front of the screen and gives you a super comfy lawn chair to sit on. So you can show up five minutes before the film and have the best seat in the house (though parking will probably be a nightmare). 

Also, make sure to check out their Dinner & Movie package where, for $35, you not only get reserved seating but also a three-course meal from select restaurants. This is the perfect date night if you’re looking to impress your significant other or if you don’t want to wait around all day for the movie.

July 9, 2019 – Beetlejuice

July 16, 2019 – Shrek

July 23, 2019 – Sleepless in Seattle

July 30, 2019 – Moulin Rouge! 

August 6, 2019 – Finding Nemo 

August 13, 2019 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

August 20, 2019 – Jurassic Park

  1. Richmond Outdoor Drive-In Movies at Lansdowne Centre – Wednesday evenings, dusk

For a truly unique outdoor experience, I whole-heartedly recommend hitting up the Richmond Outdoor Drive-In Movie night. There’s free drive-in parking for up to 200 vehicles so make sure to get there right at 6 p.m. when parking opens. If you don’t have a car that’s no problem either, there is also plenty of space for people to set up their lawn chairs/blankets to enjoy the movie. If you want to experience a classic Drive-in movie experience, for FREE don’t forget, then Richmond Outdoor Drive-In Movies are a must go. Plus the movie lineup is probably the best out of all the other outdoor movie nights so how could I not give it the number one spot?

July 10, 2019 – Ocean’s 8

July 17, 2019 – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

July 24, 2019 – The Notebook

July 31, 2019 – Batman: The Dark Knight

August 7, 2019 – Aquaman

August 14, 2019 – Shazam!

August 21, 2019 – Detective Pikachu

August 28, 2019 – Inception

Do you hear the students sing?

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Humour
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Written by: Ana Staskevich, Staff Writer
Illustration by: Marissa Ouyang 

 

“Do You Hear The Students Sing?”

 

[Business:]

Do you hear the students sing?

Singing the song of undergrads?

It is the war cry of stressed youth

Who are the school’s broke comrades!

The slamming of books shall then

Drown out the drills of construction

No finals will be held again

When semester ends!

 

[Liberal Arts:]

Will you follow our movement?

Who will leave class and march with me?

For our own improvement

Don’t you wish parking was free?

 

[Health Science:]

Come enter the cause

Let us fight against those textbook fees!

 

[Business:]

Do you hear the students sing?

Singing the song of undergrads?

It is the war cry of stressed youth

Who are the school’s broke comrades!

The slamming of books shall then

Drown out the drills of construction

No finals will be held again

When semester ends!

 

[Social Sciences:]

Can you sacrifice your marks

So we can stand up to the profs

And escape the school in sparks

This time, they will have to back off

The cries of us scapegoats

Will fill the halls of SFU!

 

[Every faculty:]

Do you hear the students sing?

Singing the song of undergrads?

It is the war cry of stressed youth

Who are the school’s broke comrades!

The slamming of books shall then

Drown out the drills of construction

No finals will be held again

When semester ends!

 

Henry Petter and the Horcruxes of SFU

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Humour
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Written by: Mishaa Khan, Peak Associate
Illustration by:Jarielle Lim

Once upon a time, in a caring, construction-free land called SFU, there studied a miserable tenth-year student named Ted Misermort. After being unable to get into his required courses for the 15th semester in a row, Misermort decided to ensure that no one else would graduate, either. 

He consulted the dark magic present in the hidden corners of RCB and split his bad luck into seven deadly pieces. These horrible Horcruxes were hidden around campus, resulting in student apathy, a mental health decline, bad grades, constant construction, and late enrollment dates. As time passed by, construction and fog enveloped the campus to cover the voices of the Screaming Students and the site of GPA-sucking Dementors.  

Henry Petter was summoned by the SFU Forensics team to destroy the Horcruxes before SFU is obliterated by the dark forces of endless construction. Each Horcrux was hidden in a place that represented a devastating part of Misermorts’s life during his time at SFU. After going through the memories of other SFU students who knew Misermort, Petter began his 100-day adventure, trekking through the endless construction to destroy the Horcruxes and save SFU.

