The Polygon Gallery features floor to ceiling windows that look out onto Vancouver Burrard Inlet. Image by Kaila Bhullar / The Peak
By: Kaila Bhullar, SFU Student
Location, layout, and mediums are all necessary parts of an exhibition or gallery space, though they are rarely ever considered in depth. The space in which pieces are presented influence how a collection or piece is received, interpreted, and understood.
If a painting is presented in a dimly lit room, with nothing surrounding it, this piece might be meant to evoke solitude and isolation. If we were to see the exact same painting presented in a bright and open space, we read it in a completely opposing manner.
So how are we supposed to make sense of the relationship between our eyes and mind? What is it about galleries and spaces that is crucial in delivering the best perceptual experience? To explore these questions, I took a closer look into featured exhibitions at two Vancouver art galleries, the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver and the Catriona Jeffries Gallery in the Downtown Eastside, to see how their art objects interact with their surrounding spaces.
The large open rooms of the Polygon Gallery displays videos and photography of worldwide artists. Image by Kaila Bhullar / The Peak.
Upon arriving at the Polygon Gallery, located at the Lonsdale Quay, I was struck by the sense of immersion. The cascading light, shining through the open windows of the gallery exposes the cinematic sea views of North Vancouver. The large open rooms display videos and photography of worldwide artists. Using its physical layout, the Polygon creates an exhibition experience in which the viewer can form a relationship with the works in a unique and personal fashion. Gallery-goers direct themselves and their own experiences through the room as the open space puts the viewer in charge of how they want to see which artworks. Along with its nonchalant and interactive atmosphere, the Polygon encourages its visitors to think critically by presenting works that are more that just visually appealing, letting them connect with the conceptual pieces in a more thought-provoking, inspiring manner.
The Catriona Jeffries Gallery at Campbell and Cordova, despite its similarly open and bright layout, felt completely different. The space was very minimalist, featuring neutral colours and works that appeared more focused on experimental forms, textures, and mediums than on concepts — though this did not make the work any less intriguing and provocative.
The ‘hidden’ entrance to the Catriona Jeffries Gallery. Image by Kaila Bhullar / The Peak
The space forces the viewer to really get close to the works to notice all the subtle details, which allows for a very intimate experience in finding associative meaning. The open layout of the space also allows for a very natural flow through the gallery. Where the Polygon’s open layout leads to a self-directed experience, the Catriona Jeffries Gallery’s openness instead encourages us to follow the exhibition sequentially.
The gallery as a whole has an individualized, distinct, and almost secretive or mysterious feel to it. Even the building furthers this sense — it’s a little hidden and has a completely black exterior.
The two galleries offer a range of takes on creating engaging spaces in which we can experience its contemporary art. Whether you prefer immersive and playful venues or mysterious and subjective ones, the two galleries aim at facilitating the best subjective interpretations and encourage creative and pivotal thinking.
In 2004, SFU acquired a 19-metre-long, $600,000 colonial artwork painted by Charles Comfort, receiving it from the Toronto Dominion (TD Canada Trust) bank’s Vancouver headquarters. The painting, called the British Columbia Pageant, immediately sparked protest among the SFU community and the public; the painting is not only a misrepresentation of British Columbian history, but it offensively portrays Indigenous Peoples as decorative and passive. This week, the massive painting is finally being taken down and put in storage.
The British Columbia Pageant, above, has been hanging in above the Images theatre in the North AQ hallway for 15 years. Image courtesy of SFU Galleries via SFU.
This is the first piece of art being removed in response to SFU’s Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee’s (ARC) 2017 report and calls to action. This is not the first time that the mural has been the site of controversy. In fact, the mural has been contested since its acquisition. The removal project is being overseen by the ARC Arts Cluster, a committee that was formed to address the report’s art-related calls to action. As Cluster member Dr. Deanna Reder (Cree/Métis) says, “while this may seem as the first move in response to the ARC, it is actually a long time coming.”
