Tuesday, March 31, 2015

thegazetteTUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2015 WESTERN UNIVERSITY • CANADA’S ONLY DAILY STUDENT NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED 1906 VOLUME 108, ISSUE 95

Lost in the Arts & Humanities building since 1906

Bro, do you even veg?Author and bodybuilder Robert Cheeke talks plant-based diets and bodybuilding lifestyle.>> Pg. 4

TODAYhigh5low-3

TOMORROWhigh6low-6

Chakma received double annual salary in 2014

Elections committee grilled at hearingRita Rahmati

GAZETTE STAFF@uwogazette

The ongoing controversy surround-ing the University Students’ Council’s presidential election came to a head on Sunday in an intense appeals board hearing where Team Sophie appealed the decision made by the elections committee to grant Team Litchfield 30 demerit points, one shy of automatic disqualification.

The two main issues debated during the afternoon hearing were the Facebook post-campaigning and campaigning off-campus without proper consent violations by Team Litchfield. There were three parties

questioned by the seven member appeals board: Team Litchfield, Team Sophie and the elections committee.

During USC president-elect Jack Litchfield’s opening statement, he mentioned that the allegations caused “significant damage to the reputations of those accused.”

One of the central complaints of the appeal was post-campaign-ing online. On Facebook, Team Litchfield posted 21 times encour-aging students to vote with a link attached to his platform. This was deemed post-campaigning and Team Litchfield was given 15 demerit points for all 21 posts, whereas Team Sophie received three

demerits for one post.“It’s very clear that there have

been issues with candidates with the rules … clearly the rules are just up for different interpretations,” Jacob Kriszenfeld, governance officer, said.

The second concern was off-campus campaigning in Luxe and Somerset Place apartment com-plexes. One confirmed door tag was posted at Luxe without the consent of the resident and this violation received three demerit points.

Some members of the appeals board explored the possibility that this warranted trespassing, therefore violating municipal law.

Litchfield said he did not con-done members of his team breaking

the law.“We never intended to push

the boundary between right and wrong,” Litchfield said.

Team Litchfield printed 500 door tags and over 170 were placed at Somerset Place. These were hung without the consent of the build-ing managers, who brought forth a complaint.

None of the members of Team Litchfield at the hearing could account for the approximately 300 remaining door tags. It was discov-ered that the elections committee did not look into this during the initial decision.

>> see APPEALS pg.3

427

490

531

730

792

894

953

1009

1101

1183

1247

2014 SALARIES OF TOP ADMINISTRATORS

President Amit Chakma $924,000.04

Provost Janice Deakin $343,000.08

Vice-president Operations & Resources Gitta Kulczycki

$294,540Vice-president

External Kelly Cole $295,999.96

Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry Dean

Dr. Michael Strong $462,125.92

Richard Ivey School of Business Robert Kennedy

$441,499.84Huron Principal

Stephen McClatchie $239,192.04

Brescia Principal Colleen Hanycz

$265,000.06King’s Principal David Sylvester

$253,035.10Source: Public Sector Salary Disclosure 2015, Government of Ontario

Iain BoekhoffEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

@IainAtGazette

Western University President Amit Chakma received a cash payment last year — doubling his annual compensation — when he con-tinued working instead of taking a year of administrative leave. This was met with a swift backlash from the community with over 2,700 sign-ing a petition to hold a non-confi-dence vote in the University’s senate for both Chakma and the chair of the board of governors, Chirag Shah.

Chakma’s salary was disclosed on Friday when Western released its full list of employees making over $100,000 a year as part of Ontario’s Sunshine List.

His $924,000.04 salary disclo-sure for last year made headlines as it was double his annual salary. It also included a bonus of 10 per cent of his base salary — $44,000 — for performance indicators set by the board of governors and another $43,244.88 in taxable benefits. His total compensation last year made him the fourth highest paid public sector employee in Ontario.

Chirag Shah, chair of the board of governors, explained the lump sum of cash was part of Chakma’s contract. He added that Chakma’s $440,000 annual salary has been frozen since the first year of his con-tract and will continue to be frozen for the duration of his second term as president, ending in 2019.

Chakma accrues 2.4 months of administrative leave every year of his contract, which made him entitled to one year’s worth of leave at the expiry of his first five-year contract in June 2014. Shah said it was “mutually decided that it would be beneficial to the university” that Chakma would continue in an active leadership role over the past year.

