Word has it that the French department has cut ties with EFUT, the hugely successful student-run club that is dedicated to supporting la francophonie. Scandalous! Specifically, the French Studies chair has stopped authorizing French department participation in all things EFUT. Their relationship has always been amicable, with faculty encouraging their students to join and partake in their activities. What could have possibly broken this relationship?

Condoms.

If you’ve been anywhere around campus lately, you will know that EFUT has promotional material everywhere. Perhaps the most unique and memorable are their condoms, with relevant dates and club information printed on the packaging.

The trouble usually starts when they're NOT there.

EFUT has been going around to French classes promoting their club. President Antonin Mongeau has informed me that EFUT reps do not explicit hand them out. They instead leave a handful of condoms in the classroom, leaving it up to the students to decide whether or not to put it to good use. Professors of these classes have reported that these condoms are making students uncomfortable, thus prompting the French Chair’s decisions to de-authorize all EFUT activity within their classes, as well as faculty participation in EFUT activities.

Some things to get straight:

• This is the second year EFUT has used condoms as promotional material.
• Despite a couple of grumbles here and there, there has never been a complaint filed by any student before. Therefore, EFUT has been treating it as a non-issue.
• Let’s be honest – the French are not strangers to some lovin’. If you take a look at the course handbook, you will see that we have courses that build on that very theme.
• The French Chair does not understand how condoms are part of EFUT’s mandate.

Some things to think about:

• Is handing out condoms an appropriate method of promotion?
• Do you like them?
• Is the French department’s concern old-fashioned and behind the times?
• Is it really that big a deal?
• Should EFUT be blatantly putting sex together with French at all?

EFUT has not issued a response to this yet. They are encouraging all their members and other students to visit www.frenchclub.ca and respond to a poll there. If you’ve got something to say, email them at etudiants.francophones@utoronto.ca and tell them what you think.

Of course, don’t forget to comment below and tell us at blogUT what you think is really going on. To condom or not to condom? That is the question.

This week on the web: Students chalk up the streets of Queen’s Park to express their dissent of the recent tuition hike (thanks McGuinty, you’re a pal), the archaeologists of U of T’s Tayinat Archaeological Project discover the gates of an ancient citadel, and some good ol’ ramblings of U of T students brought to you by Tumblr.

Chalk It Up With UTSU: The University of Toronto Students’ Union mobilized its mass of student forces to chalk it up in Queen’s Park. Glad students are speaking out! When will the government realize that working full-time all summer for minimum wage is still not enough to cover tuition? Drowning in debt is so American, so let’s build a healthy nation.

It was either this definition or the one about bongs.

Amen.

What are your thoughts on the latest spike in tuition rates?

U of T’s Latest Enrollment – Mufasa: It’s a rock… it’s a lion… NO – it’s the gate to an ancient citadel. As Hemingway once said, ‘One cat just leads to another.’ Well, in this case, one feline led to a massive discovery! The archaeologists of U of T’s  Tayinat Archaeological Project got their hands on a carved stone lion in Turkey which turned out to be the entrance-way to the ancient capital of the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina! For an Ancient Near Eastern history freak like me, this is super cool. I’m so proud of U of T!

Ramblin’ Roses at U of T: One of the best ways to capture the essence of the student condition at U of T is to present to you a cascade of student musings. Random rambles with the power of reflection. Students tweet, tumble, and blog to be heard, and we want them to know that blogUT is listening and cares!

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE DROP ART HISTORY SO SHE CAN GET HER COURSE. KTHNXBAI.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Can you guess where this is?

A rambling about U of T by rambling musings. How appropriate.

I love the personifications and metaphors about her experiences with ROSI.

Lights! Camera! ACTION!