1951 — Charles Comfort is commissioned by TD to paint a mural in their bank
Comfort painting the 19 metre mural on the wall of TD bank in 1951. Image courtesy of SFU Galleries.
The British Columbia Pageant was painted directly onto the wall of the TD Canada Trust branch at Granville and Pender. Over the course of the 58 days it took Comfort and three assistants to paint it, bankgoers were able to watch him picture history. More specifically, they were able to watch him re-picture and invent a history that never actually happened.
Captain Vancouver never sat down in peaceful diplomacy with the Peoples he encountered on the coast, nor were Indigenous Peoples a backdrop to colonial expansion and invasion on the coast. The painting is also entirely void of Asian-Canadian who were and are an instrumental part of the province’s history.
1972 — UBC accepts and then rejects a Comfort painting
Comfort in front of the rejected painting. Image taken from The Native Voice courtesy of SFU Galleries.
In the 70s, another “history” mural painted by Comfort in 1939 was intended to be donated and hung up at the UBC library. This larger-than-life painting depicted Captain Vancouver meeting Indigenous Peoples of the Northwest Coast as they sat on the ground at his feet. The student body, the public, and even library staff were all adamantly and vocally opposed to this painting which actually led to UBC rejecting the donation. Quoted in an article by The Native Voice at the time, Alvin Mackay, the director of UBC’s Indian Resource Centre, said “It is not the kind of things that should be displayed at a University in 1972.”
2004 — TD Bank closes and donates the British Columbia Pageant to SFU
Mounting the painting, after restoring it, above the images theatre. Image courtesy of SFU Galleries.
The painting had been on display at this Vancouver branch for 51 years unchanged. When the branch closed down in 2002, the bank spent two years looking for a new home for the mural; which it eventually found at SFU. At the time, SFU’s art curators were aware of the problematic and controversial nature of the painting.
“If the Comfort mural can be used as a teaching tool to provoke discussion of fundamental issues such as colonialism and First Nations experience, then it is a useful addition to the university,” said Warren Gill, then the school’s vice-president university relations, in an SFU News article.
SFU’s administration might have clung to this vision of using inaccurate and offensive colonial artwork to spark productive conversations, but that ideal never really came to fruition. In fact, it has largely alienated the students supposedly sought to include, asSFU student Treena Chambers (Métis) wrote in a 2018 opinions article for The Peak.
2004-2005 — Resetting the Cedar Table Series Anti-Colonial Art Contest
Cover of the special issue of West Coast Line on the Cedar Table Series. Image courtesy of SFU Galleries.
In response to the acquisition of the painting, the First Nations Student Society and the Simon Fraser Student Society held a panel discussion and a contest to counter what is presented and depicted in the painting. The winner, Teen BC, and runner-up, Civilization is a Crime Scene, of this contest can be found directly opposite to the mural. This panel and contest also resulted in the 55th issue of the West Coast Line journal, a special issue titled “Art & Anti-Colonialism: the 2004/05 Cedar Table Series Anti-Colonial Art Contest.”
2017 — Walk this Path With Us: Report of the SFU Aboriginal Reconciliation Council is published
Cover of Walk This Path With Us. Courtesy of SFU.
After meeting for a year, the SFU Aboriginal Reconciliation Council published 34 calls to action, which included addressing the Charles Comfort mural and removing “colonial art that is degrading to the Indigenous population” (Call to Action 4). The Aboriginal Reconciliation Council Arts Cluster was then formed shortly thereafter to address these artistic concerns. The funding to remove the mural was then approved as part of the Aboriginal Strategic Initiatives process.
2019 — Removal of the mural: what’s next?
Setting up the scaffolding on June 20. Image by Gudrun Wai-Gunnarsson / The Peak.