>> see SUNSHINE pg.2

>> TEAM SOPHIE VS. ELECTIONS COMMITTEE APPEAL

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Solution to puzzle on page 7

2 • thegazette • Tuesday, March 31, 2015

CROSSWORD By Eugene Sheffer

The Cryptoquip is a substitution cipher in which one letter stands for another. If you think that X equals O, it will equal O throughout the puzzle. Single letters, short words and words using an apostrophe give you clues to locating vowels. Solution is by trial and error.© 2002 by Kings Features Syndicate, Inc.

Caught on Camera

Taylor Lasota • GAZETTE

CHECK IT OUT. Ever find yourself wandering around campus with nothing to do? Check out the McIntosh Gallery. It’s full of great exhibits and a great way to unwind on campus.

At a meeting on Monday, the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association unanimously moved to seek a no-confidence vote in the leadership of the University.

London-West MPP Peggy Sattler brought the issue to Question Period on Queen’s Park on Monday, asking the premier to prohibit similar deals being made at other universities.

“With the university cutting

staff and increasing class sizes, this double payout is a slap in the face to Western students, faculty, staff, alumni and the community,” Sattler said.

Shah said the university has made a number of strides over Chakma’s first term, including increasing international enrolment, having the highest entrance average among Ontario universities, and one of the highest student retention, graduation and employment rates

amongst Canadian universities.“If you look at the incredible

accomplishments that we set forth prior to five years ago and where we are now, I think we should step back as a campus and be proud of where Western has got to over the last five years — I think we’ve had some exemplary leadership.”

Keith Marnoch, Western’s media relations director, said if Chakma had taken his leave, a possibility was for an interim president to be appointed.

“I think you have to look at the continuity of leadership,” Shah said. “To break stride in all the efforts Western has going on would be a challenge for us.”

Samuel Trosow, a professor in the faculty of information and media studies, commented on the petition for a non-confidence vote that he took signing it very seriously but that it “needs to be done.”

“Excessive executive compen-sation of this magnitude is simply unacceptable in the public sector,” Trosow said. “This is especially so given the belt-tightening, cutbacks and general austerity facing so many in the university community.”

“I think if [people] take a look at both history and his peer group comparators, I think that they will hopefully see that it is a fair com-pensation … this is a consistent clause available within the academic environment,” Shah said.

As part of his contract, Chakma lives rent-free at Gibbons Lodge, a university owned property, receives a car, a membership to a local pri-vate club and one month of vacation annually.

“I stand by the decisions we made, I think we’ve got an out-standing leader here on campus. I do think that his compensation is not as much as he could be earning elsewhere and so these are simply the facts,” Shah said. “I hope people do take the time to take a look at the facts as opposed to emotion.”

Along with Chakma, 1,246 other people made the Sunshine List for Western, representing a 5.4 per cent increase over last year. A decade ago, just 427 people made the list for Western. This dramatic increase in the number of people earning over $100,000 is a trend seen across the province, with 23,246 in 2005 and 111,440 people making it this year. This year is the first where over 100,000 people made the list. Part of the reason for this expan-sion is that the list is not indexed to inflation — the threshold would be approximately $145,000 today if it was.

>> SUNSHINE continued from pg.1

Backlash to Chakma’s compensation

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thegazette • Tuesday, March 31, 2015 • 3

Appeals board takes election committee to task

Hamza TariqNEWS EDITOR

@HamzaAtGazette

A strange thing happened on Sunday.

Scores of Western students followed a USC meeting as the appeals board took the elections committee to task on its decisions in the aftermath of the infamous 2015 USC elections.

The appeals board left no stone unturned and refused to take any arguments on face value as it grilled both the elections committee on the merit of its decisions and Jack Litchfield on his post-campaign-ing online and campaigning in off-campus residences.

The board asked questions that have been on the mind of almost everyone who followed the February elections. Why did Jack Litchfield post his platform link on Facebook? Why didn’t the elections committee investigate all the complaints it received? Why weren’t the committee’s punish-ments consistent across the board?

The meeting soon turned into a three-way trial. It was something out of a House of Cards episode as blame and accusations flew across the Community Room of the UCC.

The board seemed skeptical of chief returning officer Robbie Cohen’s justification of pooling in all of Litchfield’s social media posts into one extraordinary violation.

Does one illicit social media post result in three demerit points, or can future candidates

post-campaign to their hearts’ content and only face a 15 demerit point punishment at most? Where is the line drawn in terms of online post-campaigning?

The appeals board’s decision will set a precedent for social media campaigning — a precedent that the elections committee failed to set with its uneven distribution of demerit points.

