Tuesday, March 29, 2016

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SINCE 1906

westerngazette.caTUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016 • WESTERN UNIVERSITY’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER • VOLUME 109 ISSUE 49

TOTAL UNIVERSITIES EMPLOYEES: 17,065

Western =

7.6%

of total Universities

UW

O

King’s

Huron

Brescia

TOP 10 PROFESSORS PAID OVERALL IN ONTARIO UNIVERSITIES

NAME SALARY UNIVERSITY FIELD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

MARK CROWTHER

GLEN WHYTE

WILLIAM MITCHELL

AKBAR PANJU

MOHAMED ELBESTAWI

WILLIAM STRANGE

PETER PAULY

RICHARD KIM

VAROUJ AIVAZIAN

JOHN HULL

$474,278.40

$439,780.34

$426,129.02

$422,560.77

$421,759.46

$416,319.42

$416,175.02

$414,940.20

$411,081.50

$397,443.42

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO


MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY



WESTERN UNIVERSITY



MEDICINE

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

MEDICINE

ENGINEERING

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

MEDICINE

ECONOMICS

BUSINESS

TOP 10 PAID OVERALL AT WESTERN

WESTERN EMPLOYEES ON THE SUNSHINE LIST BY SEX

TOP 10 PROVOST SALARIES IN ONTARIO

NAME SALARY POSITION

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

MICHAEL STRONG

ROBERT KENNEDY

RICHARD KIM

ROBERT SOLOMON

JANICE DEAKIN

KELLY COLE

W. IAIN SCOTT

PRATIMA BANSAL

PAUL BEAMISH

WALID BUSABA

$487,126.00

$444,999.84

$414,940.20

$378,719.59

$343,000.08

$323,999.96

$315,000.00

$313,028.26

$312,895.24

$310,788.78

DEAN / PROFESSOR / MEDICAL DOCTOR

DEAN / PROFESSOR

PROFESSOR / MEDICAL DOCTOR

PROFESSOR

PROVOST & VICE-PRESIDENT (ACADEMIC) / PROFESSOR

VICE-PRESIDENT (EXTERNAL)

DEAN

PROFESSOR

PROFESSOR

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

FIELD

SCHULICH MEDICINE & DENTISTRY

RICHARD IVEY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS


LAW

ADMINISTRATION

ADMINISTRATION

LAW




20042005

20062007

20082009

20102011

20122013

20142015

0

100

200

300

400

500

PROFESSOR

ASSOCIATE P

ROFESSOR

ASSISTA

NT PROFESSOR

LECTURER

THE 2015 SUNSHINE LIST, BY THE NUMBERS

25 30 88 1,298

INCLUDED IN THE LIST ARE UNIVERSITY EMPLOYEES, INCLUDING

THOSE FROM WESTERN, HURON, BRESCIA AND KING’S.

THE SUNSHINE LIST IS THE ANNUAL DISCLOSURE OF PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES IN ONTARIO WHO MAKE OVER $100,000. THIS YEAR, THERE WERE 115,431 EMPLOYEES WHO MADE A

COLLECTIVE $14,669,007,540.45.

IVEY AND SCHULICH COMBINED MADE UP 66 OF THE TOP 100

EARNERS.

TOTAL TOP PAID BY SECTOR

TOP PAID WESTERN EMPLOYEES BY FIELD

TOP 10 PAID OVERALL IN ONTARIO UNIVERSITIES

NAME SALARY UNIVERSITY POSITION

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

WILLIAM MORIARTY

CAMERON RICHARDS

DAREN SMITH

ADRIAN HUSSEY

JOHN KELTON

MICHAEL STRONG

JOHN HSU

MARK CROWTHER

MAMDOUH SHOUKRI

DEZSO HORVATH

$1,473,445.98

$710,263.96

$693,507.00

$547,714.04

$496,494.45

$487,126.00

$482,845.04

$474,278.40

$463,105.00

$461,741.28





MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

WESTERN UNIVERSITY


MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

YORK UNIVERSITY

YORK UNIVERSITY

PRESIDENT AND CEO

MANAGING DIRECTOR

MANAGING DIRECTOR

MANAGING DIRECTOR

DEAN AND VICE PRESIDENT


COO

PROFESSOR

PRESIDENT AND VICE CHANCELLOR

DEAN/PROFESSOR

The top salary at Western belonged to Michael Strong,

the dean of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry,

who earned $487,126.The top earner at a university last year was

University of Toronto CEO William Moriarty.

1,298 EMPLOYEES AT WESTERN MADE THE LIST THIS PAST YEAR,

UP FROM 1,247 IN 2014.

NUMBER OF WESTERN EMPLOYEES ON THE SUNSHINE LIST SINCE 2004

THIS FRIDAY, READ A FEATURE ONLINE ABOUT THE ROLE GENDER PLAYS IN

MOVING UP THE ACADEMIC RANKS AT WESTERN AND BEYOND.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS OF TOP SALARIES

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

MADE UP 84 PER CENT OF EMPLOYEES ON THE LIST

FROM WESTERN.

REFLECTING THE HIGH NUMBER OF IVEY

PROFESSORS ON WESTERN’S HIGHEST PAID LIST, BUSINESS

PROFESSORS ACROSS ONTARIO WERE THE HIGHEST

PAID.

PROFS MAKING OVER $300K INONTARIO BY FIELD

TOP 100 PAID PROFESSORS BY FACULTY

TOP PAID AT AFFILIATES


COLLEEN HANYCZ

DONNA ROGERS

ALICIA GARCIA

STEPHEN MCCLATCHIE

MARK BLAGRAVE

DAVID CONTER

DAVID SYLVESTER

SAURO CAMILETTI

JEFFREY MAJOR

$294,217.98

$205,770.81

$143,625.98

$242,545.08

$163,240.07

$153,401.68

$249,558.00

$224,015.04

$184,991.29

BRESCIA

BRESCIA

BRESCIA

HURON

HURON

HURON

KING’S

KING’S

KING’S

PRINCIPAL

INTERIM PRINCIPAL

DIRECTOR - GRAD STUDIES

PRINCIPAL

ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE DEAN

PROFESSOR

PRINCIPAL

VICE PRINCIPAL

VICE PRINCIPAL

$200000

$235000

$270000

$305000

$340000

$375000

ONE THING THAT BECOMES APPARENT

FROM LOOKING AT ALL THE DATA: FEMALES ARE

UNDERREPRESENTED IN ACADEMIA.

Western provost Janice Deakin was the highest paid administrator at Western. She is the second-highest

paid provost in Ontario.

pissing off the printer since 1906

Walking on sunshineThe Sunshine List, in charts. Page 6–7.

2 • TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2016 www.westerngazette.ca •

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YYou have two choices on a rainy day: stay indoors or dance in the rain.“You can’t control what is shown to you, but you can control how you look at it,” says Ben Withers, a part-time student at Western coming back to explore his options after completing a degree in kinesiology.

Upon graduating in the spring of 2014, the Mississauga native decided to spontaneously backpack across New Zealand after realizing he spent four years in a program he wasn’t happy in.

Coming to Western wasn’t fully Withers’ decision. In fact, it was a push from friends and family who prioritized the higher academic reputation.

Therefore, his backpacking trip became his first independent decision Withers made that got him away from all the variables that seemed to affect his decision-making.

After a tumultuous summer working in the biochemistry department at Western, Withers packed his bags and headed to Auckland.

He began his long-awaited journey of solitude and self-contemplation in order to answer the big question of what was next in his timeline.