“The Art Cluster has three goals: the removal of the mural, a reinstallation of work in the North AQ, and a policy for the inclusion of Indigenous art in all SFU buildings,” said Melanie O’Brian, the director of SFU Galleries, in an email interview with The Peak.
Dr. Deanna Reder additionally commented that the removal of this painting is really just a single step in what will need to be a much longer process.
“Right now, the West side of that corridor begins with the Comfort Mural and the East end has an enclosed space next to the [anthropology] museum that is open to the outdoors and has a totem pole that was carved by a non-Indigenous person. So the entire corridor needs to be re-thought,” said Dr. Reder to The Peak over email.
When asked about what students can do to help decolonize SFU’s art collection, Dr. Reder wrote that a “key to decolonization is to understand more about the history of the land you are walking upon.”
Dr. Karrmen Crey (Sto:lo), another member of the Cluster, emphasized the importance of student voices and perspectives, citing them as a driving force in the continued criticism and eventual removal of the British Columbia Pageant. She says that students’ “voices will continue to be fundamental to SFU’s efforts to decolonize, inside and out.”
Although the removal of this painting was a long time coming, it is truly only the beginning of reconciling SFU’s public art collection.
The removal of the mural began on June 24 and will take approximately four days. The mural is set to then be put into storage at SFU.
The most important communications conference of the year was held over this past weekend.
And it was a failure.
This defeat, however, did not come as a shock to the event organizers, or the keynote speaker, or even the conference attendees; the annually held conference has been deemed a doomed project for the last 10 years, when the first conference was held. The conference, titled CMNS: What are we? has consistently failed to meet its goal of creating a single cohesive, comprehensible definition of a communications major ever since the faculty’s founding back in 2009.
The Peak caught up with the conference’s head organizer, Gabby Irkson, to discuss the nuances of this year’s definition disappointment.
I meet Gabby during her TA office hours. We only have 45 minutes for the interview because she shares her office, a converted utilities closet, with six other TAs on a rotating schedule.
We skip pleasantries.
“I disagree with the term, ‘failure,’” Gabby vehemently declares, leaning back on a filing cabinet made out of a rack meant to hold electrical cords. “Yes, communication majors everywhere are still without a simple definition for their own area of study, but the conference does a lot more than squabble over semantics.”
Gabby isn’t forcing optimism. Throughout the years, the annual conference has grown to include more than 10 straight hours of roundtable discussions about the proper adjectives to describe the faculty. The weekend also includes a moderated debate over whether that Adorno and Horkheimer’s reading on the Leftist Theory is racist, a semiotics competition in which teams are given a meme and two minutes to come up with as much semiotic analysis as possible, as well as a workshop on how students can best handle interrogative questions about what communications is until a definition can be agreed upon.
“The workshop was my idea,” Gabby smiles proudly.
She shows me a video on her phone of students standing in a circle, roleplaying a party where one member is asked by a friend exactly what a School of Communications student learns about.
“The best thing to be is emotionally prepared!” the Gabby on the phone happily informs the group.
Although personal fortitude may have been strengthened at the conference, it doesn’t outweigh the damage done by 10 years of having no concrete explanation for what communications actually is.
Gabby explains how the negative effects of enduring confusion hurt the long-term viability of the communications faculty. “When other faculties can’t quite grasp what we study, it hurts diplomatic relationships between Communications students and other majors,” Gabby solemnly notes. “Not to mention, it puts the entire sustainability of the communications major at risk.”
A decade of being definitionless has also led to the formation of a renegade communications protest group, The Annual Dismantlers, who wish to shut down the yearly conference entirely.
“In the ever fluctuating age of modernity,” their manifesto starts, “it is an advantage, not a disability, to remain untethered from archaically ridged forms of organization such as definitions.”
I reached out to the Dismantlers to find out what encapsulated modernity, but received no reply.
Next year, the conference will be mandatory for all communications students to attend. The administrative side of Simon Fraser University has claimed that if there is no definition by 2023, the entire faculty will be dissolved.