His first stop was a location responsible for every student’s misery: IT Services. Petter burnt down the IT Service Room while spending four hours on the phone with the SFU administration to distract them. This allowed the first horcrux, the SFU server, to crash. With goSFU down, no student could get a late enrollment date. 

Petter proceeded to the office of Professor McFoggnall, who had once given Misermort 2% for his final PSYC385 exam. He used his Invisibility Cloak to not-so-stealthily enter McFoggnall’s office. Brandishing his pen-shaped wand, he destroyed the Horcrux with Fiendfyre hotter than the roasts the Professor had left in their comment on Misermort’s exam.

Petter then dived into the AQ pond to retrieve a legendary item notorious among students for its wasteful attributes: the iClicker. On his way down, Petter was nearly drowned by the infernal koi fish haunting the pond. As he succeeded in his quest, Petter was able to use the iClicker to destroy the third Horcrux: a syllabus with mandatory participation. 

He then staggered quickly into the AQ’s 6th floor bathroom to dry off before any of the Muggles saw him. When he was drying up, he heard a hissing sound coming from the stall behind him. He slowly walked to the door and kicked it open only to see Misenmort’s loyal familiar, the raccoon Ragini, ready to attack. He quickly fed her some food he snuck out of the Dining Hall, causing her to shriek and collapse into a lifeless corpse.  

Petter ran to WMC to find his next Horcrux: a Beedie lanyard, in the possession by a Beedie snake Animagus. He knew Parseltongue, and could hear faint whispers when he stopped to get his Iced Capp. He explored the area to find the Beedie snake sitting on a table, trying to sell unnecessary Beedie merchandise to broke students. Petter quietly approached the snake and whispered a spell in Parseltongue, turning the snake’s skin white with fear. With Petter’s Accio, he tore the Beedie merchandise from the snake’s hands and destroyed the pieces of Misermort’s misfortune residing within. Out of embarrassment, the snake dropped out of Beedie and regained his human form.

The next stop was every student’s favourite place to stress nap: the fifth floor of the library, also known as the Chamber of Misery. In the Chamber of Misery, Petter found the academic journal that was ideal for Misermort’s PSYC 385 exam that he failed, but he had been unable to access because it was behind a paywall, resulting in him receiving a big fat F. Petter bled the paper with a Starbucks latte and dropped 10 student tears on each page to destroy the horcrux.

Due to SFU’s inconvenient location, Petter — despite being a wizard — had to wait for the 145 bus at the Upper Bus Loop for longer than the scheduled time. Before arriving to the Muggle World, Petter had purchased a transit version of the Marauder’s Map, the Muggle’s Map, from Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes. Once he located the bus on the Muggle’s Map, he used the spell Wingardium Leviosa to move the bus to the top of the mountain despite TransLink trying to resist arriving on time as much as possible. This destroyed the last Horcrux, the concept of TransLink buses’ eternal lateness. Thus, Petter lifted Misermort’s curse preventing anyone from graduating.

Despite Petter’s success in saving SFU from dark forces, there are still occasions of students taking over eight years to graduate. This is because there are still Student Eaters lurking around on campus covertly, trying to complete the mission Misermort began and waiting for his return. 

 

 

 

 

 

SFU WUSC marks World Refugee Day with an event to raise awareness for refugee students

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Courtesy of SFU

By: Gurpreet Kambo

“I was born as a refugee,” said Wafaa Zaqout, Refugee and Newcomers Program coordinator at SFU, when asked where her interest and passion for refugee rights began. Zaqout was born in a camp that was called Canada, in Egypt, near Palestine. “It’s a part of my identity.”

June 20 is internationally known as World Refugee Day. This year, the SFU chapter of World University Service of Canada (WUSC) marked the day by holding an event in the Diamond Alumni Centre called “Pursuing Equity In Education for Refugee Students.” 

“WUSC’s Student Refugee Program (SRP) has allowed people who have had their education interrupted by conflict and persecution continue their studies in post-secondary institutions across Canada. SFU has been sponsoring students since 1981.”

Their first year’s tuition and living expenses paid through semesterly student levies: $2.50 per full-time student and $1.25 per part-time student.

“[Refugees] have been deprived of their basic rights in education, security . . . Everything you take for granted, they’ve been deprived of,” said Zaqout, who helped organize the event, on why holding it was so important.

