Take Back the Night

A large number of students and faculty marched through the StFX University campus on 22 October to raise awareness about gender-based and sexual violence and to send out the message that it is important to stand together and know that support exists. The annual "Take Back the Night" march, sponsored by the WMGS society, urged the participants to bring a phone or flashlight to "shine a light on sexual violence" and raise awareness about it. The goal of the "Take back the night" was to ensure that we eliminate sexual violence at the University and in all of our communities. It was all about reclaiming the night and the space that is associated with gender-based violence.

A book "Sexual Violence at Canadian Universities" says at least one in four women attending college or university will be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate. It sends chills down the spine of anyone to think how something as simple as walking back to the hostel or your apartment in the night is not safe

It was heartening to see that all the participants adhered to social distancing norms and other restrictions due to the pandemic. A poster-making session was also organized by the StFX Women and Gender Studies Society before the rally.

Photo by Addy Strickland

Sarah Elliott, StFX Students’ Union President and Catherine Kennedy, the sexual violence prevention and response Advocate were the MCs for the night. The senior leadership at StFX wanted to attend the rally but were unable to do so because of an emergency senate meeting that was scheduled at the same time as the rally. However, their message was shared with the crowd and I would like to state it here because I think these were very powerful and impactful statements, statements through which we can hold them accountable. It stated, “Sexual violence has been invisible for far too long. We thank and commend the visible @ X team, the StFX Student’s Union, and the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre, and the Sexual Assault Services Association for their leadership tonight for making the invisible visible. We know that you or someone close to you has been impacted by sexual violence, whether a sexist joke, derogatory comment about one’s gender, or an act of sexual assault. Sexual violence results in serious short and long term negative consequences for individuals, communities, and societies. At StFX, we know that in the past, some experience of sexual violence were not disclosed often because the person was trying to forget about it, felt it was a private matter, or wasn’t serious enough, thought it was their fault, or didn’t think anyone would help. It is serious, it is not your fault, and we will help, StFX has zero tolerance for sexual violence of any kind….”.

A number of resources are available at StFX such as the StFX Health and Counselling Centre and the Visible @ X Team. Off campus resources include the Antigonish Women’s Health Resource Centre and Sexual Assault Services Association, the Naomi Society. The crowd also raised a huge round of applause to Heather Blackburn, Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Advocate, who is instrumental in making the event possible.

Addy Strickland, the coordinator of the Peer Support Program as well as the Arts Section Editor also addressed the rally. Addy is a fourth year Honours student in the Department of Developmental Studies and is studying how we can use art and community to forward social change. Addy has been heavily involved in the sexual violence prevention and advocacy on campus and in her speech she provided details of the support being offered by the Peer Support Program at StFX, which is functional in-person this year at Bloomfield 417, Monday-Friday 12-5 pm.

Addy and Emma Kuzmyk realized the gaps in our campus’ mental health and sexual violence support services and spent a year and a half, building, researching, and convincing administrative members and Students Union that the program was necessary ad a valuable addition to student wellbeing on campus. Addy says that, “It took a lot of convincing.” But finally resulted in the appointment of the Sexual Violence and Prevention Advocate, Heather Blackburn and the start of the Peer support program.

The rally was also addressed by Carla Stevens, a Mi'kmaq woman, and a mother of three amazing daughters. She is the project coordinator of the Circles of Support project. She asked the crowd to observe a moment of silence to honour all the women victims of sexualized violence. She said: “I challenge you as students and scholars to no longer be by-standers and to take a stand against gender based and sexual violence in your community and university.”

Last but not the least, Emma Kuzmyk who has worked for Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre, VP Academic for Student Union in 2019 and is a co-founder of Peer Support Program, said: “Not everybody gets to heal from the traumas of sexualized violence but those of us who do, should work toward building a safe community, where healing or being heard is not something that is reserved for the lucky. You have a duty to the people who aren’t in the room. Please don’t forget about them. There are voices missing from our march today, there are faces who are not in the crowd, and we can't forget about the them, because when we use the word survive, it means that not everybody does.”

For those of us participating in the event for the first time, "Take Back the Night" is the earliest worldwide movement to protest gender-based violence. The phrase "Take Back the night" was used as the title of a 1977 memorial read by activist Anne Pride at an anti-violence rally in Pittsburgh. According to some reports, one of the first "Take Back the Night" marches was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in October 1975, after the murder of a microbiologist, Susan Alexander Speeth, who was stabbed to death while walking home alone.

Insiders Scoop on StFX Athletics

When walking  around campus going from class to class there seems to be something different amongst the students. It is not the masks, the stickers on the floor on indicating where to stand or the hand sanitizer every 10 feet. It is something more...something missing.

That inner excitement, that buzz, that something to look forward to seems to be gone for many students

COVID-19 has changed  many things at  X but there is one that hits home for many. The SPORTS! To all the X-Men and X-Women fans that miss cheering for their favourite player, team or university. While unfortunately there are no sports at X so far, all teams are still hard at work preparing for that call saying ‘the season is back on’! You may be wondering how the teams are managing through the changes COVID-19 has caused with practices as well as their season being put off. The head coaches of some of X’s most prestigious teams were happy to give the insider scoop of their league's forecast, team performance and player morale.

X-Men Football:

Head Coach Gary Waterman gives his updates on the team's strategy while abiding the Covid guidelines.

“We have had to adjust the way we do things to ensure that we are following the Health guidelines. It has made it quite challenging at times because of the restrictions to the amount of people who can practice at one time. The current guidelines say that we can have no more than 50 participants on the field practicing. We have 81 players on our roster so we have had to adjust our practices accordingly. It was even more challenging earlier when we could have no more than 10 people in a pod at one time. We found ourselves spending a great deal of time on practice planning. We had to be extremely organized and communicate in advance with our players in terms of how the practice would flow to ensure that we were following the health guidelines. In addition, we were not allowed to use our locker room early in the process so players were required to bring their gear back and forth from home to practice. There were a lot of moving parts. 