“Travelling in itself cannot be understated as a valuable choice on its own,” he said. “There’s things you don’t even know that you don’t know, and you can only find that by jumping wholeheartedly into that abyss of uncertainty.”

Withers’ intense period of introspection opened his mind to capabilities he never realized he had. He found he needed to stop trying to blend in and go against the tide instead. He grew up putting restrictions on himself, which downplayed what he was truly capable of.

Withers had ideas in his head that were falsely protecting him from opportunity such as changing his appearance or changing his entire academic major. He felt as if society put limits on him and many other teens like him at the time in order to follow societal norms.

“When you come to realize that these ideas are self-imposed and you let go of them, [then] you step past them,” he said. “All of a sudden your whole life changes and you begin to see so much more about what’s going on.”

The lone Western student spent numerous nights trekking the forests and climbing the mountains of Queenstown, New Zealand until a spark in his heart put an early end to his journey. That’s when Withers made the decision to head home, work multiple jobs and return to Western to learn what he’d always wanted to delve into: physics.

His open-mindedness towards education also extends to being open-minded towards other cultures, religions and ideologies. In fact, Withers believes acceptance starts within our own realm here at Western before it can be extended to the outside world.

“The world is smaller than you think and boundaries and differences and categories that we place on different people in the world are within the same category about how we define the world,” he says.

For Withers, his pursuit of happiness is founded on the idea of challenging his perspective in faith, education, culture and life in general.

And it all began with challenging his perspective of his abilities.

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Student leaders take advocacy to Parliament HillHAMZA TARIQ BREAKING NEWS EDITOR@HAMZAATGAZETTE

Student leaders from some of the largest universities in Canada gathered in Ottawa last week as the federal budget was revealed to advocate for issues facing post-sec-ondary students.

The “Advocan” campaign high-lighted three major issues: limita-tions in the Canada Student Loans Program, challenges faced by inter-national students in Canada and youth unemployment.

Student representatives from Western University, the University of British Columbia, Queen’s University, the University of Toronto, the University of Waterloo, McMaster University and the University of Saskatchewan took part in the initiative and held meet-ings with cabinet ministers, mem-bers of parliament, Universities Canada and other stakeholders.

University Students’ Council president Sophie Helpard was pleased with the response the student leaders received on Parliament Hill and saw some of the campaign’s recommendations actually applied in the federal budget.

“A couple of things we can check off the list will be new investments in co-op programs as well as an amendment to the Canada Student Loans Program that shows previ-ously students had to start repay-ing their loans as soon as they filed

an income tax report of $20,000 a year and that was increased to $25,000,” she said.

According to Jude Crasta, presi-dent of UBC’s Alma Mater Society, MPs have been receptive tod issues and concerns regarding youth unemployment impacting current and graduating post-secondary students.

The federal budget already saw new investments in co-op pro-grams in the science and technol-ogy fields but Crasta hopes funding will also be expanded to social sci-ences and humanities programs.

MPs and ministers were also made aware of issues facing inter-national students in Canada. The campaign is advocating the federal government to remove the hourly restriction on international stu-dents for working off-campus dur-ing the duration of their studies.

According to a brief on Advocan released by the USC, the campaign is also recommending that the government “remove the require-ment to be enrolled as a full-time equivalent student in order to work without a work permit. The only restriction should be that these international students are working towards a degree.”

One major student issue that remains to be addressed by the federal government is the bor-rowing limit of the CSLP. The loan limit has not increased since 2004 and does not account for the ris-ing costs of living, tuition fees and

other student expenses.“We find students are going to

credit card companies or they are going to banks and they are get-ting these loans when they are 17 or 18 years old with high interest, higher payment plans and they are going further into debt,” said Sarah Letersky, vice-president university affairs at Queen’s University’s Alma Mater Society.

The student leaders are lobby-ing the government to increase the loan limit to $15,500 from the current $12,000 to bring it in line with living expenses in mid- and large-sized Canadian cities. They wrapped up most of their advo-cacy efforts on Parliament Hill last Thursday. This was the first year this group of universities came together for the Advocan campaign.

“This is the founding year of this coalition of student unions — there hasn’t been a change to the federal advocacy scene for student govern-ments in years so we are very proud to bring a new voice to the scene in Ottawa,” Helpard said.

Lindsee Perkins, USC vice-presi-dent external, added the advocacy campaign has been very effective and should even be expanded in future years.

“It’s been a great week and something we would really like to see moving forward with the rest of the schools that are currently a part of the coalition and we would love to see it expanded,” she said. n

Survey launched to gauge response to 15% policyDRISHTI KATARIA NEWS EDITOR@DRISHTATGAZETTE

Students have the opportunity to voice their opinion on whether they want professors to give 15 per cent of a final course grade back before the drop deadline.

Student senators have released a survey to garner student feed-back regarding this policy that has been proposed twice at Senate but was again sent back to committee at their meeting on March 11.

According to Emily Addison, chair of the student senators, the general response they’ve gotten so far is that students want feedback earlier in the semester.

The survey was released last week and will end during the first week of April.

“I have also heard that receiving 15 per cent of the course require-ment in the first few weeks will be beneficial ... as it will spread out the course load and may reduce stress levels as a result,” she said.

Addison emphasized the importance of student feedback through this survey so experiences of many students can be brought forth at the next Senate meeting to bring weight to the discussion.

Harry Orbach-Miller, social sci-ence and FIMS student senator, said although there will be con-cerns with regards to this policy that will have to be looked at, the survey will show that a united stu-dent opinion exists on this issue.

“This is something that will have such a widespread effect so I think it’s incredibly important we get people’s honest opinions,” he said.

He said in the survey many

students expressed legitimate con-cerns about course grade feedback from their professors.

Addison said the next course of action is for student senators to meet with faculty members within their respective faculties and gauge the type of responses.

Faculty members say this policy would require restructuring of many courses, but Addison hopes a middle ground can be found for faculty and students.

“I think this provides a lot of opportunities to professors to be creative with the way they are delivering assessment in courses, which I think is a great oppor-tunity to encourage a diversity of teaching techniques, which would improve the student experience in the classroom across the board,” Addison said.

Completing this survey will enter students in a draw to win one of five $20 gift cards to the Book Store at Western.

“This is an important change because learning is not a one-day endeavor, it is cumulative,” said Orbach-Miller. “When it comes to university, our assessment process should reflect that.” n

London reps react to budgetHAMZA TARIQ BREAKING NEWS EDITOR@HAMZAATGAZETTE

The federal budget has drawn dif-ferent reactions from various lev-els of government representatives in London — in particular with its effects on post-secondary students and rapid transit.

“I’m incredibly proud of this budget,” said Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal Member of Parliament for London North Centre.

Fragiskatos, a rookie MP and a former faculty member at King’s University College, said he met num-erous students during his teaching days who were worried about debt issues.

During the budget consultation period in February, he also met with various stakeholders in London, including the University Students’ Council, who cited similar concerns about student loan repayments and youth unemployment.

The Liberal government’s amend-ments to the Canada Student Loans Program revealed in the 2016 budget now allow post-secondary students to start paying back their loans once they have an annual income of $25,000 as opposed to the previous limit of $20,000.

“I think this is a policy response to what students have [been] calling [for] a long time,” Fragiskatos said.

Fragiskatos is also pleased with his government’s investments towards infrastructure growth in the country. The Liberals have allotted $11.9 billion towards new infra-structure investments over the next five years as part of their “Phase I of Canada’s New Infrastructure Plan.”

“When we invest in infra-structure, and there are various forms of infrastructure that we will be directing money towards — you’re actually helping build the country up,” he said.