“To mark one day is not enough. We need to keep reminding people that there’s this huge group of people that’ve been forced to flee their houses. We need to try to help out, do something, anything.”

That evening, three short films highlighted different issues affecting refugees and at-risk and vulnerable youth. The event also featured a brief workshop and discussion led by three facilitators from the Access to Media Education Society: Ayan Ismail, Valeen Jules, and Vida Nacho.

Zaqout also announced at the event that because the costs of bringing refugee students to SFU are rising, WUSC SFU will be seeking an increase to its student levy from the current $2.50 to $5 dollars per student per semester. According to a previously reported article by The Peak, the part-time student levy would implement a $1.50 increase. 

A student levy increase must be voted on via referendum the student body. It is not yet confirmed when WUSC plans to seek the increase.

“It’s a collective responsibility,” said Zaqout on why SFU students should support the referendum. “There are [millions] of refugees across the world. Among them, they have lots of dreams.

“I was dreaming of being an astronaut . . . but I was dreaming only. I can’t be an astronaut, because I’m a refugee. We need to make sure that some of these people have access to education and have another chance. A second chance.”

Makeover on the mountain: Club Ilia reopens after renovations

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News
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Gurpreet Kambo/ The Peak

By: Gurpreet Kambo, News Team Member

Club Ilia reopened last week after being closed for two months for renovations. The restaurant/bar was closed for May and June due to changes that were made to the dining area, kitchen, and menu. Inside, a closed balcony area has been removed and opened up, while a carpeted closed “meeting room” has been built in the back of the venue. 

“We’ve changed [ . . . ] the concept based on community feedback,” said Club Ilia general manager, Tina Blakeman, on the subject of the restaurant’s reopening. 

“[Some patrons said] areas were too loud, and it [was] hard to hear each other for meetings that were happening. We created spaces, that are either meeting areas or areas that allow separation from the noisier areas of the restaurant [ . . . ] Our sound system allows for different zones to be set up, to change the volume of music, [which] will also help with that.”

Along with the dining area, the menu has been changed to reflect modern tastes and recent changes to the Canada Food Guide. 

“Healthier options on our menu was probably the number one thing that people were looking for. More and more people are looking for plant-based protein options, vegan and vegetarian offerings. Being mindful of people who have gluten-intolerance [ . . . ] we wanted to take those people into consideration,” said Blakeman. 

“[We’re] trying our best to be available to everyone in the community, and have something that everyone can have something to eat.” 

She also noted that the kitchen has added an additional fryer specifically meant for gluten-free frying. 

“Anyone that has a gluten intolerance or Celiac’s disease, they can actually have fries. One of the fryers might be used for calamari or fish and chips, where the breading can create cross-contamination in that fryer. 

“Having that specifically dedicated fryer so no gluten goes near it, it gives you that option that somebody that comes that has Celiac [disease], they can have a burger, we make our patties here, no gluten in it, gluten-free bun, and they can have fries too.”

Blakeman also adds the kitchen has a new flame-broiled grill.

A keg fridge visible when walking to the entrance of the restaurant has also been built. Massive kegs lay inside that feed the taps in the bar, expanding from eight to 18. 

However, she notes, “The food concept has mostly stayed the same. We still have the same customer base; there are favourites on there that we didn’t want to change.” 

Club Ilia has been on campus since 2009, though Blakeman has worked for the business for 19 years. 

Reflecting on how Club Ilia has changed since opening, she says, “Initially I think we didn’t know what we were.“

“Perhaps we thought we were a wine bar,” she says, noting that there was a wine glass in the old logo. “We thought there was going to be more charcuterie board, tapas, and wine. That was all well and great, we had a handful of professors that would come in,” she added.

“I said to our first general manager, ‘There’s a lot of students walking around, why don’t they come in here?’ [ . . . ] I thought it was a good idea to start marketing to the students [ . . . ] so we started out doing our poutine coupons,” she says, referencing the coupons for free poutine that Club Ilia gives out at the start of each semester.  

“It kind of changed the concept from being a wine bar, to being a community space,” she says, adding that the current changes are meant to further this goal that was identified so many years ago.  “Anybody is welcome.” 