Written by: Ahmed Ali, Peak Associate
Illustration by: Momo, Lin
Imagine if there was a university student in front of you. They are walking to class, notebook in one hand while sipping coffee with the other, smiling about maybe passing. They are on top of the world when disaster strikes.
Every four seconds, an SFU Student falls victim to great ills. The most common ones include inflamatus procratinus (procrastination) and nondietosis (a terrible diet of pizza and coffee).
It’s truly heartbreaking. But we, here at the Save the SFU Students Foundation United(STSFU), are taking steps to help these poor defenceless creatures. For just the price of one overpriced coffee on the campus, your donation will save these horribly afflicted undergrads.
STSFU prides itself on being the only charity which researches all its students to customize the best action plan to save them from their own terrible habits.
Some of our most successful missions have included . . .
—Changing their Ex’s Netflix Password
Netflix is the leading cause of procrastinitus in Students ages 18-35. If procrastinitus is left untreated, the student will develop a parasitical fungi (microsporum lazophoid) which will grow into the student’s body, slowly eating its way into their lethargic nervous system. It eventually stops their heart and brain, at which point, the student will slump dead over their laptop with Scrubs on auto-play.
As many students are both cheap and lazy, they tend to mostly procrastinate by hanging onto their ex’s Netflix password and using that to secretly watch all manner of shows that get cancelled within the year. Your donation will help us change the password by tirelessly pretending to be a scam which advertises that you can enter your Netflix details to win free Starbucks coupons or tagging them in Facebook posts with a “Who has the best Netflix Password” contest. This will leave them with fewer opportunities to procrastinate. We all know they’re too cheap to buy their own subscription or even get one for Amazon Prime or, God forbid, Hulu. For a premium, we can even stop them from Spotify Premium.
—Forced Meal Prepping
The diet of an SFU Student is among the most toxic known to man. With nothing but cheap carbs, coffee, and grease, it’s a miracle they’re even alive. Without intervention, a student will succumb to a sodium noodle-induced coma twice throughout the fall semester alone. With your help, we can attempt to replace all their instant-ready food with foods that take upwards of three days to prepare, forcing students to soak beans, and not kill themselves preparing fish. With these baby steps, we can hope that the life expectancy of these students increases by at least another week, given the damage already done.
—Blackmail
If all else fails, we can always just hold something they hold dear and use that to achieve our results. Your donations will help us research what these creatures have left that the modern education system hasn’t sucked their enjoyment out of. Our current prospects include holding their Netflix accounts at ransom, telling their significant others they’ve been taking selfies with other people, increasing the price of tuition and books, leaking their grades to their extended families at gatherings, and taking away the likes on their favourite meme pages.
Give generously, and forcibly inspire a student to not be a piece of shit today
However, youth movements and youth activism now involve younger generations than ever before. The onus is no longer placed solely on college students. In fact, we are seeing that the level of grievance felt by younger generations is resulting in advocacy for change.
Youth today are forced into positions of activism because of looming threats to their safety, well-being, and undoubtedly their future. I believe that we, as older university students, should nurture the voices of the younger generations and support their participation in civic engagement and collaborative demonstrations.
In fact, there are already existing campaigns and causes that we can assist younger generations with by providing funds through pledge drives, or bringing awareness to them through advertising. For example, the global climate crisis has prompted a student protest called the Bay St. march, in which children as young as seven years old are demonstrating. To show solidarity for their cause, university students should hold our own marches, sit-ins, and awareness campaigns. Most of us have much more experience and a long legacy of college activism to draw from.
Of course, the reason that these youth-led movements are even happening is because older generations are ultimately failing to address big issues like climate change and violence in schools. Rather than finding ways to prevent these tragedies from happening, the common responses from world leaders is nonchalance and flat-out denial. Due to a lack of proper action being taken, disasters like mass shootings are becoming routine to the public. Even the global climate crisis is met with skepticism and cynical profiteering, allowing climate change denial to flourish.