From a team morale perspective we had to be very deliberate in messaging about focusing only on the things that we can control and not becoming distracted by the things out of our control. Overall I think our team morale has been positive, but our ability to come together as a group has definitely been affected. With the gathering limitations we were not able to bring our team together all at once. The typical team bonding that naturally occurs within a team has been slowed and we have had to be more deliberate in our attempts to get to know each other. 

No new information about playing next year. We are all waiting to see how things transpire with regards to COVID-19 and what our new normal will look like. However, recruiting has definitely changed. We can no longer bring players to campus for a visit and there is a national ban on in-person recruiting for all sports. Technology has been our main method of communication. Between Zoom meetings and online conversations we find ourselves having to come up with more creative ways to build those strong connections with our future X-Men.”

X- Women Hockey:

Head Coach Ben Berthiaume touches on future play and team growth.

“The team continues to not only work hard on the ice and in the gym but in the classroom, which is a great sign for this group moving forward. We are also very appreciative of the support we are receiving from our Athletic Director Leo MacPherson, President Dr. Hakin and the university administration, without their support we would not be on the ice and doing what we love.

As a team we are practicing 4 times a week which consists of a lot of small area games and a 3 on 3 tournament every Friday. The team also has 2 off ice work out sessions to help prepare for the winter schedule if there is going to be one. We are looking to begin some blue and white games to give us some extra competition in November. The team morale seems to be pretty good considering we are not playing any games and having that competition that they practice hard for. The ability to be together as a group and get on the ice certainly helps with the team morale.  

 We have heard there is a good possibility that there will be an AUS season in January, the AUS will make a decision in the next two weeks. The Atlantic provinces and STFX have done such a great job with COVID 19 pandemic that we are very hopeful we will have the opportunity to have competition begin in January with an AUS season.”

X-Men Basketball:

Renowned Head Coach Steve Konchalski discusses adjusted practices and team morale.

“Since Oct. 1, sports activities in Nova Scotia have allowed up to 50 participants without social distancing or masks (once you leave the playing field you must put on your mask – in locker rooms for example) so we basically have been able to have normal practices for the most part. Prior to that date we were restricted to 10 athletes per group (basket).

Right now we are practicing four times a week and preparing for some kind of a season after Christmas. Currently, the AUS is formulating a return to play formula for the winter sports that hopefully will satisfy both Public Health in all the Atlantic provinces as well as the AUS Board (Presidents). My understanding is that a decision will be made by mid-November which of course will be dependent upon the virus remaining  under control into the new year. The health and safety of our student athletes are of course our first priority.

I would say our team morale is excellent despite the uncertainty prevalent in the world today. Our practices have been extremely competitive as I know that basketball is an outlet that helps young people cope with the anxiety that covid has brought to the entire planet.”

X-Women Basketball:

Head Coach Lee Anna Osei fills us in on the season status and the support they have been receiving.

“Earlier in October, U Sports officially cancelled the U Sports Championship to ensure the safety of all student athletes, coaches and athletic departments. This means that conferences will now dictate what the season will look like from a provincial and local standpoint. To date, there are still uncertainties about what the status of the AUS season is. 

Though nothing that has been confirmed for official AUS games, we are hopeful for the opportunity to play in the future, whether that be in official games, exhibitions or scrimmages. In the meantime, we have a weekly Game of the Week against our male scout players that gives us an opportunity to work on our Xs and Os throughout the semester. Our athletic department has also done a phenomenal job of providing structure for our athletes in programs like StFX Leadership Academy and celebrating varsity Players of the Week.

We consider ourselves lucky here at StFX. Our institution is a U Sport school that represents the highest percentage of F2F classes, and this has also meant that we have been afforded some privileges for contact practices with covid protocols of sanitation and safety in place. We have as much as possible simulated our practices and training schedules to provide a sense of routine and normalcy for our players.”

It is amazing to hear all the time and effort being put in by coaches, players, athletic management and league officials. The planning and execution that goes into each meeting, practice or team bonding is huge. This is driven by one thing. The love and passion for sport. Even if the season has been put off everyone is trying to make the best of what is happening. It is heartwarming and amazing to see. 

Here are some words of encouragements from the X-Coaches to the X-fans:

“X fans! We look forward to hosting you at our home and away games - you collectively are our sixth man! Although we have not had the opportunity to play in front of you, be assured that we will remain ready to dawn the blue and white when that time comes. We appreciate your support , and welcome you to contact varsity athletics if there is any way that we can support you - Hail & Health!” - Head Coach Lee Anna Osei

“X fans, we miss you and look forward to the day when we can get back on the field and welcome you back to the games.” - Head Coach Gary Waterman 

“We are so appreciative of the support we get from all our fans. Looking back to last year's AUS final with 1300 people in the building was incredible and certainly loved all the support, the atmosphere was certainly electrifying. We look forward to getting back to playing in front of our fans soon and showcasing the talent of the women’s game. “  -Head Coach Ben Berthiaume

Do Black lives matter even after Black Lives Matter? : How things have changed and stayed the same

In the last several months, I have had time to reflect in a way that I have not had since I started university nearly five years ago. It is true that time moves faster as you get older. My friend Annie once said that the days are long, but the months and years go by quickly. She was certainly right on that front. The global pandemic, abrupt conclusion of my time at StFX, and the largest movement protesting anti-Black racism in the world, pushed me into a spinning whirlpool. I felt helpless as I spun around and around getting just enough oxygen until finally, I was sucked to the bottom of the ocean. When I finally emerged, I felt like the survivor of a shipwreck like we see in the films, arduously emerging from the waves with my clothes tattered and my hair stringy, exhausted and dehydrated but grateful to at last be on land. The global pandemic and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests meant that there were millions upon millions of others that were trudging their way onto land, just like I was.