Phil Squire, ward 6 city councillor, disagreed with Fragiskatos’ assess-ment of infrastructure spending and is worried about the big deficit that the federal government is intending to run.

“I worry given the experiences in the province of Ontario that running huge deficits leads to real restraint on the ability of the government to do the things they want to do, whether it is investing in infrastructure or investing in education,” he said.

The London city council is cur-rently developing a business plan for introducing rapid transit to deal with the city’s increasing transit woes.

Proposed plans, which include options such as a new rapid bus system to a light rail system, cost anywhere between $340 million to over $1 billion, according to Squire.

The city has pledged $125 million to the project but provincial and fed-eral assistance is vital for rapid tran-sit development in London. Squire does not think the federal funding will be adequate enough to help fully fund the projects.

“There is some concern because of the amount of money that was allocated … the kind of investment we need will not be forthcoming,” he said.

“The amount of money the federal government is spending is spread out in so many different areas.”

However, with the new invest-ments in education, infrastructure and other programs such as the Canada Child Benefit, Fragiskatos believes the budget will actually help Canada move forward.

“We have an economy that is experiencing difficulty right now,” he said. “We inherited a challenging economic situation but we’re putting forward a bold and ambitious plan that will benefit this country.” n

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Wiebe named student writer-in-residenceGRACE TO GAZETTE STAFF@NEWSATGAZETTE

Victoria Wiebe, a third-year psych-ology and creative writing student, has been chosen as the student writ-er-in-residence for the 2016–17 year.

With a range of writing and pub-lishing experience under her belt, she applied for the position because she wanted to make the broad com-munity at Western more aware of the creative resources that are available to them.

“The primary role of the student writer-in-residence is to engage the community,” said Wiebe. “London has a really great arts scene. We are basically looking to promote creative writing events and produce events for the Western student body.”

As president of the Creative Writing Club last year, her passion for the arts is evident. She hopes to promote creativity on-campus by offering her unique set of exper-tise and vision to aspiring student writers.

Her love of writing led her to take on leadership roles at Western. She was a part of the editorial board for Nom de Plume, the annual literary journal, and was pleased to see students from other faculties were submitting their creative pieces to be published. Today, she has a few published novels and poems.

“Poetry is something I got into in a more professional sense when I entered university,” explained Wiebe. “It’s really hard to write novels when you’re also doing school. [Poetry] used to be my out-let, but I guess I realized it could also be a professional art form as well.”

The writer-in-residence

program has only been active for five years. Wiebe will be the fifth student writer-in-residence in total and also the third one who is not a student from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

For the upcoming year, Wiebe aims to organize workshops that are tailored to students from all faculties, allowing collaborative work in a group setting. The goal of these workshops would be to foster creative ideas and develop skills in student writing.

She also envisions an access-ible feedback session on written pieces for students, similar to the Flashbang event that took place last year. The event allowed students to receive critiques from the writ-er-in-residence and student writ-er-in-residence at the time. Wiebe also feels it is important to show-case the creative work of Western students in order to appreciate the creativity that is constantly being nurtured on-campus.

From her experiences, Wiebe sees the importance of getting stu-dents to be involved in what they love.

“Just keep writing,” encouraged Wiebe. Get involved with your community. I didn’t understand or realize the kind of community that was available at Western until I really came here and decided to get involved.… Don’t underestimate the power of community.” n

Course evaluations move onlineJUDY BASMAJI GAZETTE STAFF@NEWSATGAZETTE

Goodbye end-of-term scantron papers and hello online survey: Western’s student course evalua-tions are going digital.

Besides being eco-friendly, the new student questionnaires on courses and teachers can offer customizable questions, course-long feedback and give students “the opportunity to provide feed-back when they want, where they want,” announced John Doerksen, Western’s vice-provost academic programs, earlier this week. The online questionnaires will use an assessment software called eXplor-ance and will be piloted at Western during the summer academic term to be launched in time for the 2016–17 school year.

The change comes after a joint working group was established last year to review the recommen-dations of the 2008 joint subcom-mittee on student evaluations of teaching. The working group consisted of four voting and three non-voting members, including Doerksen as a chair, two members from the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association, a graduate and an undergraduate student representative.

“We initially had conversations about this in a working group that included members of UWOFA and

[the] administration exploring vari-ous aspects of our course evalua-tion process,” Doerksen said. “One of the recommendations of that group was to explore the possibility of moving the course evaluations online and that report initially came out in June 2015.”

Doerksen said students will be provided with a link to access and complete the questionnaires within an allotted time slot during class; however, the online survey will then remain available for about two weeks in an effort to encourage student participation and to give them the chance to go back and make changes or provide further feedback in their own time.

The eXplorance software is currently used by other Canadian universities. In the past five years, schools like the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser, University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University have made the move to online questionnaires.

“This online evaluation tool is very well adapted to mobile devices as well as regular web delivery,” said Doerksen. “Students can start to provide feedback on the course right in class but ... a student can go back and add more comments or if they felt they weren’t able to finish during that 15-minute slot of class time.”

Students seem to believe that kind of availability would play an

important role in increasing the response rate, particularly as many students may not be present in class on course evaluation day.

“I think it’s more convenient especially because not everyone always goes to class,” said Audrey Cullis, a first-year medical science student. “I know my course evalu-ations for psychology … were handed out on St. Patrick’s Day, so no one was in the class.”

Another aspect of the program that stood out to most students is the push towards sustainability.

“I think it’s great especially from an environmental perspective,” said Valeria Tarasova, a third-year psychology student. “I think that would save a lot of paper if you think about how many question-naires and how many students there are.”

Still, Doerksen said it’s going to take a little while to develop the online questionnaire’s full function-ality, especially in time for fall 2016.

“We want to work carefully with our colleagues, students and instructors to make sure that there will be lots of opportunities for con-versation across campus around where the needs are,” Doerksen said. “We’ll try to work on this col-laboratively across campus to find the best solutions but I think if we get this right there will be some good benefits for instructors as well as for students. n

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Woke up too late to have breakfast? Have a breakfast food craving at 7 p.m.? The Wave has you covered, with French toast, waffles and breakfast tacos now available as part of their all-day breakfast menu.

“Breakfast has always been a big hit, especially with college students,” said Cris Cervoni, night manager at the Wave. “It’s tough to pull off, though, in a restaurant.”

The small feature menu only has five items: smashbrowns, house-made waffles, white chocolate sourdough French toast, breakfast tacos, and quiche and salad.

“We wanted to give them a little taste so that we can do a really nice breakfast here without slowing down service or anything like that,” Cervoni said. “So what we did is we put on a feature menu.”

The entire menu was put

together by the operations manager and former kitchen manager Mark Leonard.

Cervoni said the menu will be around until the end of the semes-ter. If certain menu items are a hit then they may come back in the

future. If you’ve pulled an all-nighter on

campus or woken up too late for breakfast make sure to stop by The Wave and try out this menu before it’s gone. n


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Husband and wife neuroscientists join WesternJULIE KIM GAZETTE STAFF@NEWSATGAZETTE

Two internationally acclaimed neuroscientists have arrived at Western to continue their research.

Tim Bussey and Lisa Saksida are a husband-and-wife duo who are now professors at Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry.

“At Western, we aim to take our research to the next level using new circuit-level techniques to understand the relationship between specific neural networks and cognition and [improve the] translation between preclinical and clinical research,” said Saksida in an email.

Previously, the couple special-ized in cognition research at the University of Cambridge in England, studying areas like learning, mem-ory, attention and problem-solving.

After a visit to Western last year, though, they decided to make the move to London, Ont. Saksida received her undergraduate degree in psychology at Western and she

said the research community at the school was a big draw to come back.