It is reprehensible that the overall chaotic and unjust conditions of society have put such pressures on youth — specifically those in high school and elementary school — to take on the leadership roles of social campaigns. In other words, we are living in a society that forces children to “grow up” at a ridiculously young age.
Rather than leaving our younger generations to fill shoes too big for them without any support, we must help them pave the way to change. As university students, we arguably have more resources and knowledge that we can offer as aid. This includes having prior experience in organizing campaigns that we can share with younger students. Additionally, universities are perfect places to host events and gather funds, whereas places like high schools and elementary schools may struggle with having their young activists be taken seriously. As such, we can help younger students get access to more funds through our own involvement and pledge drives.
The reality is that this new age of student activism will continue to rise, encompassing youth as early as elementary school. We must help lessen the burden on our younger students, to allow them to see their futures are not all dependent on their advocacy alone. By helping to carry out more campaigns or marches, we can aid in nurturing young activist voices.
This new era of student activism must be met with helping hands, rather than putting the sole burden on the shoulders of literal children.
On June 20, members of the SFU Tuition Freeze Now campaign appealed to the BC 2020 Budget Consultation Committee in Abbotsford. Founded in October 2018 in response to proposed tuition hikes, SFU Tuition Freeze Now advocates for a two-year tuition freeze for all university students in B.C.
The BC 2020 Budget Consultation Committee holds province-wide budget consultations and presents a final report to the Legislative Assembly with budgetary recommendations.
The committee, one of 10 permanent parliamentary committees, currently consists of seven MLAs: Bob D’Eith (chair), Dan Ashton (deputy chair), Doug Clovechok, Rich Coleman, Mitzi Dean, Ronna-Rae Leonard, and Nicholas Simons.
Public consultations took place from June 10–21, and were located in multiple locations in B.C., including Kimberley, Kamloops, Prince Rupert, Kitimat, Vancouver, and Abbotsford.
Kayla Phillips, a graduate student in the department of political science, addressed the committee alongside Annie Bhuiyan, an undergraduate student, on behalf of SFU Tuition Freeze Now. They asked the committee to recommend a cap on tuition.
Given five minutes to present their appeal to the committee, Phillips and Bhuiyan illustrated economic trends students in B.C. face that make education more and more unaffordable.
They highlighted university costs rising faster than the rate of general inflation, lowered grant funding for full time students, and the shrinking proportion of university funding when compared to the GDP of B.C. Then, Bhuyian outlined what SFU Tuition Freeze Now would like to see.
“In the short term, reversing this trend would mean small but meaningful hikes in real terms of the provincial grant funding given to universities, which would allow some measure of relief for students suffering from affordability issues across the province.
In the medium term, the committee should research and recommend the amount of ongoing increase in funding that would ensure a viable tuition freeze but does not degrade the quality of education and services provided by universities.”
After the presentation, the committee asked no questions.
D’Eith thanked the duo before noting that the message was one they had already heard.
“We have heard from a number of students around the province with regards to tuition fees and other funding for post-secondary, and we appreciate you adding your voice to that,” D’Eith said.
Phillips later commented to The Peak on how she felt SFU Tuition Freeze Now’s remarks were received by the committee.
“I think they were well received, but as one of the deputy clerks let us know, they’ve basically been on the road for two weeks and essentially at every spot they’ve heard a similar message, which does means our message is resonating with people around the province.
“The fact that there wasn’t any extra questions just means they’ve really heard this message so many times that there is no doubt left in their minds that there is something they have to do about this.”
The full transcripts of all the consultations are available online through the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia’s website, under the sub-heading of Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, SFU summer camps are coming back for another year. Photo courtesy of Ana Samoylova via Unsplash
By: Paul Choptuik, Coordinating News Editor,Onosholema Ogoigbe, News Team Member
Point:
One of the biggest complaints I hear from classmates is that they don’t pay to have summer campers clogging hallways, screaming, and otherwise being bothersome. I’m not saying that having large numbers of kids on campus is perfect, but my sizzling-hot take on SFU summer camps is that they are more important than one might realize.