Since the time I first saw what racism looked like, at the tender age of six, I have been trying to do what I can to contribute to its abolishment, however small and insignificant these efforts may seem in the larger scheme of things. In university, I was often asked about why I was so involved and what motivated me. Before you ask, no I did not think I could end racism at StFX. However, I did think it was my responsibility to ensure that StFX was a better place for the Black students that came after me than it was for me. These ambitions motivated me to write about racism for the StFX Alumni Award essay competition, to help create Academic Success for All to assist student athletes, to join the Student Executive and later run for President. These actions, among others, were all taken with the hope that somehow in the end it would all mean something.

At StFX, whether it was my classmates or all the way up to the University President, the school was distinctly and characteristically White, like most universities. As a person who eventually made her way to the top of formal student leadership, I saw firsthand how the university operated. Hint: White folks are making all the decisions and there is a focus on mazuma. This is also how the government and most organizations and companies work. Upon understanding that these two elements had the greatest influence on decisions at the university, my team and I quietly studied the best ways to fulfil our objectives for students’ interests and then we presented them in a manner that best aligned with the goals of decision-makers. Take notes, I am giving free advice.

As Students’ Union President, I was often the only Black person in these “higher-up” spaces if not accompanied by my team. For Black people it is always a dance; speaking eloquently but not too forcefully, confirming you were born in the country but with a laugh so as to avoid awkwardness, not reacting angrily in the face of blatant racism but instead walking away or politely educating those who insulted you. But why? Why can’t I just curse out the dummy that said, “All Lives Matter” upon seeing my BLM pin? Or why does the Black soccer player who gets called the N-Word on the field, get reprimanded for reacting angrily? The answer is because we can only be Black in a way that is palatable for White people. This is called White fragility and at its core, it prioritizes the feelings of White people above the trauma and experiences of Black people. It is the art of silencing Black folks through defensiveness, indignation, or by withdrawing from the conversation. It is also presenting excuses for behaviour or having “hurt feelings,” and weaponizing tears whenever Black people talk about their experiences. I hate to break it to you, but you’re not the one who was harmed and now you’re just taking space away from those who had been willing to share their pain with you.

In a recent conversation with a girl I grew up with, I was shocked to hear about the incidents of racism that she endured during her time in school. The rest of our group had grown up in the immigrant communities of Calgary and been surrounded by students who looked like us. This was in stark contrast to my friend’s experiences of having grown up in a predominantly White area and attending White schools. She said that what started in elementary school as pencils and erasers being stuck in her hair (with the teacher’s approval) then evolved by high school into students making monkey noises in the hallways and referring to Black students by the N-Word as they walked past. This was a daily occurrence. And it seems that these racist high schoolers share tactics inter-provincially, because my cousin in Halifax described similar experiences and named her high school’s hockey team as particularly egregious perpetrators of racism. A quick temperature check at E.P. Scarlett and Halifax West respectively, revealed that the racism continues in similar forms to this day. Of course, there were and are no consequences for any of the students participating in these behaviours.

The first time I was called the N-Word, I was too young to remember but I doubt my parents will ever forget it. The first time I personally recall it happening was at StFX. I was running past Riley Hall when someone yelled, “RUN NI––ER, RUN!” This incident was in my first year and I will contrast it with a different incident from my third year. As background, at the end of October 2017, Frank Magazine published a racist cartoon of Halifax activist and poet laureate, El Jones.¹ Her face was drawn to resemble a Blackface caricature reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. The condemnation of the image was widespread and almost immediate. A few weeks after this controversy, a Xaverian Weekly Senior Reporter wrote a piece called “Define before you assign” which is luckily still searchable on The Xaverian Weekly’s website. ²

In this piece, the writer discusses what is considered racism and who is considered a racist. The examples he provided included thinly veiled references to what happened to El Jones as well as discussions about culturally appropriative Halloween costumes. Before I begin my discussion, I would like to note that the writer was a White male. I am not averse to White males discussing racism, however seeing as they benefit from both male and White privilege, it is incumbent for their conversations to be grounded in fact, evidence, and data about people of colour. It is impossible for White males to form an opinion about racism based on how they have experienced it. Why? Because White males do not, cannot, and will never experience racism. I said what I said.

I would argue that the article the writer wrote was not based in evidence or facts, it was solely speculative. He was not willing to outright state that he did not believe that the caricature of El Jones was racist, perhaps for fear of repercussions. He skirted the topic, questioning if drawing exaggerated features on a person who may have already had some of those features, was racist. He argued that models get their skin lightened on covers of magazines all the time, but no one says anything about that. Then he went on to question why Black celebrities that wore Whiteface did not get backlash in the same way that a White celebrity wearing Blackface would receive and wondered aloud whether cultural regalia as a costume was truly culturally appropriative. Note that in each example, he questioned if any of these situations even had anything to do with race in the first place. He concluded by saying we should not call people racists easily, because it is a “powerful word.”³

Based on the arguments he presented, I imagine the writer also claims colour-blindness about race and questions why White people cannot use the N-Word. For brevity’s sake, I will only offer a short analysis. First thing to know, the Transatlantic Slave Trade happened. This slave trade reduced African and Indigenous peoples to chattel and irrevocably changed the power dynamics and path of development for our world. Therefore, the interactions between White and Black peoples will always show dynamics of power and privilege, meaning that even if you switch the roles of a White and a Black person in a situation, it will not have the same impact. There is a reason for that. Furthermore, skin lightening is not relegated to the cover of magazines, in fact it happens in real life. All over the world, dark-skinned people attempt to lighten their complexions with the use of harmful chemical products to try to get closer to European beauty standards and with the hope of being better accepted in their societies. What you are witnessing in both instances is colourism; maybe the writer could have looked that up? For the record, Blackface caricatures were used as an oppressive tool against Black peoples and their core intention was to remove Black people’s humanity and relegate them again to a lesser-than status. These caricatures were used popularly even within the last 50 years. The type of speculation that the writer used in his article, aims to gaslight Black people and erase their lived experiences by calling those experiences into question while simultaneously minimizing the harm committed against Black people in those instances.