“We were really impressed, not just by the fantastic work going on here and the world-class facilities, but also by the enthusiasm of the research community,” Sakisda said. “We cooked up potential collabor-ations with just about every single person that we spoke to.”

In 2013, Western established cognitive neuroscience research as a priority. The University will pro-vide more than $10 million in invest-ments in coming years to enhance Western’s global leadership in the field and to recruit internationally renowned scientists.

“Western is very serious about cognitive neuroscience and [its] investment in this area really shows that,” Sakisda said. “Western’s world-wide profile in cognitive neurosci-ence has increased tremendously over the past few years. It is really rare to see an institutional com-mitment like this, but it is exactly this kind of continued support that researchers need to make real progress in tackling difficult and

complicated problems.”According to Saksida, the two

professors are currently working on building their new lab. Once it’s fully up and running, they’ll search for

motivated students who are inter-ested in researching the brain and its behaviour.

“We are both highly collabora-tive and believe that the best work

will come from working with others rather than working individually and being overly competitive,” said Saksida. “Plus, it really is way more fun that way.” n

Chakma disappears from Sunshine List

COURTESY OF WESTERN NEWS

KATIE LEAR NEWS EDITOR@KATIEATGAZETTE

Western’s 2015 salary disclosure was notable again for the same name, albeit for a slightly different reason this time: Amit Chakma didn’t make the list after coming in among the highest paid in all the province in 2014.

Nearly 1,300 Western employees earned over $100,000 in salary last year according to the university’s annual salary disclosure released on Thursday morning.

The highest salary on the list was awarded to the dean of the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Michael Strong, who received $487,126 in 2015.

Notably absent was president Chakma, who in April 2015 volun-tarily refunded half of his 2014 sal-ary — which was doubled for not taking a year of administrative leave — after backlash from the Western community.

“We hope that the actions that the president and the board’s taken since this arose a year ago ... we’re making some headway and people are feeling more comfortable,” said Hanny Hassan, chair of the Board of Governors.

1,298 employees were named on the disclosure, an increase of 51 employees from 2014. The top 25 salaries ranged from $287,601.24 to $487,126, and 19 of those earn-ers were male. Of the top earners, 12 were from the Ivey School of Business, five were senior admin-istrators, four were from Shulich, two were from law and one was from each of science and social science.

“We are satisfied that the salaries that Western faculties and staff get is as fair a compensation for what each of them do reflective of the responsibility, whether it’s academic or professional, and the credentials they’ve got and their years of ser-vice,” Hassan said of the volume of salaries over $100,000.

Hassan continued that a key ele-ment in providing the best student experience involves having the best people able to provide it, and so the salaries are competitive in order to

attract high-quality staff.Keith Marnoch, director media

relations at Western, said that the staff members on the list provides substantial value to Western.

“A look through the list shows individuals who play a key role in the delivery of Western’s mission of teaching and research in Canada and internationally. Ninety per cent of those on the list are faculty mem-bers,” Marnoch said in an email. “Their work, in many cases, has significant, positive impact here in Canada and around the world. Many also have long service records.”

At affiliate colleges, Brescia had 25 employees make the Sunshine List, Huron had 30 and King’s had 88. The highest earner at an affiliate college was former Brescia principal Colleen Hanycz who made $294,218 despite leaving her post mid-way through the year.

Despite the high number of staff on the list, USC president Sophie Helpard finds the disclosure to be a positive step for the university.

“I think students should be very happy that the Sunshine List is a mechanism for transparency and something that keeps staff and fac-ulty as accountable as possible,” Helpard said. “Western is a huge institution as seen by the amount of employees seen on the list, but I do think it reflects just how many people it takes to keep a school like this running.” n

COURTESY OF WESTERN UNIVERSITYSchulich dean Michael Strong was the highest paid employee at Western in 2015 with a salary of $487,126.


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GRAPHICS BY JENNIFER FELDMAN & JORDAN MCGAVIN GAZETTE


Western =

7.6%


UW

O

King’s

Huron

Brescia



1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

MARK CROWTHER

GLEN WHYTE

WILLIAM MITCHELL

AKBAR PANJU

MOHAMED ELBESTAWI

WILLIAM STRANGE

PETER PAULY

RICHARD KIM

VAROUJ AIVAZIAN

JOHN HULL

$474,278.40

$439,780.34

$426,129.02

$422,560.77

$421,759.46

$416,319.42

$416,175.02

$414,940.20

$411,081.50

$397,443.42

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY



MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY



WESTERN UNIVERSITY



MEDICINE

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

MEDICINE

ENGINEERING

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

MEDICINE

ECONOMICS

BUSINESS





1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

MICHAEL STRONG

ROBERT KENNEDY

RICHARD KIM

ROBERT SOLOMON

JANICE DEAKIN

KELLY COLE

W. IAIN SCOTT

PRATIMA BANSAL

PAUL BEAMISH

WALID BUSABA

$487,126.00

$444,999.84

$414,940.20

$378,719.59

$343,000.08

$323,999.96

$315,000.00

$313,028.26

$312,895.24

$310,788.78


DEAN / PROFESSOR


PROFESSOR



DEAN

PROFESSOR

PROFESSOR

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

FIELD




LAW

ADMINISTRATION

ADMINISTRATION

LAW




20042005

20062007

20082009

20102011

20122013

20142015

0

100

200

300

400

500

PROFESSOR

ASSOCIATE P

ROFESSOR

ASSISTA

NT PROFESSOR

LECTURER


25 30 88 1,298




COLLECTIVE $14,669,007,540.45.


EARNERS.





1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

WILLIAM MORIARTY

CAMERON RICHARDS

DAREN SMITH

ADRIAN HUSSEY

JOHN KELTON

MICHAEL STRONG

JOHN HSU

MARK CROWTHER

MAMDOUH SHOUKRI

DEZSO HORVATH

$1,473,445.98

$710,263.96

$693,507.00

$547,714.04

$496,494.45

$487,126.00

$482,845.04

$474,278.40

$463,105.00

$461,741.28





MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

WESTERN UNIVERSITY


MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

YORK UNIVERSITY

YORK UNIVERSITY

PRESIDENT AND CEO

MANAGING DIRECTOR

MANAGING DIRECTOR

MANAGING DIRECTOR



COO

PROFESSOR


DEAN/PROFESSOR






UP FROM 1,247 IN 2014.





ACADEMIC POSITIONS


FROM WESTERN.




PAID.





