Wednesday, April 8, 2015 NEWS 5

Ryersons year in reviewThe news team saw the good, the bad, and the just plain weird. Here are our picks for stories that defi ned the 2014-2015 school year

Yup, Sheldons still pres

Year of the fi re truck

A most curious electionRams soar at CIS

Rise of Transform

Blood on the MAC fl oor

Sex assault policy

New year, new building

Freeze the Fees

Blood on the MAC fl oor

Year of the fi re truck

Rams soar at CIS

FreezeThe headhunters couldnt fi nd a replacement for the city builder. After 13 months of searching, executive search fi rm Spencer Stuart was unable to fi nd a suitable president to take Sheldon Levys place.

On March 6, Ryerson announced that Levy would be staying for a term of up to two years due to the failure of the search. This threw a wrench in Levys plan to tour on his motor-cycle this summer, but its a sacrifi ce he had to make. The announcement also killed the farewell party called Decade of Change. No new plans have been made for another farewell party as Up to Twelve Years of Change just doesnt have the same ring to it.

This RSU election, The Eyeopener discovered that the Chief Returning Offi cer (CRO) Fatima Sajan, who was in charge of running the elec-tion, had sat on a York Federation of Students board with a current

RSU staff member. This staff member was Gilary Massa, the RSUs director of communication and outreach, who was one of two

people responsible for hiring the CRO for the election. According to RSU bylaws, the CRO is supposed to be hired in conjunction

with the current RSU president. RSU President Rajean Hoi-lett said he was not involved in the process. Were also

not sure if at any point they hung out or chilled during the election, because they wouldnt tell

us. Sajans post-election report accused the university of interfering with the election, which Ryerson denied.

January was the most stab-happy month of the year with two separate incidents of assaults around the Mattamy Athletic

Centre. Roderick McIntosh, 67, was arrested on Jan. 11 for second-degree murder after using a samurai sword on two men in a fi ght that occurred at an apartment at Jarvis and Carlton streets. Its a rare and terrifying day for a news editor when they have a reason to put samurai sword in print. Fifteen days later, someone

went on a Sunday morning stabbing spree that put three people in the hospital and left one injured. All four

victims were random people going about their morning routine.

Universities and colleges across the country launched reviews into how they handled sexual violence on campuses after a Toronto Star investigation revealed only nine in over 100 post-secondary schools had sexual assault policies. At Ryerson, Vice-Provost Students Heather Lane Vetere was put in charge of the review, which in-volved speaking to staff and students about their experiences on campus. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced an action plan to combat sexual violence in March, which makes it mandatory for colleges and universities to adopt a sexual assault policy and renew it every four years with input from students.

There seemed to be a fi re truck on campus every week this year at Ryerson. OKeefe House burst into fl ames during the fi rst week back for winter semester, causing $50,000 in dam-ages. There was also a number of fi re alarms on campus this year, and The Eyeopener re-ported that each time one of them goes off, Toronto Fire Services charges the school $410 per truck per hour. One alarm was set off because the temperature in Kerr Hall got so high that the heat sensor trig-gered the alarm. Heat, yo!

For the fi rst time in four years, the RSU election featured an entire opposition slate, Transform Ryerson, to the incum-bent slate. The group was made up of a number of campus leaders from various faculty-related student societies and groups, most prevalently the Ryerson Commerce Society (RCS). The rise of the slate began with Rise for Ryerson, a group of students that protested the current RSU ex-ecutives campaign to lower tuition fees and were also closely tied to the RCS. Rise eventually culminated in Transform, led by president-elect Andrea Bartlett, also a former executive member of the RCS. The election blitz was unlike any in recent years and resulted in them sweeping the executive posi-tions.

The longest running and most visible campaign undertaken by the Ry-erson Students Union (RSU) saw the erection of Tent City and the

creation of an alternative budget. Freeze the Fees, spearheaded by Vice-President Education Jesse Root, was a polarizing force on campus. It was the spark that created anti-RSU group Rise for Ryerson and the inspiration for the satirical Freeze the Peas campaign. The RSU also drafted an alter-native budget claiming the school could use part of what it called a $14-million structural surplus to halt tuition increases. Ryerson has said that this is not the case. The RSU

will still present this budget to the Board of Governors at their annual budget meeting in late April.

This years RSU election campaigns began with posters being ripped down and defaced, the number of director positions being confused and the starting date of elections being misreported. The confu-sion and miscommunication continued with the CRO taking days to respond to emails and answer candidates questions. But the election really got out of hand on the night votes were counted. Transform Ryerson scrutineers said they were told they were not allowed to travel with the ballots or stand in elevators with them. The CRO yelled at an Eyeopener news editor after allegedly chang-ing election rules saying she could change bylaws if she felt like it. The Eyeopener has since had a hard time fi guring out whether or not any of the candidates are emotionally traumatized by this clusterfuck. However, it has been confi rmed that Eyeopener news editor Keith Capstick has been having nightmares about the election since its fi nish.

The largest development at Ryerson is impossible to miss. The gargantuan Student Learning Centre (SLC) cost $112 million and boasts eight fl oors of dedicated student space. Each fl oor is even colour themed to match your notebook.

The building has been such a hit that even non-Ryerson students have come to take ad-vantage of the indoor tanning provided by the windowed wonder. Its arguably the largest and defi nitely the most visible achievement of Sheldon Levys career so far at Ryer-son. The SLC had its soft-launch on Feb. 23 and the offi cial grand opening on March 31.

Ryerson hosted the CIS Final 8 Mens Basketball tournament the schools fi rst time holding a national championship in any sport. Proving their status as the third-ranked team throughout the regular season was no fl uke, the Rams fi nished the playoffs with bronze medals around their necks the fi rst time a Ryerson team has ever medalled at nationals in any sport. The city (and CIS marketing) went all out for the fi rst ever Final 8 held in Toronto, with several high profi le appearances and events throughout the week. It seemed to work: attendance totalled 16,874 for the 11-game, four-day event a far cry from the days when Ryerson basketball games were only attended by players parents and partners.

The saga of the CROThis RSU election, The EyeopenerOffi cer (CRO) Fatima Sajan, who was in charge of running the elec-tion, had sat on a York Federation of Students board with a current

RSU staff member. This staff member was Gilary Massa, the RSUs director of communication and outreach, who was one of two

people responsible for hiring the CRO for the election. According to RSU bylaws, the CRO is supposed to be hired in conjunction

with the current RSU president. RSU President Rajean Hoi-lett said he was not involved in the process. Were also

not sure if at any point they hung out or chilled during the election, because they wouldnt tell

us. Sajans post-election report accused the university of interfering with the

The saga of the CRO