If comparing these two incidents, from my first year then my third year, and having to choose between being called the N-Word from a window versus reading the Xaverian writer’s racist ‘lite’ article, I would prefer to be called the N-Word again. But why would I choose that? Because for me, there is a comfort in knowing who is unapologetically racist. Then I can hate them, avoid them, hold them accountable, educate them, rehabilitate them etc., whatever I choose to do. Part of what made the writer’s article so infuriating, is that he wrote in a way that tried to avoid responsibility for the opinions he offered. It was the illusion of objectivity and of not taking sides, similar to the tactic used by whomever runs the “stfx memes 1853” Instagram account, when they discussed what is happening in Nova Scotia surrounding the moderate livelihood fisheries built by the Mi’kmaq. Both individuals used questions and speculation with the aim of not being held to account for the racist and white supremacist ideas they were proffering. I personally prefer to simply know who is racist, so that I can respond accordingly.

When my cousin was talking about the racism she experienced at Halifax West, she made a very powerful argument. She said today she sees the same people who all their lives tormented Black students, now attending Black Lives Matter protests. They either do not mention their past actions or explain them away as ignorance or a lack of maturity. She asserted that these excuses were unacceptable because being racist is not merely a stage or a normal part of growing up and it also dismisses the irrevocable harm towards Black students who suffered these daily abuses. There are plenty of people, plenty of White people, who grew up without having been racist towards or saying racist things, to their classmates. These former high schooler’s actions, like the

Xaverian writer’s and the meme account owner’s, must be understood as deliberate and therefore need to be addressed and held accountable as such.

Unfortunately, the type of racism that the Xaverian writer and the meme account owner were demonstrating is the type of racism that most people suffer from. Most people do not go around in KKK hoods with nooses propped in the back of their car. Racism is mostly subtle and exists in the unquestioned biases and attitudes of the people who we interact with everyday. Do you have any Black people in your close circle? No? Have you ever wondered why? I am sure you can name the capital of England, but do you know the capital of Nigeria? Why not? And have you ever wondered why you know, what you know and why you don’t know, what you don’t know? Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of blog “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race” which later became a published book, discusses how structural racism is difficult to hold to account. She says racism is both structural and institutional, but also notes that it is built into spaces much broader than our traditional institutions.⁴

Eddo-Lodge describes institutional racism as dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people with the same biases coming together to make up an organization. The outcome is a White workplace culture set by these people and it exists through implicit biases, snap judgements, and assumptions about an outsider’s competence.⁵ If we return to examine our institutions through the lens of structural racism, what will we learn about our schools, universities, hospitals, government agencies, and police departments? If we know that White workplace culture exists in these places, it means that anyone outside of that culture learns to either conform or alternatively, face failure as an outcast.⁶The culture of these institutions also determines what we learn, what we know, and what is visible to us.

While I was at StFX, there were serious issues with how Black students were treated as well as many gaffes from the university that could have been easily avoided. To make visible these issues and these instances, I shall name a few. The “We Are StFX” video filmed without including any people of colour. The exclusion of Black students during social events. Without forewarning, watching the public humiliation of one of our mentors and not being asked if we were okay afterwards. The constant equity forums where students give their time, emotional labour, and expertise, just for nothing to come of it. The recruitment of Black students, but only for the athletics program. The concentrated focus on the student accounts of International students. The lack of institutional resources for Black students. The little to no representation of Black people among professors and senior administration. And more recently, a missive that was sent out by the university informing students of RCMP presence on campus for COVID spot checks framed as positive news. This last one was particularly stinging because it happened just two months after global protests calling out police brutality against Black people.

Eddo-Lodge says collective bias is what has real impact on people’s lives. She explains that people with biases hold positions of power, they teach, they prosecute, look at university applications, and hire staff.⁷ You may even have noticed how bias played a role in some of StFX’s decisions, outlined in the previous paragraph. We already know that people with Black or Asian sounding names are less likely to receive interview call backs.⁸ So I wonder to myself, is it the person that calls me the N-Word on the street that harms me most, or is it the person that prevents me from getting a job and contributing to my community? (This is not permission to use the N-Word).

When Dr. Adolph Reed Jr. came to StFX, he challenged me to think about racism, white supremacy, class, and inequality from perspectives I had not considered before. I would stay up late those nights, analyzing his arguments again and again, trying to see if they somehow fit into my knowledge of critical race theory. At times, I even changed my mind from previous ways of thinking (always an uncomfortable process). One of his arguments that resonated was that we should examine the contexts under which racism and white supremacy become more powerful to effectively address inequality, opposed to focusing on just labeling the forces that cause those inequalities.⁹ By using this line of thinking, I ask what conditions previously existed and currently exist at E.P. Scarlett, Halifax West, and StFX that allow for the unequal treatment of Black students? What context emboldens White students to make monkey noises in the hallways and hockey players to use the N-Word? What circumstances make it so that Black youth are primarily recruited for their athletic prowess instead of their academic success? What processes at StFX University make it so difficult to follow through on equity initiatives? How does White workplace culture influence each level of university decision-making? Once we can answer these questions, I dare say we can begin addressing the inequalities that Black students face everyday.

But what until then? I mean as Black students, we have our coping mechanisms. We code-switch, we hang out with other Black people, we used to complain to our beloved ADSA advisor and hang out in her office, and when the bland food got to be too much, we would call our friends over and cook a feast. While reading this essay, I am sure you felt uncomfortable at certain points. After all, the truth is never heard easily. But understand that Black students, in just one moment, feel what you are feeling now at maybe ten or twenty times the intensity, at multiple instances throughout each and every day. So, you can sit there, feeling guilty and uncomfortable, or perhaps you can make the decision to finally work on rectifying your internalized biases and racism. Yes, it will be a long process, but it is so important. The support for Black Lives Matter fell among White people, from 60% support in June, to 40% in September.x This is not just a statistic; this is real life. Do the work on yourself and at the very least, you will come out of it a better person. Only, of course, if that is your intention. Whatever you choose, Black people will keep on keeping on as we always do, but just don’t expect me to be polite the next time you ask me if my hair is real.