OK, so maybe it’s not the hottest take ever made, but some people go to school or work full-time and also have children. Some of these parents may be your classmates, your TAs, your professors, or any of the support staff around campus. SFU summer camps provide a convenient childcare option for members of the SFU community.
And while not every child who attends SFU camps will be connected to the university this way, research has demonstrated the potential of such camps as recruitment tools for future students. All those non-SFU affiliated kids could one day be students paying thousands in tuition to partially finance a future stadium expansion.
What’s more, these programs provide good employment and volunteer opportunities for SFU students. It’s hard finding a summer job that actually pays well. Head instructor positions at SFU camps do just that. The pay for regular instructors is somewhat less, but it’s still above minimum wage.
I might be a bit biased here as a former summer camp volunteer and someone who still volunteers with the 10–12 age range, but seeing kids having fun puts a smile on my face. I’d like to think it does for others too, especially when you’re stuck inside the AQ, which resembles a mine shaft nowadays.
So when I see that parade of kids just being kids, I think to myself, at least someone is having fun.
Paul Choptuik, Coordinating News Editor
Counterpoint:
As someone who used to live on campus residence, I can confidently say, having children who are not your own running amok is less than enjoyable.
Let me tell you a story of breakfast, my one joy in life, interrupted. The space around the dining hall doors was packed with children. The front desk was also blocked. I was already running late for class, but I was hungry, so I persevered.
At Fraser International College (where I was a student at the time), classes are split into four-hour chunks. If you don’t grab a meal before a class and you’re too much of a Scrooge to buy something, then it’s basically starvation for those four hours. Also, the dining hall closes early in the summer.
I almost gave up when I had to squeeze towards the food only for my view to be obstructed by yet another blockade of children. At that point, I resigned myself to my lateness.
Eventually the blockade cleared and my heart sang for joy — that is, before I saw the empty tray in front of me. They had cleaned out everything and I was horribly late for class!
I call bullshit when I have to be deprived of sustenance because of children who don’t even attend this school.
Along with food deprivation, the camps’ participants also bring noise pollution and irrational pedestrian speed bumps to campus. I almost had a heart attack the first time I heard them practicing their chants. Then I realised that this is something that occurs frequently throughout their time at SFU! I’m also pretty sure I almost tripped over one of the shorter kids before.
So for my safety and theirs, I don’t think that SFU should host kids at summer camp anymore.
Women perform just as well as men, if not better, in sports, so why don’t we reward them just as well? Photo by Jeffrey F Lin via Unsplash
By: Naaz Sekhon, SFU Student
Being the year 2019, one would expect equality to have been achieved in all aspects of life, including sports. However, the harsh reality is that there is still much work to be done in the battle over gender equality in women’s professional sports.
Despite their tremendous skill, female athletes still have to fight to be recognized and paid as equals when compared to their male counterparts. The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, for example, has in the past proven its superiority over their male counterparts, and yet they are currently suing over an unfair gender pay gap. It’s time we acknowledge that they deserve more recognition and support for their efforts in the sports field than they are currently getting.
I have seen many instances of inequality in sports. As a child, I played sports for the sake of physical activity, but was never encouraged to explore beyond the realm of “fun.” However, when it came to my younger brother, the situation was entirely different. My parents have always taken his sports more seriously, and my brother now plays soccer competitively with a desire to be signed to a major soccer league.
In the US, around half of people in sport are women, yet they receive less than 10% of media coverage. (This could also partially explain why female-oriented sports lack funding.) When it comes to scholarships, male athletes receive $179 million more than the female athletes, once again reiterating the massive lack of equity.