 

Writers Art BC Youth Poetry Contest Winning Submission

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Arts
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Image courtesy of The Writer's Art

By: Rena Su, Pacific Academy High School

Editor’s Note: Alison Wick

This spring, The Writer’s Art, a club run by SFU students passionate about poetry and literature, hosted their inaugural BC Youth Poetry Contest. The contest was open to young writers from across B.C. and this year’s theme was “Born from Ashes.” The poems were judged based on relevance, originality, and technical ability by a panel of SFU students. 

The winner of this year’s contest was Rena Su, a 15-year-old student from Pacific Academy High School in Surrey. The Peak has been given permission to publish her poem, Her Own Memorial, on the-peak.ca so that the winner’s work can be shared. Find the poem, in full, below.

  1. i) HER OWN MEMORIAL

She found herself in a sterile room, empty

Buried within roads of bandages

Epitaphs etched upon open scars branded

In pools of ashen skin

‘Acid Attack Victim’ meant

The ensnaring vines of wires 

Tightening around her body

Constrained.

Caged.

Coiled.

By a thousand white snakes.

She was no longer epitome of a golden age 

Instead fabric buried her golden face of flaws.

The sink mirror showed a stranger.

Glaring; grimacing through winding waves of gauze.

She grimaced back. It burns.

The girl bride remembered

The day she wore gold chooriyan bands

Veneered with crimson

As she aimlessly glided to the bhangra with grace

Her lehenga drifted and her bangles glistened

Pain lingered in her beaded ankles but also 

Behind her sweat-beaded face

He asked for her hand — with the crowd watching

A mutter amidst strumming of Indian folk chords

He was thirty-six. She was sixteen.

The cheers of the relatives said yes for her.

While a rejection rested upon her vocal cords

It burns.

She remembers

His constellation of gifts. 

Of foreign sweets and bollywood movies

Amid those boxes were questions of marriage 

Once and once more

They burnt her.

It still burns.

Is she gone? Inside she screams and calls

But to no reply — only the clock shuffled on.

She gazes towards the bandaged monster

Who suffocates within the white shawl.

The constellation of gifts became constellations of broken glass

Torn like her grades and tests; mangled like the skin on her back

Those bottles were empty but the more he drank the emptier

He became.

And he poured acid. When she ran.

As if the world’s trail diverges

Into meanderings of the multitude

Of things in her mind, sprinting

From all the trouble, sparring

The echoes that say it’s her fault.

Her peeling eyes still see his face

It burns.

The hospital linoleum becomes burning flashes

Beauty’s widow ponders as her skin is seared

What would become of her

What good is born from mere ashes?

What good?

The echo becomes rhetoric to the winds, 

Away to the boulevards of Kanpur

As she absorbs the sizzling anger 

Embedded on her face, blazing fires

Not of hell 

But of scorching, searing injustice tattooed 

Upon her golden russet shoulders

Broken out of the shackles of chooriyan, washed of vows

  1. ii) POST-CREMATION PRELUDE

She peers back at the stranger of the mirror

Traversing down the lines of gauze with her finger

She wears the sweltering deserts, blazing sun

On the side of her cheek.

She runs down her skin and sees

The valleys of dawn 

She gazes and finds rivers of power

On her tongue, and she speaks

Past the drowning liquid flame

May she rise.

Like smoke and the fire

She will rise.

Past the unbounded inferno of injustice

Past Hatred’s smoldering chains.

Candlelit kerosene no longer an entity within a lantern

But a flame powerful and consuming

The fuels of Injustice’s ammunition

Prelude to a rising phoenix

She found herself in a sterile room, empty

Taking threads off bandages, unravelling.

As she uncovers the flames on her skin, rattling.

Her story too shall burn on.

‘Acid Attack Victim’ meant

Resilience.

Resilience. Amid pain. Amid suffering.

Resilience. Towards the unknowable.

Liquid fire burnt away her skin

But the fire inside her remained, uncontrollable

As it burns and burns

And as it burns away the shadows of lament

The sink mirror shows — Her.

Peering. Focusing. 

Scars.

But only a scarred face,

Not a scarred heart.

She smiled back, a phoenix.

Rising from Transgression’s embers,

She burns — Glowing.

Need to Know, Need to Go: July 8-12

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Arts
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Logo courtesy of Indian Summer Festival.