This is by far one of the most genuine and legitimate pieces of advice for first year students! (continued from post) With my determination, excitement, ambition and ignorance. I thought I knew everything and boy was I wrong. I thought I knew I wanted and I didn’t. The new friends, the new boys, an introduction to the night life, hangovers and drugs…Oh Residence life. Big lecture halls, wicked and insprirational professors, beautiful architecture to name the least. I remember finishing that school year off with Asher Roth - I Love college and having an awesome one night stand that ended up shaping the remainder of my summer..and teaching me that I am only person that has complete control over my emotions. Fuck it wasn’t even that long ago but I felt so young and yet so old! I miss first year so very much. Despite the heart break and the stupidity..followed by more stupidity…fuck i would totally live it over again. Where did it all go? One of the most important things I’ve learned these past three years and it took me only until recently to realise this…but Never let someone treat you worse than you would treat yourself. Always put yourself first (in terms of myself..I consider my immediate family to be a part of myself). Theres a difference between using immaturity and carelessness as excuses to defend someones behavior. Nevertheless, as bad as a situation gets..do not make exceptions and do not forgive untill one has genuinely proven themselves to be worth your time. Oh and don’t mix alcohol or other narcotics with your emotions…they will eat you alive and then transform you into someone that disgusts you. Yes they are pain killers without prescription but you tend to overdose when you’re hurting, inside…and theres no daily dosage reccommendation written on the labels. Deal with your problems first and then drink to have fun cause chances are..you might think you’re having a good night and consequenty regret everything the next day.

Damn Robarts, when did you get all sexy? Can I have yo' number?

What’s on your mind, U of T? Check out On the Radar’s next post on Friday, August 19.

This week on the web:

Toronto Heat Wave:

Water, sunblock, caps, and anti-perspirant are essentials today. Stay cool!

ROSI Hate and ROSI Love:

 

My experience with ROSI.

Dumb luck.

 

Tuition Blues: Get ready to throw away your summer savings, lines of credit, and your soul – tuition fees are up and this time they are 5% higher.:

Tuition blues.

On the Streets: Fashionistas, artists and photographers. Who said that U of T is void of creativity?:

Style Advice of the Week: Colour your hair with headbands.

ARCHITECTURE 9/10 #architecture #konstruktivist #iphoneography #hipstamatic #ktvst_widearch #dancristea #uoft #universityoftoronto // I didn’t want to crop this one since I like it just the way it is.

St. Michael’s College is my college in the University of Toronto, and it was my resident for my first year. For one thing I gotta admit that St. Mike is one of the most enjoyment places in campus! People always unwind themselves on the benches reading novels, chatting, drinking coffee… how relaxing

Check out On the Radar’s next post on Friday, July 29.

Or would they? Another problem with the Med Sci building is that it lacks windows. You know, those glass portals that allow sunlight in and make you happy? If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself on the upper floors where the research labs are, you will be bathed in artificial fluorescent light. The hallways are confusing with many twists and turns. With no windows, you have no idea which direction you’re headed. I guess in the 60s people didn’t have to get to class on time so they could afford to spend ten minutes lost in a painted white cinderblock labyrinth.

Back to the exterior – it’s awful. Since there’s plenty of wasted open space on the outside, Med Sci is a magnet for smokers. Does anyone else see the irony in this?

The interior is barren and feels like a high school (complete with orange lockers and a feeling of hopelessness). One day I was walking to an office on the fourth floor and a some professors were having a conversation in the hallway. There were four of them and they occupied the entire width of the corridor. Now, there’s nothing wrong with professors talking to each other and I’m not complaining about the width of the hallways. What I find deplorable is that they had to converse in the hallway. In Med Sci, there are no lounges, no casual conference rooms, and there’s no free space. Everything is locked behind a door, out of the public realm. Every space has a rigidly defined purpose and must be booked ahead of time to be used. This leaves nowhere for impromptu conversations or places to eat lunch. Life in Med Sci is lonely and oppressive – certainly not the environment to promote creative thinking or forge interdisciplinary projects.

Thankfully, there are alternatives. The Terrence Donnelley Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research is a perfect example of how a research institute should be designed (it’s the new tower which is attached to Med Sci and has a main entrance that faces College). There, the exterior walls are completely glass! There’s plenty of communal space with plant life to spur the creative juices. I bet the researchers in the Donnelley building would report that they have a higher quality of life than those in Med Sci.