Litchfield’s arguments also suf-fered under scrutiny. He claimed that he had received a go-ahead from the governance office on posting his URL in the post-cam-paigning period. However, Cohen said while Litchfield asked for clarification on the by-law, he didn’t recall an explicit conversa-tion on the topic.

Things came to a head when towards the end Cohen implied

that Team Litchfield had not acted in the spirit of the election. He also said that the committee believed that Litchfield intended to post-campaign. These were huge admissions from the elections committee.

Now for some context, By-law 2 states that flagrant undermining of the elections process can result in a direct disqualification. Earlier in the meeting, the committee had reiterated that Litchfield’s viola-tions didn’t show proof of under-mining of the elections process.

How can the elections commit-tee find that Litchfield intention-ally post-campaigned — which displays a flagrant disregard of the elections process — and yet not even consider disqualifying him? It boggles the mind.

The elections committee’s slew of admissions continued as they conceded that they had not responded to a number of complaints they received. With Litchfield’s demerit points mount-ing up to 30, one short of automatic disqualification, one wonders if even one of those complaints could have led to a violation that resulted in the disqualification of the incoming presidential slate.

I usually don’t hold much faith in the semblance of democracy that the USC and its various com-mittees often put up. However, after Sunday, I think the appeals board decision might just surprise students across the university.

A re-election or a disqualifica-tion might be in the cards, or at the very least a thorough review of the elections by-laws and restruc-turing of the elections committee. Something has to give, and we’ll know what happens within the next two weeks when the appeals board completes its deliberations.

Appeals board’s decision to be released within two weeks

Green eggs and Hamza

HOW CAN THE ELECTIONS COMMITTEE

FIND THAT LITCHFIELD INTENTIONALLY POST-CAMPAIGNED — WHICH DISPLAYS A FLAGRANT DISREGARD OF THE ELECTIONS PROCESS — AND YET NOT EVEN CONSIDER DISQUALIFYING HIM? IT BOGGLES THE MIND.

The elections committee was heavily interrogated on their weight-ing of demerit points.

The violation at Somerset Place was found to be a major violation receiving eight points, although the Luxe violation received three points due to the fact that it was considered a minor violation. The elections committee accepted Litchfield’s assertion that whoever posted the door tag must have received per-mission from security to enter the building.

The elections committee was present to defend their decision.

“I think today we finally got the opportunity to go through publicly all our decision making and the facts with both sides,” Kriszenfeld said after the hearing.

Throughout the hearing, presi-dent-elect Litchfield took issue with the ambiguity of election by-laws, noting it was not his team’s intent to infringe upon the election process.

“Our violations were not inten-tional [but] accidental incidents of post-campaigning,” Litchfield said.

His opponent, presidential can-didate Sophie Helpard, asserted that it was faster and more convenient for the election committee to not investigate further.

“Due diligence is severely lacking,” Helpard said in her final statements.

The appeals board took on the difficult task of presiding over the hearing, inquiring to establish what actually occurred during the elec-tion period.

“I think there were multiple times questions were out of line, whether they were directed at us [the elections committee] or Team Litchfield or Team Sophie. At the end of the day it was well maintained by the chair, Derek Dodgson,” Kriszenfeld said.

While there were numerous opposing arguments throughout the day, one item everyone agreed on was that election by-laws need to be changed.

“The three things that have become very clear about our elec-tion by-law is that they’re overly prescriptive, they’re ambiguous and they’re clearly not able to keep up with changing technologies, and in that way they’re archaic,” Matt Helfand, USC president, said after the hearing.

Within the next two weeks, the decision of the appeals board will be released.

“In their deliberations they know what to do and so we believe that whatever they come out with will be a fair decision,” Robbie Cohen, the chief returning officer, said.

>> APPEALS continued from pg.1


arts&life funwithpunsA girl at the Vegan Club thought she knew me but I never met herbivore.

Getting jacked on a plant-based dietRobert Cheeke is the founder of Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness and author of Shred It! Your Step-by-Step Guide to Burning Fat and Building Muscle on a Whole-Food, Plant-Based Diet. Cheeke spoke at Western last Friday. The Gazette caught up with him before his talk.

Megan DevlinASSOCIATE EDITOR

@MegAtGazette

GAZETTE: What brings you do Western today?ROBERT CHEEKE: I’m here to talk about building a better body on a plant-based diet. I’ve been follow-ing a plant-based diet for 20 years. I’m the author of a couple different books, and I’ve been on a worldwide

speaking tour.

G: Any tidbits you can share from your talk [Friday night]?

RC: I’m going to be talking about burning fat and building muscle on a whole-food, plant-based

diet. Most people have the goal of burning fat or building muscle. Most people don’t know how to do either one.