However, with the right media emphasis and funding, female athletes are able to flourish. According to the World Economic Forum, when female athletes receive the same funding as men, not only is participation increased for female athletes, but these athletes also show tremendous capacity to excel in their sports.
It’s important to reduce gender inequality in sports for both current and future female athletes. Without an equal playing field, female athletes receive the message that no matter their efforts, they will always be less valuable than men. In turn, this affects the younger generations of female athletes who are discouraged by lack of recognition next to the much higher-profile male athletics, affecting their likeliness to participate in sports.
Recognition and praise for the accomplishments of female athletes is crucial, and so is proper media coverage and funding. It’s time we break the cycle and start investing in the success of our female athletes.
On June 13, the Student Learning Commons’ (SLC) graduate facilitators voted decisively to unionize, becoming the newest educational position at SFU represented by the Teaching Staff Support Union (TSSU).
Speaking previously at the Graduate Student Society (GSS) meeting on June 11, TSSU representative and SLC graduate facilitator, Alicia Massie, noted that though they liked their bosses, working conditions could be improved. Facilitators didn’t have access to health care or maternity rights, and they would sometimes be paid at irregular time intervals.
“We came together as the workers and chatted, and wanted to be able to secure access to protection and basic rights such [as those that] everyone else in the library on campus has,” explained Massie.
Within the SLC, graduate facilitators offer a number of services and are split into four teams: the undergraduate writing team, the graduate writing team, the learning/back-on-track team, and the English as an additional language team. The SLC offers services at all three campuses, with locations and hours posted online. Right now, there are 14 facilitators listed.
“What we did is we applied to join the existing union,” explained Massie. “We’re part of this smallish group that is now part of the TSSU, so we’ll be exactly the same [ . . . ] we’re just a new job category within the union, but we’re all within the same collective agreement and we all function as one big happy family.”
Massie called the voting process “very relaxed.”
“The labour board came to all three campuses, which was great, and everybody got a chance to vote if they wanted to,” she said.
“And it passed overwhelmingly. We got really fantastic support, which is not a surprise but still really nice.”
According to Massie, once the facilitators started talking, the actual unionization process was quick. In part, this was due to a change in B.C. labour laws: when a group submits an application to the labour board, they need only wait five days before voting rather than 10. The process was also helped by the group’s small size and enthusiasm about unionizing.
Before this, the last time the TSSU started to represent a new position was when English Language and Culture/Interpretation and Translation Program (ELC/ITP) instructors joined in 2004.
The TSSU now represents the teaching assistants, tutor markers, sessionals, ELC/ITP instructors, and graduate facilitators in the SLC at SFU.
Keep your points, I don’t need any more cards in my wallet. Photo by: Gudrun Wai-Gunnarsson / The Peak
By: Nicole Magas, Opinions Editor
These days, it seems as though I have more random junk in my wallet than actual money, credit cards included. Stacks of old receipts from three years ago, politely accepted business cards, and library cards from seven different cities all fatten my wallet. And that’s not even counting the points cards.
I have so many useless points cards, from grocery stores to dry cleaners to bubble tea joints. Despite almost never using them, I still keep falling for the cheerful offers from cashiers trying to line my wallet with more useless garbage.
It’s not like I get much out of points cards anyway. A free jug of milk every now and again when the cashier even remembers to ask, “Would you like to use points today?” That’s hardly worth the effort of struggling to find the right card while the people in line behind me glare death into the back of my skull.
But the most frustrating thing of all is the speed at which various points cards become obsolete. Just when I get used to the look and location of one card in my wallet, the store switches it up with a new bullshit system!
So imagine my frustration when I went to buy groceries at Nesters last week, only to be told that they no longer accept their points card. Now if I want to access my occasional free jug of milk, I need to download yet another useless app onto my phone and scan from there
That’s it! I’m putting my foot down now. I’m not going to clog up my phone just to slim down my wallet. They can keep their points! I didn’t need that milk anyway.