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1. Michael Tutton, “Frank Magazine to Alter 'Racist' Cartoon of Black Poet El Jones after Boycott Calls,” Toronto Sun (The Canadian Press, October 11, 2017), https://torontosun.com/2017/10/11/frank-magazine-to-alter-racist-cartoon-of-black-pet-el-jones-after-boycott-calls.

2. Caleb Scargall, “Define before you assign,” The Xaverian Weekly (The Xaverian Weekly, November 14, 2017), https://www.xaverian.ca/articles/define-before-you-assign?rq=nose.

3. Scargall, “Define before you assign,” 1-2.

4. Reni Eddo-Lodge, “Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, May 30, 2017), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/30/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race.

5. Reni Eddo-Lodge, “Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race,” 2.

6. Reni Eddo-Lodge, “Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race,” 2-3.

7. Reni Eddo-Lodge, “Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race,” 4.

8. Dina Gerdeman, “Minorities Who 'Whiten' Job Resumes Get More Interviews,” HBS Working Knowledge (Harvard Business School, May 17, 2017), https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes-get-more-interviews.

9. Adolph Reed, Jr., “How Racial Disparity Does Not Help Make Sense of Patterns of Police Violence,” Nonsite.org, September 16, 2016, https://nonsite.org/how-racial-disparity-does-not-help-make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence/.

10. Deja Thomas and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “Support for Black Lives Matter Has Decreased since June but Remains Strong among Black Americans,” Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center, September 16, 2020), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/16/support-for-black-lives-matter-has-decreased- since-june-but-remains-strong-among-black-americans/.

An Interview with Terena Francis

As we mark the 27th year Anniversary of Mi’kmaq History Month. Preet Banga, news section editor with the X-Weekly interviewed Terena Francis, the coordinator for Indigenous Student Affairs at StFX about her role and how she is trying to promote an understanding of the Mi'kmaq culture and traditions on the campus.

PB: Please tell us about your role as the Coordinator for Indigenous Student Affairs and some of the challenges you face?

TF: A big part of my job is to support Indigenous students to be successful with their academics, to do this we must ensure that we offer supports that have a holistic approach. I help the students navigate the campus community. I work under the Student Life Department and we are trying to work more as a team and work together to support the students, a case management style. So, this year I am referring more students to different resources within campus and help them navigate that. I also help students with filling out scholarship forms and bursaries. I offer academic supports such as tutoring and note takers. I also link the students with external supports, that would be relevant to their needs.

I want to ensure that the staff that I am referring students to, are also culturally aware and understand Indigenous issues. These are some of the challenges that I face. However, it is getting much better. We are providing cultural awareness training, equity and diversity training and those challenges are slowly going away. People are becoming more aware and understanding in how to better support the students. We need to have a holistic approach when working with Indigenous students. So, I guess my main worry is that I don't want the Indigenous students to feel that they are sacrificing any part of their identity, or their dignity, to receive an education. I try to host events -- traditional and cultural events. I try to ensure that they are continuing with their practices here on campus that they would have done at home.

In the past, I did lot of recruitment with the Mi’kmaq schools locally and within Nova Scotia. I am also a part of the Indigenous Advisors Networking group. The Indigenous advisors get together twice a year. We support each other, because we understand and can relate to the challenges we face at our universities. I also work as a liaison between community sponsors and the students. A lot of times, I help the students navigate the resources that are provided through their community sponsors as well as on campus.

Another part of my position is to educate the campus community through cultural awareness training. I collaborate with different faculty members, with efforts to host events that would support decolonization and educate the campus community on Indigenous issues. I sit on a lot of committees to try to give an Indigenous perspective. However, right now, my focus is on student success. And that's where I would like to focus this year, especially with the pandemic.

PB: What sort of counselling or support are your able to provide to the indigenous students?

TF: The most important thing is that I can relate to the students. I know where they are coming from and they can relate to me. I feel that they are very comfortable to come to me. I provide a safe space for them where they can discuss any issue, maybe in regards to racism or a

professor might have made a comment that they felt was not right. So, we have discussions here in my office where students can release fully.

The lack of knowledge and understanding about our Indigenous history creates ignorance in regard to our past and our present. As a result, there are lot of opinions out there that necessarily are not educated opinions. We are an institution of higher learning and so my hope is that the students will take it upon themselves to seek out opportunities to learn more about the Indigenous people of Canada. It is very important to learn about the Mi’kmaq people in this area.

PB: What are your suggestions to build awareness about the Mi’kmaq people and their history?

TF: One of the main reasons for lack of cultural awareness is the absence of Indigenous employees and Indigenous perspectives. I believe we need to hire more Indigenous staff. We need Indigenous people sitting at those tables to ensure our perspectives are being included. Also, the curriculum should be made inclusive of Indigenous knowledge. Thankfully, StFX is listening to our recommendations, slowly, as you know, all this is a process. I was pleased this year they hired Michelle Sylliboy, who is Mi’kmaq, her classes include conversational Mi’kmaw, along with a few other courses. This is a step forward!

We have a faculty member in the anthropology department, Jane McMillan that works closely with our Elder-in-Residence Kerry Prosper. They work well together ensuring that we are educating the campus community on issues. However, that’s not enough. Mi’kmaq History month is when we highlight some issues, but it shouldn’t only be limited to one month a year. We need more faculty to incorporate Indigenous Knowledge in their curriculum, of course being fully informed of the topics and genuine is a must. Not just faculty though, all of the campus community should know that it was Treaty Day, that the Mi’kmaw are not the only ones to celebrate Treaty Day, we are all Treaty People.

Infectious Until Proven Celibate… seriously?

The deliberately discriminatory draconian blood ban is how Canadian Blood Services (CBS) chooses to kill people every single day. Their present policy states that men who have sex with men (msm) must practice total abstinence of sexual contact for three months to be granted the privilege to donate. This also applies to trans women who have not had gender affirming surgery who have sex with men. The ban ignores advances in screening which are now able to detect cases as new infections within nine days of exposure.