If anyone has ever had a goal of burn-ing fat, clearly they should know how many calories they’re expending per day. As it turns out, most people don’t. If I want to lose weight and burn fat then I want to

eat less and burn more in order to expend more than I’m consuming.

G: Caloric intake and expenditure are defin-itely important, but a lot of people say it’s not

the whole story. Why?RC: It’s not the whole story. For example, leafy green

vegetables are 100 calories per pound. Oil is 4,000 cal-ories per pound. That’s 40-fold. When you eat lower on the calorie-density scale … you eat higher on the nutri-ent-density scale. So lower calories, higher nutrients.

G: Is there a difference between being plant-based and being vegan?RC: Vegan is more of a philosophical stance. It’s not consuming any animal products or using any animal by-products or using products that are tested on ani-mals or supporting circuses and zoos and rodeos and

that kind of stuff.I use ‘plant-based diet’ a lot to reach a wider and

broader audience. A lot of people come to a plant-based diet for health benefits. They’re not neces-sarily vegan. They may eat all these plant foods but still wear leather shoes and a leather belt.

At the end of the day, my goal is to con-tribute to fewer animals suffering. If I can get people to stop eating animals regardless of what the reason is … at the end of the day they’re eating fewer animals and that means a lot to me and makes a difference environmentally.

G: Why is it easier to appeal to people using plant-based tagline instead of vegan?RC: People find out that I’m vegan and they

will get defensive … I think people have an idea about veganism. Maybe they associate someone who’s vegan with being angry or opinionated or dressing a certain way or looking a certain way or talking a cer-tain way. Plant-based is just anybody — anyone who eats healthy, plant-based foods regardless of what our philosophical stances are, what our reasons are.

G: What came first, the bodybuilding or the veganism?RC: Veganism came first. I was 120 pounds when I became vegan in high school. I got up to almost 200 pounds. I gained 75 pounds of muscle.

I became vegan because I grew up on a farm. I got into animal rights as a teenage kid in an agriculture community in Western Oregon.

My sister was my inspiration. She organized an

animal rights week at our high school. After watching videos of factory farming, animal testing and listening to speakers and reading literature I decided I no longer wanted to contribute to animal suffering.

It wasn’t until five years later … that I started lifting weights and eventually became a competitive body-builder, which I did for 10 years.

Since then I’ve been writing books about it and touring and not competing anymore.

G: What made you step back from the bodybuilding circuit?RC: I actually just got a little burned out from body-building. I got a little bit tired of the egos in body-building and the drugs that are in bodybuilding — and there’s a lot of sexism in bodybuilding.

Often, they have women on display barely wearing anything holding a tray of whey protein powder.

Most of the spectators are men and they’re just tak-ing pictures constantly whether the women are paying attention or not. I’ve walked out of these events, even events I paid a lot of money to go to because of that kind of treatment.

Men dominate the sport … Men have control over what is going to sell their products and, I’m telling you, they put a lot of women in thongs and very small bikinis that help sell their product and their brand and I take issue with that.

G: What kind of advice would you give a young, uni-versity-aged woman who does want to enter the bodybuilding sport?RC: Beware of the expectations. If you are a female ath-lete and you want to get sponsored … just understand some of the things these companies may have you do.

What you have to wear, what you have to say, what you have to do, how you may have to be on display. Which is really what it is. You are on display for thou-sands of people and is that something you’re com-fortable with?

If not, there are plenty of other opportunities to still make it and still be successful. Part of that is build-ing your own brand, your own e-books or website or clothing line.

The mainstream culture is really where all the drugs are, the steroids are and where they put women on display. A lot of the natural product companies don’t do that. They approach things differently.

G: How do you get enough protein from your plant-based diet?RC: Protein’s an interesting thing. It’s one of the eas-iest aspects of nutrition for anybody to get. None of us really know anybody we’ve met who has a clinical protein deficiency. Yet, most of us know more people than we could count who eat too much protein.

We only need five to 10 per cent of our calories com-ing form protein. Not 30 or 35 per cent.

Protein is very, very easy to find. You’re not going to meet anyone who has a deficiency.

One of my go-to answers is go eat a burrito. If you’re worried about protein intake go have a burrito — you’re done.

G: What is the hardest part of being vegan?RC: The hardest part is that not everyone understands you and you always have to explain things. I always have to talk about protein, I always have to explain why I’m vegan. It’s like a badge I wear, I have to explain myself all the time.