Med Sci can be saved. To bring it into the twenty first century, tear down walls. Literally make open spaces for people to have lunch. Drill holes into the ceiling and allow sunlight to filter into its cavernous depths.

That, or tear the whole building down and start fresh. Perhaps a glass and steel phoenix will rise from the concrete and rebar mess.

This may seem hard to believe, considering the extreme density of the downtown core.  Ironically though, it is the suburbs which we should avoid.

The mid-20th century boom of the suburbs in the GTA was supposed to be a Renaissance in urban development and infrastructure. However, another Toronto Star article indicates that the typical infrastructure of the suburbs is what causes high levels of CO2 emissions. The greatest amount of the emissions in the GTA comes from the town of Whitby at 13.02 tonnes per year. Where do they place the blame? Distance from the sidewalk. Apparently, living in a house that is set well back from the sidewalk makes one more inclined to ride around in a large, gas-guzzling SUV. But is it worth risking our environmental well being to get to and from soccer practice, the corner store, or even through the long lineups at McDonald’s (which consequently makes us fat) by driving a gas-guzzler?

So why should we be living in the city? The answer is actually quite clear. Public transportation is much better in the city and the sidewalks are closer to retail buildings and housing. Getting around is just easier. No one has much need for a car, except for Mayor Ford, who continues to pick fights with the ‘evil streetcars’. But that brings me to my next point. Not everyone can afford public transportation in the city; $3 a ride adds up.

Much to the pleasure of many, the bicycle has made a miraculous comeback. Everyone is using bikes. Children, adults, professors, students, hipsters… just about everyone scurries to one of the many bicycle shops in the GTA to get the latest one speed, skinny tire, weave-basket-carrying bicycle. Biking is no doubt the best way to get around the city, especially with the numerous picture-esque tree-lined streets and bike paths (another enemy of our beloved mayor). Even many of our adored professors at U of T, including Professor Brym (Department of Sociology) take their bikes wherever they go. It is almost impossible  to avoid cyclists on the St. George campus, especially the ones that we almost run into while jaywalking across St. George Street to get to Sid Smith.

Recently, downtown Toronto was introduced to the BIXI bike system. This system allows anyone to go to the one of 80 BIXI stations and pay the small fee of $5 per day ($40 per month, or $95 per year) to use a bike and go their merry way.

However, there are some downsides to the program.  You still have to find a station, pay a security deposit with a credit card, and there is no discounted rate for students. Despite these obstacles though, there are still many stations on campus for students to use.

In this day and age,  I truly believe that our generation has the power to make an environmental change. We don’t have to make the same mistakes our parents did, driving around in gas-guzzlers.  Instead, we should make sure to utilize the numerous ways of being environmentally  conscientious so that the next generations can enjoy the earth too. As the centre of research for our ‘true north, strong and free’, the students of U of T should join together in a revolution against irresponsible automobile use with the same enthusiasm as Louis XIV and Napoleon – on our bikes, ready to take on CO2 emissions (and succeed).

On behalf of the blogUT team, we’d like to wish you all luck on your exams and extend an early congratulations cuz we know you’ll rock ‘em.
And of course, a little video that accurately describes our lives to distract you all!

In any case, you could ask, well, what does this have to do with student life? Well, Rick Mercer makes a fair point in this rant:

And when he mentions that point about the senior homes (at 1:10), here’s one of the pictures of Elections Campaign Day 3 on the CBC website:

So on May 2nd, vote!

Bullying is a big issue and has become more and more of an issue in recent times. As such, the campaign to stop it has been ever increasing. My heart aches to all those victims of bullying that have taken their own precious lives away. Bullying must stop and I thank (though some won’t, I know) Casey Heynes for being a poster boy, though under unfortunate circumstances, on this issue.

Above is a video capturing Casey Heynes, a kid from Australia and victim of bullying, being punched in the face and stomach by a scrawny kid. Casey decides he’s had enough and picks up the kid, body slamming him to the ground.