    PrEP, short for pre-exposure prophylaxis, is a drug which according to the CDC reduces the risk of contracting HIV from sexual practices by 99% as opposed to those not on the drug. This drug is heavily marketed at msm and trans individuals and apps like Grindr encourage its use by adding "on PrEP" as an add on to your HIV status option, where you can also add your last date tested. While none of these boxes are mandatory to fill out, it does support the information from the Unifor website stating that msm (and presumably trans folks as well) are more likely to know when they're been exposed that their heterosexual counterparts. Despite this CBS still refuses to make their questions related to behaviour, preferring to run on assumptions; a monogamous gay couple is not allowed to donate but a woman can ride a new disposable douche daily, provided she has a vagina, and still donate.

    It's pretty sad that the Umbrella Academy did a better job of discriminating blood donation based on behaviour of a man who has sex with men. It was based on behaviour. Imagine. But no, we instead are given the Luther treatment of having our blood being basically inhuman.

It's pretty obvious that people are just plain homophobic. Read the CBS frequently asked questions and try sifting through their political paragraphs for an actual answer to the question that doesn't boil down to "gay blood is dirty, we ignore science that doesn't support this." Having the Student Union Building choose to support this was disrespectful to every person who saw it had to laugh it off. Hatred based discrimination has no place in a build that's supposed to be for ALL students. Take the hate home. Ninian's Cathedral is an on campus location that isn't part of the campus itself, it's part of the community of Antigonish. A community which is far less likely to walk into the heart of campus to donate than they are to come from the sidewalk to donate. More donors and the school engages in a positive way with the town. Everybody wins and the place not for the gays is the church once more. If we can't have human levels of respect you can at least let us have a laugh.

Nobody should have to walk past a reminder of ignorance reducing them from a who to a what.

RBG's Mixed Record

Following the death of US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Badger Ginsburg and the online praise she was receiving, I became aware of a number of articles suggesting that Ginsburg in fact did not have a favourable record when it came to issues of Indigenous rights. The proposed ‘champion for all’, though instrumental in the assertion of women’s rights in America, had what some would call a ‘mixed record’ when it came to more intersectional feminist views.

I felt that it was important to look into the cases that make Justice Ginsburg’s record on Indigenous cases less than the caliber of judicial excellence that much of the public remembers. A quick search yielded results that I had not previously thought to look into given the widely publicized image of Ginsburg as the ‘Notorious RBG,’ the fierce fighter of women’s rights.

During Ginsburg’s tenure as Supreme Court Justice the opinions she wrote for the court regarding what are referred to as “Indian Law” cases were comparatively less favourable towards groups of Indigenous people than had been written in previous years. Ginsburg’s record upholds the opinion that she was unreceptive to indigenous claims. In hindsight, it can be inferred that the Supreme Court itself has shown preferential treatment to those enforcing state rights, rather than Indigenous rights or what is referred to in Carole Goldberg’s analysis of past Indigenous cases involving Ginsburg as ‘tribal rights’.

Ginsburg’s record is particularly interesting as it is her opinions that are the bigger issue, not necessarily how she voted in these individual cases, where scholars take issue. One such opinion which she wrote in regard to the City of Sherill V. Oneida Indian Nation frequently pops up as one of the more problematic. The case itself dates back hundreds of years, to the American Revolution. The Oneida had broken ranks with the other Iroquois Nations to support the US, providing the army with corn that was considered a much-needed resource at the time. Following the Revolution, in acknowledgement of their efforts, the US signed a treaty with the Oneida to provide 300 000 acres of land in what is now New York. Later, in 1970, New York pressured the Oneida into signing all but 5000 acres of their land away. The US never intervened, despite a 1790 law stating land could not be allocated without express permission of the US. By 1838, after more pressure from the state, the Oneida only owned 32 of the original 300 000 acres.

By the nineteenth and twentieth centuries numerous attempts to reclaim Oneida land were made. When the Oneida finally managed to reclaim a small part of their ancestral land, however, another issue occurred. Though Oneida was understood to be a sovereign nation, as the treaties that were signed outline, the City of Sherill was still imposing a tax on their land. When brought to the Supreme Court, the decision was rendered in favor of the City of Sherill, which lower courts have suggested acts as an invitation to deny Indigenous claims in the future. In Ginsburg’s opinion to the court, she consistently references the Oneida’s dispossession of land as ‘ancient’ rather than recognizing that their rights were being dismissed in the present. The struggle that the Oneida were currently facing was disregarded. As a historian, I find fault in the lack of understanding about the depth to which these issues persist, and the past in which they are connected to.

In more recent years, Ginsburg’s voting had been more favorable towards the affirmation of Indigenous Sovereignty. In one of her last votes, Ginsburg voted 5-4 in McGirt V. Oklahoma. This ruling affirmed that the eastern half of Oklahoma was considered Native American Territory. If anything, these facts point to a need to grapple with dissenting stories opposing a common public storyline. Ginsburg’s opinions to the court also outline a distinct gap in the law more generally when it comes to the understanding of

Indigenous traditions, law, and ways of understanding the world. Nearly nobody is untouched by an ingrained history of colonialist views. Ginsburg, though the pinnacle of women’s independence, lacked the capacity to understand the Indigenous perspective for much of her law career.

Years of Treaty Conflict, StFX Professor Speaks

StFX anthropology professor Dr. L. Jane McMillan is the recent recipient of the Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing for her powerful release, Truth and Conviction: Donald Marshall Jr. and the Mi’kmaq Quest for Justice. Praise and recognition have been widespread since the book was released in late 2018, and she has since travelled to Harvard University as an invited speaker, and Toronto as an awardee.

On October 2, 2020, Dr. McMillan sat down with Staff Writer Nathan Penman to discuss her recent book award, the ongoing acts of aggression toward Mi’kmaq fishers, and what students can learn from Donald Marshall Jr.

***

NP: To start, could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you do?

JM: I’m a legal anthropologist and an applied anthropologist, so we do anthropology that hopefully does something that informs policy or can drive change. We identify social problems and work with community members to try and address those problems using whatever means we can. It is a really collaborative, community-led type of work that I do. I’ve had the wonderful privilege of working with the Mi’kmaq Nation for close to three decades now.