So many animal lives are lost simply because people like the flavour of something. That’s challen-ging because you wish people got your philosophical ideas and agreed with it.


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A corridor of creativityMeerna Homayed

GAZETTE STAFF@uwogazette

Western students have reinvented the Corridor of Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Building.

Previously part of the Ivey Building, the Corridor of Excellence has been upgraded along with the building’s title. It now serves as an ode to the Arts and Humanities at Western, with original art and writ-ten pieces decorating its walls.

The project was unveiled Wednesday afternoon as contribu-tors read samples of their pieces posted in the corridor for public viewing.

Submissions for the project came in from a variety of sources, including undergraduate and graduate students, professors and alumni from various fields of study.

Jill Smith, a second-year visual arts student, produced images for the hallway. She used photography as her medium of choice, drawing inspiration from everyday distrac-tions that often accompany writing.

David Huebert, a PhD student in the English department and author of We Are No Longer The Smart Kids In Class, a collection of poetry due to be released this fall, submitted an original poem about an inchworm.

A committee of six Western per-sonnel comprised of staff and stu-dents are responsible for choosing the submissions in the corridor.

Writer-in-residence Gary Barwin organized the project to exhibit the art created at Western.

“I wanted to reflect some of the vitality and creativity that I know was going on with students and with the people at the university,

but to have it visible,” he explains.Barwin wanted to spruce up the

corridor itself.“It was a very uninspiring space

and to have artwork and writing in the space, it changes how you feel. It’s inspiring to have it in the walls of the architecture,” he says. “I think spaces should be inspir-ing, it makes people feel different. It makes people think and engage with the spaces they’re in.”

Barwin hopes that as people walk by the corridor, they take inspiration from the work donning the walls and incorporate some art into their day.

In the future, Barwin hopes the corridor will be continuously renewed as an on-the-wall maga-zine or anthology.

The Corridor of Excellence is located on the first floor of the Arts and Humanities Building.

Conrad FloryanGAZETTE STAFF@ConradAtGazette

GGGGGWild TalesDirector: Damian SzifronStarring: Ricardo Darin, Oscar Martinez, Leonardo Sbaraglia

It’s possible to design a perfect film. While it would be hyperbolic to label Wild Tales “perfect” since film is a subjective experience, the movie is uniformly entertaining, original and impactful.

Writer-director Damian Szifron has assembled an anthology film composed of six standalone shorts. The shorts are united by themes of violence and vengeance. The anthol-ogy format is rarely used in feature film, so the gambit is refreshing in and of itself.

In the era of YouTube and Vines where much of the video entertain-ment viewers consume is brief, short film is on course to become a more popular format. Since many viewers enjoy the dreamlike quality of being immersed in a two-hour feature and it’s commonplace now to binge-watch TV serials for hours at a time, viewers will only shift to the more unfamiliar short film structure if they are exposed to engaging shorts that prove the format can have mass appeal. Enter Wild Tales, officially the most seen film in Argentina ever.

Each one of the short segments works equally well because Szifron is an amazing storyteller. The tales are fast-paced, surprising and sus-penseful. While the film is an emo-tional rollercoaster, Szifron has the vision to modulate the narrative pyrotechnics with timely respites. For example, after the second seg-ment, The Rats, concludes with a shocking assault, the third segment, The Strongest, begins with a sooth-ing montage of a man cruising on a picturesque highway.

The stories are further captivating

because they are drenched in rau-cous black humour. They capture the absurdity of human life. They all deal with protagonists experiencing great distress where they have the option of either laughing or crying. The scenarios are worked to simul-taneously maximize the drama and comedy, without sacrificing one at the expense of the other.

The impeccable storytelling is allowed to take centre stage by the measured filmmaking style. There are little overtly artsy shots, although every once in a while there is a touch of experimentation to keep things interesting, such as when the cam-era is fixed to a swinging door as characters move through it.

Szifron’s stylistic restraint con-tributes to produce a film that is simultaneously highly sophis-ticated, and incredibly engaging to a mass audience. It’s like Transformers and an art-house flick thrown into a blender. This potent charm exists because the film employs a fine art sensibility, but instead of employing it on honing artistic minutiae such as colour palettes, Szifron is intent on crafting a beautiful symphony out of human emotions. His film celebrates the madness of daily struggles and how people are just animals clawing away to survive in the jungle.

Despite the complexity of the narratives and the jumps between the different segments, the film flows organically. Just like it’s diffi-cult to imagine a dog having more than four legs or the sky being a different color than blue, Wild Tales seems to have sprung from nature. It’s a paradigm of what film can aspire to — the type of movie that a little kid and a Harvard professor could enjoy equally. Maybe calling it perfect is excessive, but it earns the perfect rating.