Am I advocating violence? No. Am I advocating self-defense? Yes. In this case it was, and unfortunately it got a little out of hand but Casey is just a kid. Understanding self-control and knowing what the boundaries are is hard when you’re a kid. Casey reacted out of natural instinct and pain, pain that had been inflicted on him time and time again. As a martial artist, I can go on and on about how Casey could have had more self-control and not have hurt that damn punk so badly but really I don’t give a damn. That coward bully deserved what he got.  Casey is twice his size and obviously capable of defending himself so what was that scrawny kid going to expect if Casey were to retaliate?

For those of you that say Casey should have take the “high road” (whatever that means) such as call on a mediator, I say that is total baloney because mediators do squat or rarely anything significant at all. I know this from personal experience. If mediators and schools are so good and well-equipped to handle these bullying issues, then tell me, why are there are so many kids, victims of bullying, taking their own lives? Fortunately for Casey, all this was captured on video but what if it wasn’t? Most cases aren’t. What if Casey had done nothing, got punched in the face and taken what some people call the “high road”? I’ll tell you what will happen: nothing. Okay, maybe that kid would have received some sort of slap on the wrist but Casey would have continued to be bullied, perhaps even more for telling someone.

Again, I’m not saying a kid shouldn’t tell someone if they’re being bullied because they should. More importantly, they should also have the right to defend themselves first and foremost. In my experience and knowledge of bullying issues, our number one defense is ourselves. I sound hopeless in relying on others because essentially I am. I have next to zero faith in the schools or whoever to help all those poor kids out there being bullied. Schools have and are useless when it comes to dealing with bullying issues in my opinion. Children are often stuck in these terrible situations, confused and helpless. Casey did the right thing.

Simply put again, Casey defended himself. He defended himself to the best of his ability through a reaction completely justified due to the way he had been treated countless times. Bullies are cowards and will continue to be unless you stop them. Casey did that and good for him. Casey sent a message and that was: Enough is enough.

‘Winner’: Unite For Action (UFA)

Wow! Really? Who would’ve guessed?

Sarcasm aside, the UFA executive candidates took home an average of 80% of votes. I really hoped VP Internal candidate Nathaniel Tang would have drawn more votes but alas, he ended with just 22% of the vote. Obviously, the uncontested candidates had no trouble ‘winning’ their positions.

Why did this happen? There could be a few reasons:

• Only one slate was up for election;
• Part of the student population was boycotting the election;
• Few eligible voters were aware there even was an election.

Obviously with just one slate, there can only be one winner. No matter how one votes, at the end of the day someone has to be sitting in that position, and, for the nth year in a row it is the incumbent slate. Does this count as winning, or does it count as ‘winning’?

Voter Turnout: Virtually Non-existent

Voter turnout was a meager 5.45%. Wait. What? Approximately 3,000 people voted. That’s about the size of a high school. Needless to say, for a school of around  55,000 people that’s just sad.

Part of the reason why so few votes were submitted had to do with a group of students encouraging others to boycott the election. I realize that boycotting an election is meant to make a statement and promote awareness, but without the appropriate media coverage it is simply a joke. No one knew about the boycott, and even if they did the numbers don’t lie. UFA would still have won. The boycott just faded because it was not documented in a meaningful way.

Another reason why voter turnout was dismal was because few people knew about the election itself. I remember last year, when there was serious competition going on, being terrified of getting bombarded by campaigners along St. George, in front of Con Hall, around the libraries… you get my point. They were everywhere. Not just the candidates, but all their supporters. I was mobbed every time I wanted to get a hot dog. They pestered me every time I finished class. Walking anywhere was annoying because a wave of people would be coming at you. This was simply non-existent this cycle.. It felt like UFA copped out because they knew they were going to win. No matter how many people voted, someone needed to be at the helm of the ship we call UTSU and they knew it. Whose fault is it for this year’s lack of  votes? During the campaigning and election period, I pinned the blame on the organizers of the election.

Is my assessment really fair, or is it another case voter apathy?

The results were frankly, disappointing. I was hoping that the only race was actually going to be, well, a race. I was also hoping for more spoiled ballots (only an average of 4%) or “no” votes (17%) from those who chose to do something other than glare meaningfully at the polling stations. I definitely was hoping for more than 3,000 votes.