COLLEEN HANYCZ

DONNA ROGERS

ALICIA GARCIA

STEPHEN MCCLATCHIE

MARK BLAGRAVE

DAVID CONTER

DAVID SYLVESTER

SAURO CAMILETTI

JEFFREY MAJOR

$294,217.98

$205,770.81

$143,625.98

$242,545.08

$163,240.07

$153,401.68

$249,558.00

$224,015.04

$184,991.29

BRESCIA

BRESCIA

BRESCIA

HURON

HURON

HURON

KING’S

KING’S

KING’S

PRINCIPAL

INTERIM PRINCIPAL


PRINCIPAL


PROFESSOR

PRINCIPAL

VICE PRINCIPAL

VICE PRINCIPAL

$200000

$235000

$270000

$305000

$340000

$375000







know


Western =

7.6%


UW

O

King’s

Huron

Brescia



1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

MARK CROWTHER

GLEN WHYTE

WILLIAM MITCHELL

AKBAR PANJU

MOHAMED ELBESTAWI

WILLIAM STRANGE

PETER PAULY

RICHARD KIM

VAROUJ AIVAZIAN

JOHN HULL

$474,278.40

$439,780.34

$426,129.02

$422,560.77

$421,759.46

$416,319.42

$416,175.02

$414,940.20

$411,081.50

$397,443.42

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY



MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

MCMASTER UNIVERSITY



WESTERN UNIVERSITY



MEDICINE

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

MEDICINE

ENGINEERING

BUSINESS

BUSINESS

MEDICINE

ECONOMICS

BUSINESS





1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

MICHAEL STRONG

ROBERT KENNEDY

RICHARD KIM

ROBERT SOLOMON

JANICE DEAKIN

KELLY COLE

W. IAIN SCOTT

PRATIMA BANSAL

PAUL BEAMISH

WALID BUSABA

$487,126.00

$444,999.84

$414,940.20

$378,719.59

$343,000.08

$323,999.96

$315,000.00

$313,028.26

$312,895.24

$310,788.78


DEAN / PROFESSOR


PROFESSOR



DEAN

PROFESSOR

PROFESSOR

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

FIELD




LAW

ADMINISTRATION

ADMINISTRATION

LAW




20042005

20062007

20082009

20102011

20122013

20142015

0

100

200

300

400

500

PROFESSOR

ASSOCIATE P

ROFESSOR

ASSISTA

NT PROFESSOR

LECTURER


25 30 88 1,298




COLLECTIVE $14,669,007,540.45.


EARNERS.





1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

WILLIAM MORIARTY

CAMERON RICHARDS

DAREN SMITH

ADRIAN HUSSEY

JOHN KELTON

MICHAEL STRONG

JOHN HSU

MARK CROWTHER

MAMDOUH SHOUKRI

DEZSO HORVATH

$1,473,445.98

$710,263.96

$693,507.00

$547,714.04

$496,494.45

$487,126.00

$482,845.04

$474,278.40

$463,105.00

$461,741.28





MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

WESTERN UNIVERSITY


MCMASTER UNIVERSITY

YORK UNIVERSITY

YORK UNIVERSITY

PRESIDENT AND CEO

MANAGING DIRECTOR

MANAGING DIRECTOR

MANAGING DIRECTOR



COO

PROFESSOR


DEAN/PROFESSOR






UP FROM 1,247 IN 2014.





ACADEMIC POSITIONS


FROM WESTERN.




PAID.





COLLEEN HANYCZ

DONNA ROGERS

ALICIA GARCIA

STEPHEN MCCLATCHIE

MARK BLAGRAVE

DAVID CONTER

DAVID SYLVESTER

SAURO CAMILETTI

JEFFREY MAJOR

$294,217.98

$205,770.81

$143,625.98

$242,545.08

$163,240.07

$153,401.68

$249,558.00

$224,015.04

$184,991.29

BRESCIA

BRESCIA

BRESCIA

HURON

HURON

HURON

KING’S

KING’S

KING’S

PRINCIPAL

INTERIM PRINCIPAL


PRINCIPAL


PROFESSOR

PRINCIPAL

VICE PRINCIPAL

VICE PRINCIPAL

$200000

$235000

$270000

$305000

$340000

$375000







knowsports

Dream of NLL still alive for Jones-Smith

The future of weightlifting at the Rec CentreKSENIA KOLODKA GAZETTE STAFF@SPORTSATGAZETTE

The gym is not only an important place for those making New Year’s resolutions, but also a place where students take their weightlifting training seriously.

Many students train at the Western Student Recreation Centre because of its convenient location on-campus and the fact that it’s less expensive than joining a powerlifting gym, seeing as membership fees are included in tuition. However, train-ing at the WSRC comes with its own challenges.

Christine Ecclestone, a first-year master’s of physiotherapy student and powerlifter, says she sometimes notices Olympic weightlifters using squat racks for exercises that don’t need to be done there. Olympic weightlifting takes up a lot of space because it requires moving a loaded barbell around and above the ath-lete’s body.

Ecclestone was put in a danger-ous situation once when she was training because of the tight space in the squat rack area.

“I actually moved because I thought [the Olympic weightlifter] was going to drop [the barbell] on me,” Ecclestone said.

Michelle Harvey, WSRC program coordinator, says the Rec Centre is not a good training space for serious weightlifters.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “We don’t have the space for them to do what they need to do safely.”

Ecclestone powerlifts at the

WSRC three times a week, so a safe space is a priority for her and for the other dedicated weightlifters around her.

Ben Dietze, a third-year kinesiol-ogy student, has been powerlifting since he was 13 years old and is now going for national records. He trains exclusively at the WSRC and says his experience has been fantastic. However, he would like to see more competition resources to facilitate powerlifting.

“I understand you have to cater to the whole crowd — it’s not just

powerlifters that use this gym exclu-sively — but … calibrated plates and competition racks would be super helpful,” he said.

Ecclestone agrees that having calibrated plates would be a great improvement. The WSRC currently has coated hexagonal plates that are difficult to use while deadlift-ing and old uncoated round plates that, according to Harvey, are falling apart.

Harvey explains lifting plat-forms cannot be installed because the weight room lacks appropriate

space. However, she says if a weight-lifting club becomes ratified, lifters could have specific times during which they would be able to use var-sity athlete weightlifting resources — including proper lifting platforms and calibrated plates.

Additionally, rubber-coated round plates will be delivered to the WSRC weight room by early 2017.

There hasn’t been a varsity weightlifting team in the 10 years Harvey has worked at Western. Dietze says having a weightlift-ing club would be the first step to

creating a varsity team; both he and Ecclestone would be interested in joining if one were to be organized.

When asked if more resources could be added to facilitate the inter-ests of all gym goers, Harvey says “If we had an expansion, absolutely.”

For the time being, the weight room provides adequate resources for those interested in the sports of Olympic weightlifting and power-lifting. To adapt to all members’ needs, however, the WSRC would require an expansion. n

SHANE ROBERTS SPORTS EDITOR@SHANEATGAZETTE

When Western lacrosse star player Jordi Jones-Smith was 12 years old, he almost quit lacrosse. After get-ting cut from a competitive lacrosse team in Whitby, Jones-Smith was discouraged.

“I kind of thought I was going to finish lacrosse,” recalled Jones-Smith. “I didn’t really know if I wanted to play anymore.”

Fortunately, a few weeks later, he received an important phone call that boosted his morale.

“I ended up getting a call back from the coach like two weeks later and he said, ‘We want you back on the team,’ so that was big,” said Jones-Smith.

But a few years later, he got cut again and it stung once more.

“It was tough for me growing up because I got cut quite a bit. I worked through quite a bit of adver-sity,” said Jones-Smith. “It was just upsetting but you’ve got to push on through.”

The coach that cut him from the teams in Whitby was professional lacrosse coach Derek Keenan.

Keenan is currently the head coach and general manager of the Saskatchewan Rush in the National Lacrosse League. Even though he cut Jones-Smith from his teams a few times, he definitely had a large impact on the development of Jones-Smith as a player.

“I grew up playing for [Keenan] my whole life,” said Jones-Smith. “He’s an unbelievable coach. He’s won multiple titles of best coach in the NLL and he just knows how to win.

“He ... always pushed us to that next level,” he added.

The fourth-year criminology student also attributes much of his success as a lacrosse player to his older brother A.J., who also played lacrosse in Whitby.

“Watching my brother play was unbelievable,” said Jones-Smith. “He was an offensive player and I always wanted to be like him.”

Shortly after Jones-Smith started playing lacrosse, A.J. actually quit the sport because he lost his pas-sion for the game. However, after watching the success of his young brother, A.J. has recently decided to give lacrosse another try.