By: Alison Wick, Arts Editor

Indian Summer Festival at Woodward’s, July 9 and 10

The Indian Summer Festival, of which SFU is a founding partner, runs annually at the beginning of July and features both local and international South Asian artists. Three events will be held at SFU Woodwards this week: a presentation from author Amitav Ghosh on July 9, a lecture from author Deborah Baker the evening of July 10, and a comedy show the late evening of July 10. 

Amitav Ghosh recently published a non-fiction work titled The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable, which calls readers to think critically of the legacy and world we are leaving for our future generations. This event is held in conjunction with SFU Vancouver’s 30th anniversary celebrations. Ghosh’s presentation will be followed by a conversation with Maureen Maloney, a professor in SFU’s School of Public Policy.

Deborah Baker is an American non-fiction author whose lecture recounts the stories of a series of American writers who traveled to India in the 20th century. The talk, called The Beats in India, refers to the literary generation of young people in the 1950s and 60s interested in anticonformity and personal freedom, called the “Beat Generation.”

Following her talk, the separately ticketed Trigger Me This brings together Canadian comics to discuss the complexity of offensive comedy. Half stand-up and half audience participation, comics discuss the lines between humorously offensive jokes and toxic speech in the world of comedy.

Amitav Ghosh on ‘The Great Derangement’ is Tuesday, July 9, at 8 p.m. and advance tickets are $25 for the public and $15 for students. The Beats in India with Deborah Baker is July 10 at 6 p.m., advance tickets are $30 for the public and $22 for students. Trigger Me This is July 10 at 8 p.m. and advance tickets are $20 for the public and $15 for students. 

All tickets can be purchased online through their respective Woodward’s event pages. Prices for all three events will be higher at the door.

Gudrun Wai-Gunnarsson / The Peak

Medicine for a Nightmare (they called, we responded) Exhibition Responses July 9 and 10

Nep Sidhu’s travelling exhibition opened a month ago at SFU’s Audain Gallery and has been received with both praise and controversy. SFU Galleries have been putting on lectures and performances in conjunction with the show and this week the last two performances will be held in the Audain Gallery. These are co-presented by the Indian Summer Festival.

On July 9, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., Toronto-based musician Gurpreet Chana will be giving a talk and performance, Omnipresence Through the Instrumental. Using a multimedia mix of instruments from different cultures and time periods, Chana “invokes sounds of time-honoured traditions for infinite possibilities of the ancient and the now,” according to SFU Galleries.

The next day, July 10, from 6 to 8 p.m., Chana will be returning to the gallery to perform a response to the exhibition. This performance, entitled Kirtan, is a participatory musical performance in response to both the historical context of the exhibition and the exhibition itself. SFU Galleries writes that the title comes from traditions in the Sikh faith: “Kirtan is a means of musically transforming a community gathering into a sangat, which is a form of fellowship specific to the Sikh faith that is open to all, for all.” This gathering of people and cultural connection is what this performance hopes to do in connection to the exhibit.

Talk and Performance: Omnipresence through the Instrumental with Gurpreet Chana is Tuesday, July 9, at 6 p.m. and Kirtan (exhibition response): Come As You Are / Medicine for a Nightmare with Gurpreet Chana is Wednesday, July 10, at 6 p.m. Both performances will take place in the Audain Gallery and neither require tickets or RSVP.

Cole Pauls (left) and Leena Minifie (right). Image courtesy of Education Department.

A Learning Circle on Indigenous Graphic Novels, Art, and Storytelling July 11

This Friday, the Indigenous Reconciliation Council and Equity Studies in Education Program from SFU’s Faculty of Education is sponsoring a free evening of Indigenous graphic novels at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre. Indigenous graphic novelists will be present to talk about the art of storytelling through comics, including Cole Pauls, Leena Minifie, and others to be announced. 

Cole Pauls is a Tahltan artist interested in language revitalization and community connection through comics. He has written the zine-become-book-soon-to-become-movie Pizza Punks as well as the language revitalization comic series Dakwäkãda Warriors. In this second series, Pauls creates two Indigenous superheroes whose aesthetic and style draw from both sci-fi and Tahltan Culture.