NP: Why did you write Truth and Conviction, and was it difficult trying to balance academic objectivity with your personal relationship to Donald Marshall Jr.?

JM: Well, it was a project that had been going on for a very long time. It was a project that was based on my Ph.D. dissertation, and then life got in the way. When Junior was alive, he wanted us to write a book together and we didn’t get to that work fast enough. He passed away in 2009, but I never lost sight of his desire to make sure that stories and his legacy continued.

So, I took that on, and my goal with the book was to honour his legacy and hopefully mobilize people to continue to act. To give them some insight into how he was thinking, but also [his] transformative impacts in terms of justice reform and treaty rights. I mean, it’s a heck of a story, he really was a remarkable man. But in writing it, I was also grieving the loss of somebody that I loved and cared about—somebody I spent many years of my life with. I spent a lot of time reflecting on our relationship and on our life, so that was a deeply personal experience for me. It wasn’t always easy, there were a lot of tears. A lot of tears working through that, but [there was] a lot that I needed to keep to myself because I’m quite a private person, so even putting in the personal anecdotes that are in there was pretty tough.

NP: You recently won the Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing. How did it feel to receive it, and what does this award mean to you?

JM: I was absolutely thrilled and honoured. I didn’t expect to receive the award. It means a great deal to me—the recognition is very affirming. It was a difficult book to write and one never knows how that type of work is going to be received as balancing the academic and the personal is always a bit of a challenge. And the recognition from the Atlantic Book Award—they wrote a really beautiful letter to me talking about the timeliness of the work, particularly in light of all of the racism and the tragic consequences going on over the summer.

NP: Dr. Ingrid R. G. Waldron’s There’s Something in the Water won the Scholarly Writing award last year, and this year you won it with your book, Truth and Conviction. To you, do these recognitions mean something for future work in mobilizing Mi’kmaq and Indigenous knowledge, ways of living, or current struggles?

JM: Well, I certainly hope so. I hope people will keep speaking out, the academy will keep writing and reporting, and news venues like yourself will keep the stories alive and in the headlines, and not just for the horrific sensationalism but getting at the root causes. Because it’s not until we address the root causes of inequality and discrimination that we’re going to make any change. This is why we’re seeing such important work being done by the Mi’kmaq Nation today to assert their livelihood rights against all of the obstacles that have been put before them that exclude them and prevent them from doing what is rightfully theirs. I think those moments are really important and that the press needs to accurately reflect those moments. There’s been a shift in the discourse around what the Mi’kmaq have been doing and there seems to be more positive support, as there should be, for treaty rights assertion.

NP: On September 18, The Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs declared a State of Emergency in response to the hostilities surrounding fishing treaty rights and their assertion. Your book describes how these came about. So, what do you think about the recent fishing rights disputes and the State of Emergency in Mi’kmaq’ki?

JM: Well, there are two important things, I think, for me. One, I 100% support the Assembly of Chiefs and the Mi’kmaq communities for asserting their livelihood rights and going out on their self-regulated livelihood fisheries. That’s been a long time coming, and that activity should not be criminalized in any way. It is legal under the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and of course through the Treaties.

I am terribly disappointed in the response from non-Indigenous fishers, but these conflicts aren’t new. The gear conflicts, the maliciousness, the destruction of traps, of boats—of anything that can interfere with the Mi’kmaq doing their ceremonial or livelihood fisheries—has been going on for many, many, many years. And the Mi’kmaq haven’t been well protected nor have their rights been well recognized. So, I think what I really enjoy seeing right now is the unity of the Mi’kmaq Nation in going forward in supporting each other; those that gathered down there for the Mawiomi yesterday, those that gathered in Potlotek, and those that are supporting the Membertou fishery.

That to me is always what Jr. Marshall would’ve wanted. You know, I think that he would be thrilled to see that kind of leadership, that kind of collective action. That was what he was aiming for when he continued on with that fight.

NP: Your book talks about continuing Donald Marshall Jr.’s desire for the Indigenous Peoples’ rights to be respected by everyone. I have to ask, what do you think the Department of Fisheries and Oceans could or should do to protect Mi’kmaq fishers and their rights?

JM: Well, I think there needs to be a whole-scale restructuring of the Fisheries in order to include, respect, and educate others on that space in the fishery. There needs to be very a distinct place for Mi’kmaq rights to the resource, and they need to stop interfering with the livelihood aspects, they should be enabling commerce rather than disabling it. And I think that the education programs of the regulatory body have to shift so that everyone understands there are Mi’kmaq rights to fishing and that other Indigenous communities also have very similar rights to access these resources in Canada and they can no longer be excluded from that. There’s a lot of work to be done. They also need to be protecting Mi’kmaq gear and Mi’kmaq lives around that water against the hostilities and conflicts.

NP: What do you think people should understand about the Friendship and Peace Treaties of the 18th century?

JM: They are living treaties. They have been affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada and they are upheld in the Canadian Constitution. The Mi’kmaq have an unbreakable bond to those treaties and live by and adhere to them. And all of the settlers who live in this territory are also treaty people and have an obligation to live the treaties as well, and that means honouring and respecting the relationships and, ideally, someday getting to the place where they are constantly celebrating those relationships rather than fighting over what those rights may be.

NP: What do you think, then, that StFX University as an institution and its students could be doing to assist Mi’kmaq People trying to assert their treaty rights—their re-affirmed rights?

JM: I think we’ve got a great administration in place right now that are very supportive, and they want to be good neighbours to the Mi’kmaq Nation. The Indigenous student services section of the university needs some growth, it needs some support, it needs more resources put toward it. So that’s one thing the campus can do. I think the campus can also welcome the dialogue and help shift the conversation from one of antagonism and racism to one of peace and friendship. As you mentioned, to be living the meaning and intent of the treaties in better ways.