“It’s funny that Jordi started playing lacrosse after watching me because watching him play lacrosse

when I was a lot older got me back into playing,” said A.J. “I’d go watch his games and it made me miss the sport and actually made me get back into it.”

Another factor in A.J.’s return to the sport is the opportunity he was given to play with his younger brother this summer.

The two of them will be compet-ing for a Canadian club team named the Clarington Green-Gaels in a tournament in May in Prague, Czech Republic. It is an international tour-nament against club teams from all over Europe, similar to the Spengler Cup hockey tournament.

As for his time with the Western Mustangs, it’s clear Jones-Smith has

had a lot of success in his four years on the team. He has helped bring the team to the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association final twice and has been a leader on the team.

However, he did not always know he was going to be a Mustang. Some interest from division III colleges in the United States almost lured him out of the country to play lacrosse.

“A lot of kids go down to the States just for the title of going down to the States. For me it’s more about the education,” said Jones-Smith. “CUFLA is getting better every year and the quality of lacrosse is getting better and I’m happy with my deci-sion [to stay in Canada], especially

with the education.”It was certainly the right decision

for Jones-Smith to go to Western when you look at all he has accom-plished this year. He helped lead the Mustangs to a second-place finish in the CUFLA championship in November and he got drafted into the NLL in September.

Although the New England Black Wolves took him in the sixth round of the entry draft, he unfortu-nately did not make the roster after attending a tryout with the team in November.

Jones-Smith said a large factor in his lack of success at the tryout with the Black Wolves was the difficult transition from playing field lacrosse all fall with Western to playing box lacrosse indoors.

“In field lacrosse, I’m more of an offensive player but in box lacrosse I just sometimes can’t bury,” said Jones-Smith.

Western lacrosse head coach Jeremy Tallevi thinks that making these improvements won’t be too difficult for Jones-Smith.

“I think Jordi’s got a great chance [of making the NLL],” Tallevi said. “He’s got a great attitude.... I’m con-fident that he’s going to put in the hard work and be able to make that step.”

However, despite his high pros-pects of making the NLL in the future, Jones-Smith admits that making it as a pro lacrosse player is not his number one goal right now.

“My main goal right now is trying to get my marks up and try to go to law school,” he said. “Lacrosse is kind of a byproduct of it. Hopefully I make it to the NLL, but my main goal is to try and go to law school and make something of that.” n

KYLE PORTER GAZETTE

KSENIA KOLODKA GAZETTE


insight

MOSES MONTERROZA ARTS & LIFE EDITOR@MOSESATGAZETTE

Rarely do we get to put our post-sec-ondary education system into per-spective from an international level. Interestingly, higher education in countries like India isn’t too differ-ent from the West.

A team of scientific minds flew to Agra, India in mid-February to attend a series of workshops centred around the subject of astronomy.

They stayed at Anand Engineering College, a relatively new institution founded in 1998, home to approximately 3,500 stu-dents. While unrepresentative of India as a whole, Anand provides a closer look at how educational sys-tems operate outside Canada.

Right from the outset, colleges in India focus primarily on the practicality and compartmental-ization of knowledge. As a result, there is a great focus on STEM studies because of their higher job prospects.

“It’s true, plenty of my own friends simply follow this track — school, pre-university college, engineering and then a job,” says 23-year-old Krishna Kumar Kowshik, a research scholar at RNS Institute of Technology in Bangalore, India. “Most of the parents want their kids to go into engineering. They want them to have a proper job — it’s all about money.”

Kowshik is part of a small minor-ity of students who wish to pursue research in the field of physics. In an economy where job security is more important than the acqui-sition of knowledge, it’s a daring career choice.

“To me, money comes and money goes and maybe that’s just my opinion,” says Kowshik. “A lot of people value money differently, but that’s not life. To the people who have got so-called IT jobs [and] still complain about ‘oh, I hate my com-pany, I hate my boss,’ then why did

you study that? You wasted 15 years of your life to say things like that?”

The battle between follow-ing your interests and building a secure future for a possible family is something that’s universal. As higher education becomes increas-ingly commodified with increasing competitiveness and rising tuition prices, the pursuit of knowledge wanes in comparison to the pursuit of building a comfortable lifestyle.

In Canada, we’ve recently seen enrolment in arts and humanities degrees plunge to an all-time low. Maritime post-secondary institu-tions saw enrolment decreases of up to 88.16 per cent in English majors. The trend comes at a time where popular conceptions of human-ities majors include career paths like Starbucks baristas and burger-flip-ping fast food cooks.

For Indian students like Christopher Alex, a post-graduate student in history at the University of Delhi, the lack of support for humanities education is felt in India as well.

“There is a stereotype that advanced knowledge only exists in science and technology,” Alex says. “That modernity is always complemented with science and maths. If you are knowledgeable in maths and sciences you have done something good, you have done something better in your life than to study philosophy or arts or liter-ature. ‘Why should we read all those things?’ they say. ‘None of these are professional courses.’ ”

At its core, it would appear as though higher learning is becom-ing a means to an end. Rather than serving its initial purpose of spread-ing knowledge, it has become a job manufacturer, ensuring people obtain their desired careers.

Aishwarya Ashok, a 22-year-old research assistant who also works with Kowshik, explains the grow-ing apathy towards learning and the pursuit of knowledge.

“A lot of kids will just want a degree, good grades and a good job [and] nothing else,” says Ashok. “It’s kind of bad in the sense that they focus more on the degree and not the knowledge. If you can’t get a degree then you can’t get a job and if you can’t get a job then you will be poorly looked at in society.”

But while the perspectives of Ashok, Kowshik and Alex lean more on the cynical side of the educa-tional system, others like Deepakshi Madaan, a Western master’s student in applied mathematics, have main-tained a positive outlook.

Throughout her four years study-ing at the Jesus and Mary College, Delhi University, Madaan noticed a significant difference in student engagement, especially in the face of corruption.

When reports of a shooting two kilometres away from her dormitory became public through media and news outlets, students and faculty members gathered together to spread awareness of the inherent social problems.

“I remember I was protesting,” says Madaan. “The whole college marched from where the incident happened, and walked all through-out the campus.

“It brought a lot of people together. People were asking ques-tions like what happened to the police? What happened to security? Why was this never noticed?” con-tinues Madaan.

Conversely, it is relatively rare to see students protest in Canada. The last significant bout against the sys-tem was fought by Quebec students over tuition prices. The protests have since experienced a resur-gence and continues to be one of the only major student bodies pro-testing; however, it’s also relatively rare for students to have something to protest about.

Of the many differences and sim-ilarities between India and the West, the one constant that remains - at least with our best students - is the desire to use education as a tool to augment our lives and brighten our futures.

“I want to use my historical knowledge to analyze societal prob-lems so that one day I can make a better society,” says Alex. “How exactly am I going to do that? I don’t exactly know, but I’m still figuring it out.” n

Education in India vs. the West

PHOTOS BY MOSES MONTERROZA GAZETTE


insightopinions

Editorials are decided by a majority of the editorial board and are written by a member of the editorial board but are not necessarily the expressed opinion of each editorial board member. All other opinions are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the USC, The Gazette, its editors or staff. To submit a letter, go to westerngazette.ca and click on “Contact.”

BY A WESTERN STUDENT

When the results of the Ghomeshi trial came in, I waited with bated breath. Like clockwork, my Dad was ready with his bullets. “These women just want attention and money. They always do this.”

It was the same thing he said when women began speaking up against Bill Cosby, when more and more women and stories coming to light. It was the same thing he said when people chanted the phrase #FreeKesha, when she accused her producer at Sony of raping her.

He’s not the only one that has said these words either.