Leena Minifie is a Gitxaala and British film and video artist who has worked across Canada for APTN, CBC, and other independent productions. She curated the exhibition and book When Raven Became Spider which, as she says in a curatorial statement for the exhibition, “blurs the line between modern oral stories and contemporary pop art” and reimagines Indigenous tricksters and other beings through the visual language of superhero comics.

A Learning Circle on Indigenous Graphic Novels, Art, and Storytelling will be held at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre at Hastings and Commercial on July 11 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. It is free but RSVP is required as there will be sushi, snacks, and door prizes. All are welcome to attend but Indigenous Youth are especially encouraged.

Comic: Expectation vs Reality

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Humour
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Comic curtesy of Kitty Cheung

Online petition to keep SFU Burnaby’s free shuttle running goes live

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News
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Chris Ho/ The Peak

By: Onosholema Ogoigbe, News Team Member

SFU student Robyn Jacques started an online petition on change.org in a bid to keep the Campus Community Shuttle operational past the project’s fall end date.

The free shuttle was launched at the start of the Summer 2019 semester by SFU Parking & Sustainability Mobility. This shuttle was slated to stop operating before Fall 2019. 

According to Jacques’s petition, the shuttle has become more than just a way for Fraser International College (FIC) students to get to and from school. In the text accompanying the petition, Jacques wrote that “it has become an important fixture on campus, especially for women living in residence.” 

Jacques also states that making the shuttle a permanent fixture is a matter of student safety. 

“The safety of students who live on campus needs to be taken more seriously, and this is an important first step.”

The Peak reached out to David Agosti, SFU’s director of parking and sustainable mobility services, for comment.

 “The shuttle was a temporary measure put in place [ . . . ] to address the loss of transit service to the southeast area of campus during road closures as a result of construction. Those road closures are expected to end August 31, and buses would return to their original routing.”

Agosti told The Peak that the Parking & Sustainability Mobility services are aware of the shuttle’s positive reception, especially from FIC students living on residence. He added that they are “examining the possibility of extending this into a longer temporary pilot to fully assess demands and needs.” He also mentioned that conversations with FIC are ongoing.

When asked about his thoughts on the petition, Agosti replied, “I was not aware of the petition in particular, but we welcome feedback from the community. Community members are welcome to send Shuttle feedback to [email protected].”

The Peak reached out to Robyn Jacques for comment and did not receive a reply in time for production.

At the time of publication, the petition had garnered 140 out of 200 signatures. 

 

 

Mackenzie Cafe seating closed from July-August

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Andres Cahvarriaga/ The Peak

By: Gurpreet Kambo, News Team Member

Due to plaza renewal construction, the seating area in Mackenzie Cafe closed on June 29. It will remain closed until the end of August due to the ongoing construction. All of the food service providers will stay open, continuing to be available through the construction period. 

To alleviate the lack of seating, SFU has placed additional tables and chairs in the hallway on the north end of the Academic Quadrangle, right outside of the cafeteria. 

The Peak spoke with some of the relocated Mackenzie Cafe patrons to see how the change affected students.

“We get why it’s happening, but it’s kind of an inconvenience,” said first-year student Harry Gupta. “I feel like they should’ve [at least] told us what they’re doing to begin with.”  

The area above the cafe is being renovated as a part of the ongoing construction effort. SFU is hoping to complete the immediate construction project and reopen the cafeteria seating by September. The closure of the cafeteria’s seating area is meant to expedite the construction process.

“This is the first time I’ve eaten in the cafeteria in a month, so it doesn’t bother me too much,” said Kay Badejo, a 3rd year student in Resource Environmental Management. “There’s people who come early for breakfast and study afterwards [ . . . ] I can see it affecting other people. They might not be able to do that during the renovation, if they prefer not to study in the corridor where there’s people roaming about. It might distract them.”

According to an update on the SFU website, the Plaza Renewal project is currently “the largest renewal project underway on the SFU Burnaby Campus and replaces waterproof membranes, plaza paving, seating and landscaping,” according to SFU News.  

SFU will remain Canada’s “engaged in construction university” at least until the Fall of 2020, with construction occurring in various stages across campus, including the AQ, Freedom Square, Convocation Mall, the Transportation Centre, and the West Mall Complex.

 

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© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024