We have been touted since youth as the future of society. How the world runs is going to be up to us in about 10 years.  Aside from being analytical, it also means that we find more reasons to complain. What does that mean in the context of this election? Well, for one, it means that while there are a fair number of people who complained about how UTSU hasn’t done anything for them, there was (obviously) even more people who didn’t care enough to vote. Even when you factor out those who were actively boycotting (284 according to their facebook page) and people who just couldn’t make it, you simply cannot account for the other 52,000 people who didn’t go into a polling station.

Come on, guys — do you not know or do you not care?

What did UFA say they would do again?

The unofficial (and totally unoriginal) victors of made some promises. Question is, do most of you know what they promised? We know that they fought for and won our post-secondary metropass, and that they started a free commuter brunch program. During their campaign, they relied heavily on their past achievements and the fact that they were diverse. Since it seems as though they’ve already taken down their website I’ve taken the liberty of copy and pasting part of their promotional video description off of Youtube so that, you know, we have something to look back at before they remove that too. Unfortunately, it’s not detailed.

“THIS YEAR, WE WILL TAKE ACTION TO”:

• Fight to eliminate flat fees and combat program cuts
• Work to end differential fees for professional and international students
• Defend the TTC student metropass and lobby for token and ticket discounts
• Call for all parties to drop fees, increase student grants and expand OSAP eligibility in the upcoming Ontario election
• Fight all forms of discrimination and oppression on campus
• Lobby to stop the sale of bottled water on campus and for U of T emissions reduction targets
• Increase funding and resources for clubs and levy groups
• Work to secure sporting discounts for Maple Leaf Sports
• Increase UTSU bursary funding
• Launch “Go Blues Go” campaign to support Varsity athletics

On paper, these all sound amazing, but they’re very vague. Whether or not they have any concrete plans to implement and promote these goals is another question. Some of us were already not impressed with one of the vice presidents, and I stand by that. I’ve also said that, save for president-elect Danielle Sandhu, none of the VP-elects seem to do well under pressure, especially when asked to state their platform. There was a comment on blogUT where a reader noticed that VPs Corey Scott and Shaun Shepherd were unclear in just exactly how they plan to fulfilling their platform promises and plans. Remember VP Clara Ho’s plan “to do research” and “be constructive”?  Let’s hope they pull through and do just that.

I wasn’t just trying to be witty when I said “United for Inaction”

If you’ve read everything I’ve written, you can probably tell that everything seems to center around “inaction”. Voters and students were passive, candidates were  unseen, the ex-opposing slate did not support the election process. There was barely anything going on during a week that you would have expected to be quite lively. Perhaps it was exams and papers weighing down. Maybe everyone was still trying to get used to school after a rowdy Reading Week in Cuba. It just seems that the timing was extremely unfortunate. I watched my friend, who was running as a college representative, struggle to get nomination signatures because more than half the nomination period was during Reading Week. There was talk of changing that, but obviously nothing happened.

Would it have been different if nomination and campaigning weeks were different? Maybe. If nominations were the week after Reading Week, there would have been a higher chance of another slate running as StudentsFirst withdrew because of an insufficient number of signatures. Campaigning the second week back (last week) would have been more meaningful and, ultimately, more people would have known about the elections. There are higher powers than just the executive board of UTSU running the election and this was something they should have considered.

Whatever the reason, everything amounted to one of the most uneventful UTSU elections I’ve ever seen. Inaction, indeed.

1. Taking a break constantly, aka procrastinating, even though you’re supposed to be reading/writing that essay/studying for an exam.

2. Just plain tired/frustrated/angry from all the exams  you had last week or from all the assignments you’re doing that are due next week.

3. Gone on vacation but you know that you’re going to be miserable and regret ever going on vacation.

4. Back from vacation and wishing that you had a time machine to be back on vacation.

5. Lounging around at home feeling guilty for not being as productive as you should be.

6. Realizing that reading week was rather appropriately named.

7. Seeing friends/relatives because despite all your assignments, they are important to you after all.

8. Dreading the end of reading week.

9. Being a total miracle and is actually working.

10. Maybe, just maybe, having fun?