With every sexual assault case that comes to the attention of public media, there is a consistent shift of blame to the victims. Unfortunately, there is an automatic correlation between winning a trial and a victim being believed.

My friends no longer ask me why I never reported him when it happened, because they, like I, know that there would be no point.

The thing about memory is it’s a finicky thing.I no longer remember the details of the incident —

just a few specifics and the overwhelming emotions.I could tell you that it was prom night and that I

had been with six friends.I could tell you who took me up to bed when they

knew I had had one too many drinks.I could tell you that he came into my bed a few

hours later and I was woken up by his lips pressed against mine.

I could tell you that I said no, not once, not twice, not three times, but more.

And I could tell you that it happened anyways. That at 8 a.m., he walked out of the room, zipped up his pants and told me I should probably put some clothes on.

I couldn’t however, tell you the details. I remem-ber coming home from work that day, to my friend, and crying, and telling him everything in detail — every single vivid memory, broken up by tears. But now, three years later, I struggle to remember that conversation.

There are a few things that stick. There is the mem-ory of being told that when my friend confronted him, he punched a glass window in anger, yelling, why would I even want to rape her.

As if I wasn’t worthy of his sexual desires — as if I wasn’t “good enough” for him to even want to assault.

If the outcome of the Ghomeshi trial has taught me one thing, it has taught me that to be a victim of sexual assault, you must remember the facts. You must remember all of the details, and you must be ready to admit every single encounter, and form of encounter, with your assailant.

In Justice William B. Horkins’ verdict, he identifies that after looking at the evidence brought forward by the complaints, there is reasonable doubt, which is enough to acquit Ghomeshi of all charges.

However, he also states, “It is difficult for me to believe that someone who was choked as part of a sexual assault, would consider kissing sessions with the assailant both before and after the assault.”

Two months after my prom date (and best friend) raped me, I slept with him again.

Right now, I struggle to remember the details of how it even happened. Initially, I told him I never wanted him in my life again — he was my best friend, and he had taken advantage of me in a way that I would have never been able to fathom.

When he reached out to me the summer after, however, trying to fix the friendship that had been so brutally broken, I remember wanting to make it right again. I remember convincing myself that he

had been my best friend for four years — we had a previous friendship that I would be giving up. In my head, maybe if I consented the second, or third time we slept together, then perhaps it made up for the first time that I never wanted.

According to the judge’s interpretation of the events, however, it would bring into question the fact that the first time I was raped — because how could someone who has been so violated still try and form a relationship with their abuser?

According to the judge, the fact that I was best friends with my rapist prior to the incident, the fact that I had admitted to having strong feelings for him prior to the incident and the fact that I still have a mixture of love and hatred for him, would make me an inconsistent witness and would call into question my reliability.

I do not know the stories of the complainants — I do not know anything beyond the facts revealed to the public in the case itself. I do, however, know my story — and the facts of the matter remain that previous or post sexual history with an individual, does not change the fact that consent is necessary every single time.

The fact remains that only 1-2 per cent of date-rapes — rape that involves some form of relation-ship with the assaulter — that happen in Canada are actually reported to the police.

Last year, my prom date sent me a message saying sorry for what he did. That “he knew it was wrong,” and “you don’t have to forgive me, because it was unforgivable.”

Two years after the incident, I finally was able to realize that even I doubted my own story — that just like the media tends to do, I sought out all of the complexities of our relationship, and all of the ways that I was an inconsistent victim. I searched for all of the ways in which I was at fault and until he finally admitted to his actions, I was always trying to justify his actions.

I’ve read the 25-page document on the judge’s decision. I have read through his condescension towards the complainants, but I have also read about all of the inconsistencies of all of the complainants, and as painful as it is to say, the inconsistencies and lies within the courtroom make a conviction hard. Like the judge concludes, it is important to remember that the fact that Ghomeshi cannot be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean that the assaults did not occur.

As a woman on the other side of this case, I simply ask that every person who discusses the outcome of this trial begins to understand the complexities of sexual assault and that there should not be a correla-tion between winning a case and believing the victim.

I ask the public to understand that victims will rarely have perfect recollections of events, and that more often that not, there is a complicated relation-ship. I also ask the public to realize that in the case of a criminal trial, just because the law was on Ghomeshi’s side, does not mean that women shouldn’t speak out even if they’re not believed.

What matters is not what a judge says, what the media says or what the public debate is. Sexual assault is complex and it’s almost never black and white. While it may be hard for survivors to find justice because there will always be doubt from someone, it’s important to listen to these cases from a place of understanding rather than looking to pick apart someone’s story.

I know if I sat in that courtroom, I wouldn’t be able to stand up to the scrutiny — but that doesn’t make my story any less true. n

The Ghomeshi witnesses could

have been me

The criminal justice system failed the victims of assault in Ghomeshi case

KATIE LEAR NEWS EDITOR@KATIEATGAZETTE

Everyone’s talking about the out-come of the Jian Ghomeshi trial after he was acquitted of all charges against him last Thursday, so let’s get straight to the point.

This was, and still is, a huge blow for survivors all over the country who’d tuned in, hoping they’d see justice on such a public stage with such a well-recognized name.

But it’s not a surprising development.

An important fact of this case to keep in mind is that Ghomeshi did not testify during his trial — the judgement was entirely based on the credibility of the witnesses.

“Each charge presented against Mr. Ghomeshi is based entirely on the evidence of the complainant,” read the verdict. “Given the nature of the allegations this is not unusual or surprising; however it is significant because, as a result, the judgment of this Court depends entirely on an assessment of the credibility and the reliability of each complainant as a witness.”

The credibility of these witnesses hinged several times on the fact that the sequencing of events was out of order or inaccurate. Issues raised in the hearing included the fact that the first complainant, L.R., was unable to recall the exact sequen-cing of events; the second accuser, Lucy DeCoutere, had a continued relationship with Ghomeshi; and the third, S.D., misrepresented her relationship with Ghomeshi.

In Dec. 2014, Time Magazine published an article describing how trauma survivors remember the event. The article suggests that selective focus and a lessened abil-ity to encode memories in accurate progression is common because the amygdala and hippocampus take over the fear response. This leads to attention being focused on “other-wise meaningless details.

“What gets attention tends to be fragmentary sensations, not the many different elements of the unfolding assault. And what gets attention is what is most likely to get encoded into memory.... Fear also impairs [the hippocampus’] ability to encode time sequencing infor-mation, like whether the perpetra-tor ripped off a shirt before or after saying ‘you want this.’ “

Bringing DeCoutere’s relation-ship with Ghomeshi after the assault not only allows for Justice Horkins to evaluate the motive behind her cor-respondence as he sees fit, but ree-mphasizes the narrative of a ‘good victim’. A good victim of assault fights back. A good victim cuts off ties with their abuser. A good victim reports what occurred immediately.

By extension, a bad victim – one who does not fit this narrative – is seen to be lying.

My original intention on writ-ing this column had been to pick the evidence apart piece by piece and show where the judge erred

in understanding the position of victims of assault. But the reality is the survivors’ explanations of their behaviour unfortunately justifies reasonable doubt.

Instead, the column I can write is one that urges us to change the way sexual assault trials proceed to reflect the situation of surviv-ors. The current burden of proof model allows for inconsistencies in sequencing of events – a well docu-mented response to trauma – to be used as damning evidence against survivors.

It’s not enough to say that this will change the discussion we have on sexual assault cases. We’ve said that time and time again – after Kesha, after Cosby, to name a few notable cases in recent memory. We say this will change the discussion like it’s a natural, acceptable price for the victims of sexual assault to pay.