Wild Tales is playing at the Hyland Cinema until Thursday, April 2. Showtimes are available at www.hylandcinema.com.

Anthology barks and claws at viewers’ hearts

>> IN THEATRES > WILD TALES

Courtesy of Warner Bros.



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thegazetteVolume 108, Issue 95www.westerngazette.ca

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• Please recycle this newspaper •

It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.

• Ernie Harwell

Dear Life

We Get Letters!

The sun is apparently always shining on Western University president Amit Chakma who, according to the recently released Sunshine List, made $924,000 last year, with another $43,000 in taxable benefits.

Normally, as president Chakma would earn $440,000. However, because he didn’t take any time off this year, he made double that — a decision approved by the University’s board of governors. Top that off with the bonus he received and he’s close to a million dollars.

In response to these revelations, a petition was formed and is presently signed by over 2,700 students, faculty and community members imploring Chakma and the chair of the board of governors to leave their positions.

But the petition is likely not going to do much. First, the concerns are addressed to Western’s senate, which has little power in this case. Second, it’s going to take a lot more than a few thousand signatures to make any big administrative changes.

Does that mean the petition is useless? Not neces-sarily. It’s important for the Western community to express discontent with decisions made by admin-istration. With tensions high at universities across Canada concerning fair wages for teaching assistants and contract faculty members, it looks fairly bad to learn our president made twice as much than he nor-mally does this year. Take into account the univer-sity’s recent austerity measures to reduce spending and increase frugality and you’ve got quite the public relations issue.

These poor optics can create an environment where strong community movements would have potential. Not potential to get rid of Chakma or any other high-ranking official, but potential to hold these officials more accountable. Certainly the contract of Chakma and presumably other university presidents should be re-examined in light of this controversy.

It is in the president’s contract to receive additional compensation when he does not take any time off. As such, more responsibility should fall on the board members who created that contract. After all, does it really make sense for someone to make double their wage because they didn’t take a break?

If those who signed the petition really want to inspire positive change, efforts should focus on shrinking the widening pay gap between adminis-trators like Chakma and non-tenured educators rather than attempting to punish any specific individuals. Chakma may be rolling in money, but he is just a part of the growing problem of varying and inconsistent compensation in education.

• Gazette Editorial Board

Chakma just a symptom of a wider problem

Your anonymous letters to lifeDear Life,Is it unethical to rob the president of Western to pay my tuition? I mean, all the money goes back to him anyways.

Dear Life,I think the only reason I would go to my graduation is to ask Chakma for an itemized bill.

wgaz.ca/dear-life

Richard RaycraftMANAGING EDITOR

@RichAtGazette

Existential dread is a terrible thing, and I happen to have it up to my eye-balls. What if I die suddenly and no one remembers who I was? What if I never make a positive impact on the world? What if the Raycraft family name ends with me? Such self-important worries often invade my thoughts.

I was struck by the Western equiva-lent as a sophomore during the winter break. Up until then, I chose to stay comfortable with my head buried in my books at Huron, numbers on my transcript the only concern. I decided that needed to change, that I would migrate to main campus and try some-thing new. Western is a community, and what makes it great are the students, faculty and staff who give back to it on their own time. Could I part with my alma mater knowing I hadn’t been involved in any way, knowing I hadn’t even tried to leave the place in better shape than I found it? Damn the grades! It was time to find something I could do.

That was the hard part. It’s one thing to decide to be involved, quite another to figure out how you can best contrib-ute. Student politics seemed egotistical and dishonest, and casually showing up to weekly club meetings wouldn’t fill enough time between classes. Journalism, I reasoned, is a part of any healthy democracy, and working for the school paper I would be asking the stu-dent politicians the questions instead of answering them. It was settled.

I wandered into the Gazette office trembling with fear. I got an apathetic, cursory glance from the girl at the front desk before I planted myself in the middle of the office — completely unnoticed, I should add. It was discour-aging and everything I’d been afraid of, but it was misleading. Over the next few weeks I would get a lot of attention from the paper’s staff.

Feedback is your most valuable tool entering any profession. You’re not James Joyce because you got a 92 in first-year literature, and if you think you are you’ll never improve. The editors at The Gazette hadn’t mastered reporting — not even close — but they knew a lot more than I did, and that’s all that mat-tered. I took any praise in context — it meant I showed promise and nothing more at this point. Incessantly shitting on my own work was my only skill, but

it was a depressingly valuable one. The cost of being an excellent journalist or writer, like an excellent musician or ath-lete, is paid in blood, sweat and tears. It’s a long road and even after three years here I’ve barely started.

