SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement and the Vancouver City Planning Commission hosted a panel discussion on the issue of “Social Inequality in the City.”

The conversation covered issues ranging from health, education, hunger, mental illness, justice, accessibility, and social mobility.

Mary Clare Zak, Managing Director of the City of Vancouver’s Social Policy and Project Division, presented a number of statistics on housing, population growth, diversity, education, income, and homelessness, and spoke to the city’s approach to foster continual improvement in health and wellbeing in Vancouver.

Zak commented on a city’s ability to make an impact at the municipal level: “Local governments are actually uniquely placed to provide leadership around health and well-being, because many of the social determinants of health are played out in your day-to-day life.”

Margot Young, a constitutional and social justice law professor from UBC, broke down the meanings of the terms ‘inequality’ and ‘city.’

In terms of inequality in the context of Vancouver, Young said, “We need to look at inequality with a very specific, absolute focus; a focus on the problem that inequality signals for us in Vancouver in particular, and that’s the problem, the distress of poverty [. . .] and the exclusion and marginalization that poverty puts and cements in place.”

The Aboriginal Front Door Society’s Community Coordinator, Bill Beauregarde, presented on the vital issue of the land Vancouver is located on, its significance to indigenous people, and its relationship to the housing crisis and poor living conditions on the reserves.

“In our culture, we share the land, we don’t own the land,” said Beauregarde. “That’s basically [it] — the sharing aspect of the land is not equal. Right now, Aboriginals do not have the share that they should have.”

Paul Taylor, Executive Director of Gordon Neighborhood House in the downtown West End, spoke about his personal experience growing up with a single mother on welfare, and commented on the unequal way food is accessed and experienced by those with lower incomes.

“When I see people in long lineups, accessing food — and in Vancouver it’s often cold and rainy — it’s dehumanizing and I see people missing out on the celebration of food.”

Viveca Ellis of Single Mothers’ Alliance BC spoke to the core issues faced by single mothers living in poverty, including the issue of access to civic engagement of all sorts.

“We advocate for a shift in focusing on the affordability of transit,” said Ellis. “We envision transit as a tool to mobilize people out of poverty — to access that job, that school, that affordable food three miles away, that social life in the greater community.”

Matt Hern, professor in SFU’s Urban Studies program, echoed Beauregarde’s sentiment of the inextricability of this issue of inequality and land and property in the context of Vancouver, identifying the root of the problem being that we are situated on indigenous land.

“Any concern with settler disparities or inequities, with the home crisis, with who gets to stay and who gets to leave, under what basis — all of that has to be historicized within the context of very recent and ongoing colonial rationalities.”

Director of Community Engagement, Am Johal, commented regarding the significance of a holding discourse on social inequality at SFU: “Since SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement started almost five years ago, we’ve committed to engaging in social questions through both dialogue and disruption on important public questions. [. . .] Being based in the Downtown Eastside neighborhood, we have a public responsibility to engage in these questions.”

SFU, you’ve done it again! MacLean’s has released its university rankings for 2016 and SFU has — for the seventh time in eight years — clinched the top comprehensive university spot.

The university lost the title in 2014, when the University of Victoria temporarily dethroned SFU, bumping it down to second place.

SFU President Andrew Petter was pleased to announce the rankings in this month’s Senate meeting. He reminded the room that rankings are not everything, but nonetheless, this was a cause for celebration.

“We usually take rankings with a grain of salt, but in this case it comes with a lot of sugar,” he joked.

MacLean’s defines comprehensive universities as those with significant research activity, strong undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional schools — or, as Petter puts it, “research-intensive universities unburdened by medical schools.”

The president spoke to what he sees as the key factors that went into this high ranking: “Certainly the success we’ve had with faculty and student awards and our research performance clearly figured very strongly in the reasons why we did as well as we did.”

Although MacLean’s put SFU in the top spot, they also asked students themselves to rank Canadian universities for the first time in a decade. According to the surveys, Guelph is the top favourite comprehensive university among students, while SFU ranks much lower at 12th place.

The survey included various subcategories for students to rate their school, such as administrative staff, instructors, and the amount of red tape in its bureaucracy. In these subcategories, students rated SFU the highest among comprehensive universities for its mental health services, making it students’ ninth favourite overall in the country.

Despite the positives of the top ranking, Petter acknowledged that there are other things to consider when evaluating SFU as a whole. “We understand that the strengths of the university are not fully measured by these rankings,” he said, “but it’s nonetheless nice to get that kind of recognition.”

SFU experienced a slice of Hindu culture last week at its eighth annual Diwali event at Surrey’s Aria Banquet Hall on Tuesday, November 3.

The annual celebration of “the festival of lights” is a part of SFU’s aim to engage its South Asian students and the greater community.

Diwali, widely celebrated in India and around the world, signifies light over dark, knowledge over ignorance, prosperity over poverty, and good over evil. It marks the beginning of a new year for Hindu peoples, and is considered to be a time to embark on new beginnings and ventures. Elaborate decorations, lights, fireworks, and food preparations are all key to this festival.

SFU took the initiative eight years ago to begin an annual event that encompassed all these factors and to further deepen cultural ties with its South Asian community members.

Over 300 government, community, and business leaders, along with SFU students, alumni, staff, and faculty members attended the event. The celebration kicked off at 6 p.m., with a reception, followed by the evening program and dinner. The opening act was a lively Bhangra performance by members of the Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration Society.

The event concluded with a fusion performance of Scottish and Punjabi dance, followed by a door prize draw with SFU goodies and gift cards.

The funds raised through ticket sales for the event are to be used for the SFU India Student Mobility program, which aids students who want to study, volunteer, and work in different cities and villages in India.

The community support for this event had an impact on SFU student Dara Hill, who was one of the student speakers at the event. Hill is a fourth-year Communications student, traveller, and photographer who interned for six months last year at the Deshpande Foundation, a global non-profit organization that promotes social innovation and sustainable entrepreneurship.

“It really is an honour to be the student speaker at this year’s SFU Diwali Gala,” Hill told The Peak.

“There is a diverse group of individuals in this room, but one common thread they hold is the way they value experiential learning, creative problem solving and discovery in just as high of a regard as I do.”

She continued, “It is this community that made this experience in India a reality for me, and I’m so excited to share with them a taste of what they supported.”

SFU chancellor Anne Giardini mentioned in her speech how diversity and community engagement lie at the heart of SFU’s mission and ensure continued success. SFU President Andrew Petter spoke to the many milestones that SFU has accomplished as a university.

“We’re proud of the fact that we do things differently than traditional universities,” said Petter.

“In particular, I think the thing we do different and do best is our commitment to engaging the student community. It is truly the value that defines us and has led to some of our biggest achievements.”