And now, it’s on the survivors to respond rationally. To make a very real and debilitating sense of exhaustion, sadness and hopeless-ness palatable to a larger society that so far doesn’t seem to care.

Every sexual assault trial emer-ges as a discussion on the credibil-ity of survivors in a way that’s not mirrored in assault cases or murder cases.

I’m not saying that we need to automatically believe everyone who reports sexual violence as fact. But I think to say we have a system where belief is the starting point is false and ridiculous. According to a report released by Statistics Canada in 2014, 95 per cent of sex-ual assaults were not reported to the police in 2014.

Can we blame them?And finally, Justice William

Horkins’ quote that has been mak-ing the rounds:

“Courts must guard against applying false stereotypes con-cerning the expected conduct of complainants. I have a firm under-standing that the reasonableness of reactive human behaviour in the dynamics of a relationship can be variable and unpredictable. However, the twists and turns of the complainants’ evidence in this trial, illustrate the need to be vigilant in avoiding the equally dangerous false assumption that sexual assault complainants are always truthful. Each individual and each unique factual scenario must be assessed according to their own particular circumstances.”

We have set up a system where survivors are penalized for with-holding information due to the very real fear that their assault will be viewed as less valid contingent on their actions, as reinforced by pub-lic discourse and trials like this one alike. Until we set up a system that recognizes this, we need to under-stand that survivors feel the need to tread the line between painting the full picture of their assault and the picture where they’re most likely to get a conviction, as that often is the best road they can take for the justice they deserve.

If you or someone you know is in need of immediate counselling, the Sexual Assault Centre London has a 24-hour crisis and support line at 519-438-2272. n

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Sleeping Beauty comes to LondonRICHARD JOSEPH ARTS & LIFE EDITOR@RJATGAZETTE

This upcoming Thursday marks the London premiere of Sleeping Beauty by Canada’s Ballet Jörgen, currently touring across Canada and the United States.

The company, under artistic dir-ector Bengt Jörgen, has put together a brand new production of the clas-sic ballet. It’s a story we’re all familiar with; a sleeping princess woken up by the kiss of a handsome prince, with the addition of a seasonal motif – summer, spring, winter, autumn.

Kealan McLaughlin, one of the dancers for the company, is prac-ticing for a few different roles. The ballet operates on a rotating cast – he’s danced multiple characters, among them Bluebird, a suitor, and the Prince himself. This also means he has to radically change his style with every performance.

“If it’s a character that’s all about bravado, then the performance has to be all about bravado,” he says. “Bluebird, for example, comes out like he’s been shot out of a cannon, you just don’t worry about anything and keep going, jump around, move on.”

The Prince, though, has an entirely different attitude. McLaughlin also performed the Prince in Cinderella, and recalls that the role was fairly static and happy. Sleeping Beauty’s Prince, by

contrast, has more of a narrative arc, from despondent to desperate.

“It’s fun to go out there and dance a solo that’s really sanguine, longing, and then right to urgent — he’s really looking for her,” he says.

McLaughlin started dancing when he was six, but the impulse was in him even before then. When the theme for the final Jeopardy question started playing, he would get up on the table and “shake [his] booty,” much to the amusement of his mother.

“I asked my mother what I was doing and she said I was dancing,” he says. “I asked what kind of dance and she listed off every kind. When she got to ballet, I said – that’s it, I want to do that. And it seems to be the right choice, because I’ve never looked back.”

When McLaughlin joined Canada’s Ballet Jörgen, he quickly realized it wasn’t your average ballet company. To decide on the produc-tion for the season, they put out a poll within the company and then on their Facebook group so the fans and cast could vote.

A simple method, but one that expresses the mission of the com-pany well – they’re for the people. Big names like National Ballet of Canada and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, says McLaughlin, tend to perform at the same few loca-tions. By contrast, Jörgen tries to do every province, every season.

Their mandate is to get every child in Canada to see some kind of bal-let performance twice before they graduate high school, and they often engage in outreach with Canadian schools and education.

“We’re reaching a really interest-ing audience, in communities that don’t often get ballet brought in,” McLaughlin explains. “I’m getting to see the country for what it really is, province to province.”

On a more personal level, he sees the company as a sort of family. It’s a smaller group, with only around 20 dancers this year, compared to most professional ballet companies with up to 80 dancers. Each personality, he explains, is felt with that much more intensity. The members have a Facebook group where they’ll often

organize a movie night, or even just go for a walk and invite others.

“All of us are very connected,” he says. “That’s something that really does stand out in the bal-let community. It’s a pretty warm atmosphere, and it’s a place where

everybody’s supportive — that’s something that I thrive on.”

Sleeping Beauty will be playing at the Grand Theatre on Thursday, March 31 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $70.50. n

10 Cloverfield Lane a character-driven joyrideELLIS KOIFMAN ARTS & LIFE EDITOR@GAZETTECULTURE

GGGGF10 Cloverfield LaneDIRECTOR: Dan TrachtenbergSTARRING: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr.

Looking to answer some of the many questions J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield left you with? 10 Cloverfield Lane is a good place to start.

10 Cloverfield Lane, an indirect sequel to Cloverfield, is a thriller rid-dled with mysteries and twists that make for a very interesting and pri-marily character-driven story.

The story follows protagon-ist Michelle (Winstead), who wakes up in a cell in a bunker at 10 Cloverfield lane following an accident. She is told by her captor Howard (Goodman) that he saved her from a car crash and the outside world is gone — everyone is dead or dying from the fallout of a chemical weapons attack.

From the get-go, Michelle is smart, quick on her feet and very resourceful. She wastes no time in getting her bearings straight, attempting to escape and inves-tigating the many mysteries that shroud Howard and the bunker. Winstead’s acting makes the audi-ence feel like they are peering into her post-apocalyptic experience, rather than watching a movie about it.

Howard, on the other hand, seems a little off. He has a sinister kindness to him that is both warm-ing and unsettling. Though perhaps best known for his comedic acting, Goodman plays one hell of a serious character. His personality is just what you would expect of a con-spiracy theorist with a doomsday bunker under his farm.

Then there is Emmett (Gallagher Jr.), a simple farm boy who quickly accepts the reality presented to him in the bunker — the outside world is no more. He has a quiet personality and tries to make the most out of the situation, which is poorly received by the menacing Howard.

The movie reflects a typical world’s-end-stuck-in-a-bunker film – canned food rations, limited water supply, cut off from the out-side world, struggling to get along with the everyday company.

But there are some details that don’t quite add up about the char-acters, creating an ominous and bone-chilling sense of unease. As the story develops, the bunker becomes more interesting – with shocks, twists and scary details – and the pieces that don’t add up start to come together in a horrify-ing way. Of course, some details will be left open to speculation — it’s J.J. Abrams after all.

The intense musical score is supplemented by Bear McCreary, keeping you on the edge of your seat and fitting perfectly to every scene. Known for his musical scores in Battlestar Galactica and The Walking Dead, he draws in the audience with each well-paced beat.

This film is a joyride that leaves you wondering what Michelle’s next move will be and whether that sink-ing feeling you had will be validated. Finding out truths about the char-acters — mainly Howard — and the world they now live in isn’t all left until the end of the film. Instead, you are given bits and pieces that leave you satisfied until the big reveals.

10 Cloverfield Lane is is a surpris-ingly thrilling movie for one that is set almost entirely in a bunker. The sounds, acting and scenery con-stantly push the bubble, making it a fantastic experience. n

COURTESY OF BALLET JÖRGEN CANADA


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Two students from the Korean Students Association who performed in the UCC on Monday.

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Tuesday, March 29, 2016