But that’s just one of many lessons I’ve learned between these walls. I sup-pose the ultimate symbol of my success here is that I now occupy the very front desk that spurned me so harshly in my Gazette infancy. It offers me the unique opportunity to welcome potential con-tributors to the paper for the first time. They tell me, unfailingly, that they’re here to write. What they don’t know yet is that working here is about so much more than that. It’s about learning to work with and talk to people, to priori-tize and manage your time, to field the complaints, to bounce back from your inevitable mistakes, to deal with sensi-tive personal issues in front of curious and sometimes vitriolic co-workers.

It’s not easy, as you can probably guess, but nothing valuable ever is. I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Wells, political editor of Maclean’s magazine, during my time here. Wells is a Gazette alum whose column I’ve read since my early teens. He reiter-ated to me what he’d written in the Alumni Gazette years before: “Is there an important element of the print jour-nalist’s job that I hadn’t learned by the time I graduated from Western, and therefore from The Gazette in 1989? I can’t think of any.”

I wholeheartedly agree. I’ll clarify something, though: give it enough time and The Gazette teaches you life skills, not just journalistic ones. I therefore take my leave from this paper with a final piece of advice: embrace new opportunities and embrace change. I know it’s scary. I know it sucks and there’s potential for bruising. But it’s the only way forward and you’ll be better for it. You’re more resilient than you think.

So let’s take it back to my second-year self. If fear got the best of him — if he convinced himself, as he very nearly did, that he’d be laughed out of the room with his confidence shattered — where would he be? I’ll tell you a few things I know for sure — his grades would’ve been a lot better and he wouldn’t have been as stressed. Hell, he might have even been a Rhodes Scholar. He’d also be ill-prepared for the real world and his chosen field, though. It’s a personal preference, to be sure, but I leave know-ing that every time I return to campus and the memories flood back I’ll be reminded I made the right choice that fateful day I first entered the office.

Thank you, Gazette and dear reader, and goodbye.

The end of the World (of Raycraft)

Time to Chalk about some accountabilityRe: “President Amit Chakma receives cash payout in Western’s latest salary disclosure list,” Friday, March 27, 2015To the editor:It seems that just about everybody is outraged to find out that Western’s president, Amit Chakma, took home almost a million dollars last year. It is very important to put this situation in context though and for us as students and staff to demand accountability for this unacceptable blunder.

Right now, Western administrators are cutting budgets for most departments, which has led to an increase in your class sizes and lower pay for your teach-ers. Meanwhile, they have continually raised tuition. The quality of our edu-cation, which we pay handsomely for, is being steadily eroded, and yet the board of governors has the audacity to defend paying Chakma, who is arguably noth-ing but a useless figurehead, double his annual salary!

The board defended this atrocity by saying that Chakma had a clause in his contract that guaranteed him a paid year off to pursue research or service. Regular faculty get this as well — it’s called sab-batical. However, Chakma decided to come to work anyways during that year, so he received double his pay. I can assure you that regular faculty do NOT get paid double if they choose to work through their sabbatical. You do not get paid double your wages if you decide to work on your day off. The board’s defence is ludicrously untrue, and it constitutes an egregious breach of our trust.

Chakma, for his part, accepted double his annual salary for doing the same amount of work that he normally does. Where is his integrity? Where is the integ-rity of the board of governors to allow our money to be used this way? At this time, I think it is prudent to call on the chair of the board of governors, Chirag Shah, as well as President Amit Chakma, to resign their positions at Western University.

• Eric LohmanFIMS PhD candidate

World of Raycraft

INTERESTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY, video, or musicproduction? 121 Studios (an initiative of unlondon.ca, a local non-profit organization) is equipped withportrait photography and audio recording facilities,video editing resources, shared desk space & more.121studios.ca. Student discounts available.SOARING CLUB BEING ratified at Western, will bethe only student run soaring club in North America,learn to fly and work towards your license, for moreinfo email [email protected]

LOST AND FOUNDHEARING AID LOST small black plastic box. LostFriday March 27 on Kings/main campus. If foundplease contact [email protected]

SERVICESEDITOR/PROOFREADER AVAILABLE. Have yourpapers or thesis reviewed. Extensive experience inCommunications and Journalism, just retired. BAEnglish, MA Journalism, UWO. Contact [email protected] VOLUNTEERS WANTED

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED FOR Boys and Girls Clubof London’s Capital One Race for Kids event on 6June 2015. If you are interested in volunteering atthis event, please complete the volunteer form at:www.raceforkids.ca

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WANTEDLONDON SENIOR SEEKING a volunteer helper to as-sist with completion of woodworking projects. OnWonderland 10 bus route. Also looking to rent space forwoodworking projects in Westmount Shopping Centrearea one evening a week. A garage or workshop spacewould be ideal. Contact Alan 519-660-1442.

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3 BEDROOM LUXURY home. Western Rd. 5-minutewalk to campus. Modern open-concept, large bed-rooms, pool table, bar, 50” TV, over-size black mar-ble bathroom, basketball net, massive yard/patio.$375/rm 416-835-5293. [email protected]

4 BEDROOM TOWNHOME for Rent! Walk to school& downtown, huge kitchen, dishwasher, large bed-rooms, 2.5 baths, back deck, garage. Call/text 226-919-6826. Available May 1.

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APRIL 1ST THREE bedroom $500 per bedroom in-clusive. 163 Oxford St E. Steps to Western, Rich-mond Row, downtown. Direct bus to Western,Fanshawe, downtown. Washer/dryer in unit, freeparking, large rooms. Vern 519-872-9407 or [email protected].

KING’S COLLEGE - HOUSES for rent. 5 bedrooms,$310+/month, May 01 2015, parking, laundry every-thing. Pick 1061 Patricia St. or 469 Regent St. CallMatt Kennedy 519-317-3023 or TEXT [email protected]

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#KeepingUpWithKippsKing’s University College School of Social Work 3318 class

is holding a community event to launch the twitter campaign #KeepingUpWithKipps.

This event will be a celebration of the North East neighbourhood assets aimed at uniting,

informing and engaging the community.

The event will be held at the Kipps Lane Community Market April 2nd

from 6:00pm-8:00pm.1050 Kipps Lane Unit 10 London, Ontario.

The event will include a graffiti wall, community memberresources and speakers, live entertainment, twitter outreach,

and so much more!! All community members are welcome and it is an all ages event.

****Optional canned food admission****


sports factattackWith a 3–2 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday, the Montreal Canadiens have clinched a playoff spot for the third year in a row — the only Canadian team to do so.

Reflections on men’s hockey

Nathan KanterSPORTS EDITOR@NathanAtGazette

A quick reminder: last off-season, the men’s hockey team lost its start-ing goalie and its three top scorers.

And so, as the men’s hockey team is about to lose another nine play-ers this off-season – including its six top scorers – the question must be asked: will it be too much?

First, there’s no doubt that’s a sig-nificant overhaul. It’s a lot of players, and a lot of key players at that.

Steve Reese will no longer be speeding down the wing. Kyle De Coste will no longer be firing one-timers on the man advantage. Matt Paltridge will no longer be weaving his way between forecheck-ers to get out of his own zone. The list goes on.

Plus, the men’s hockey team didn’t even go far this year. They had a disappointing finish after a sur-prising first-round exit at the hands of the Lakehead Thunderwolves.

Let’s remember one thing, how-ever: they are still coached by Clarke Singer.

The Mustangs’ regular season was a statement: this team will always be competitive with Singer at the helm.

They lost their three top scorers in the summer, and so in September they adjusted.

By season’s end they had allowed the third-least goals against per-game, at 2.44. They were second in Ontario University Athletics in pen-alty killing, at 88.5 per cent. They got the goaltending they needed for a second-place OUA West division finish, losing just as many games as last season — only seven.

And they scored when they could: on the powerplay. They placed 13th in even-strength goals, but their powerplay led the OUA at 27 per cent.

The truth about the OUA playoffs is this: it’s truly anyone’s game.

Just look at this year’s Guelph Gryphons, who finished the sea-son with an 11–13–3 record, yet upset opponent after opponent en route to a third-place finish in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport championships.

So will the turnover this off-sea-son be too much? No, it won’t.

All they can do is what they do every year: be competitive. And you don’t need a team full of all-stars to win it all.

Remember these playoffs were also the second time in three years in which Western’s starting goalie got hurt when it mattered.

And having to start their ser-ies on the road in Thunder Bay, despite having home ice advantage? Drawing Lakehead in the first-round was just bad luck.

So next year, with all the seniors gone, Western will once again com-pete for a top spot in the OUA West. They’ll be a different team on paper, but they’ll make the playoffs, as they always do.

And come playoff time, they’ll just have to remember one thing: it’s anybody’s game.

Jennifer Feldman • GAZETTE

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Tuesday, March 31, 2015