I think that we fly the Mi’kmaq flag, we acknowledge we’re on Mi’kmaq territory—those are important symbolic steps—but substantively, there’s work to be done in our research relationships, our teaching relationships, and our service relationships. And I think that those changes are coming, I think that there is certainly the political will on campus and that students are all benefiting from exposure to Mi’kmaq culture and Mi’kmaq knowledge. And Indigenous

knowledge isn’t general, and I think that everybody is learning and participating in that way, and we’re all better off for it.

So, I think more and more engagement and more and more opportunities for land-based learning. Our knowledge keeper on campus, I think that he could benefit from more resources because he’s really tapped a lot to educate and help people learn, but he can’t do it all—he’s a busy man—so we’d like to support Kerry Prosper in whatever ways we can. And I’d like to see at some point see the university set up sort of a space that’s both sacred and educational, and we could put in an ethnobotanical garden that relates to Indigenous knowledge, medicines, and plants, and maybe have a wigwam where we can do teachings and have the community come in and share their knowledge with us and have them be properly compensated for that exchange.

NP: Me, I’m from Sydney so I’ve grown up with some familiarity of Mi’kmaq knowledge but when I came to university—it just opens your eyes to just how much you don’t know. And having more of those opportunities to learn can never be a bad thing.

JM: I also think that we need more Indigenous faculty—we need more diverse faculty. But, more Indigenous faculty and staff, for sure. It’d be great to have a Chair of Indigenous Governance in the Public Policy and Governance program. A Chair of Indigenous Environment in the Climate and Environment program. A Chair of Indigenous Health in the Health program. A Chair of Indigenous Business—I mean we can have it everywhere.

NP: Let’s circle back to your book. In it you state: “The adversarial justice system features the state as the victim and punishment as the cure, in a narrow adjudication process separated from the community.” I wonder, then, to you, what would a pluralized justice system in Nova Scotia or Mi’kmaq’ki look like?

JM: It would be one where the community has way more input in the remedy. The restorative justice processes are fairly inherent in Mi’kmaq belief systems and they could be brought forward and brought into practice. The Wagmatcook Court is a great start, and they are working really hard with community members and [they] have their Elder advisory circle. They work with the Mi’kmaq legal support network which provides some customary and law and court worker support.

But I think we can take it a step further and see some self-determined justice institutes being brought forward relying on Mi’kmaq legal principles and I’d like to see that happen. So, I think that the Mi’kmaq have always had an interest in creating their own courts—it doesn’t have to look like a Canadian court, it doesn’t even have to be called a court, for the sake of this conversation. Or, [it could be] a justice lodge or someplace where people can come and gather and gain the teachings they need to repair whatever harms have been committed. And to reintegrate people back into the communities so people can go on living in a good way.

NP: As a follow-up, what would you say to those who have doubts in Indigenous People’s ability to judge or mediate through these justice circles, or so on, when harm is done to the community?

JM: I think regardless of what kind of justice system you have, you have people who doubt it. I mean, we certainly can’t have blind faith in our justice system in Canada; it makes mistakes, it makes a lot of mistakes. And Donald Marshall’s wrongful conviction is but one of many, many more. And, so, I think any sort of system that’s trying to generate knowledge, repair harms, and deter people from committing further offences and working to re-integrate people, of course, is going to run into its problems. But I think that the benefit of Indigenous legal principles and practice is that they’re far more focused on rehabilitation and reintegration than punishment. And I think that our justice system would benefit from changing its lens to one that’s far more rehabilitative and reintegrative than its focus on punishment because it’s not working.

NP: I think your passion for telling Donald Marshall Jr.’s story and telling people today why it’s important to continue his legacy—I think it speaks in the book, so I really do want to commend you for a quality book, and like I said I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from it. I really do hope that our readers will do the same.

JM: Thank you, Nathan, I appreciate that.

All Eyes on Mi'kma'ki: Antigonish Residents Rally in Support of Mi'kmaq Rights to Moderate Livelihood

On October 17, 2020, more than 300 people rallied in Chisholm Park to demonstrate their solidarity with Mi’kmaw fishers. The purpose of the rally was to demand that the RCMP and elected officials honour the Treaty of 1752, which guarantees the Mi’kmaq right to fish for a moderate livelihood, and to act to stop acts of violence and terror against Mi'kmaq fishers. This comes after a week of violence in Saulnierville, where white vigilantes have been cutting traps, raiding lobster pounds, and making threats against the wellbeing of Mi'kmaq people.

The rally began at 6pm with a drum performance of “Honour Song” by Graham Marshall; Billy Joe Muese; Noah Mathews Crimons; Salena Sylvester; Charlotte, Margaret, and Dolena Poulette; and Michelle, Christina, and Rosie Sylliboy. Following the performance, a number of Mi’kmaq community members, as well as a few settlers, took the stage with words of outrage, encouragement, solidarity, and hope. Chris Frazer, professor of History at StFX, acted as the event’s emcee. An experienced organizer and activist, Frazer also played a large role in making the event happen.

Dolena Poulette of Membertou First Nation giving the opening prayer.

Photo by Addy Strickland

Among the speakers was Michelle Sylliboy, a Mi’kmaq artist from We'koqma'q Cape Breton and Professor of Art and Modern Languages at StFX University. Sylliboy emphasized the role of the 1752 treaty, stating that Mi'kmaq people have been here for a very long time, and will be here for a very long time, despite government efforts to silence or ignore them; “we’re not going anywhere,” she said. She called on settlers—her allies and neighbours—to write their elected officials, and ask for justice. “That email that you send to the Prime Minister is a legal document, and they can’t ignore it … you voted them in. They work for you. It’s pretty clear that they don’t work for me anymore, but they work for you,” she said.

Salena Sylvestor, a mom, leader, and Community Studies student who travelled to Antigonish from Membertou First Nation, also took the stage. Sylvestor was emotional, sharing her thoughts about ongoing events in Digby, and explaining to the crowd what was happening there; cut traps, flares, violence, fire. If these acts were being committed by Indigenous people, she stipulated, the RCMP would be employing force to make it stop. She asks, “where’s that force now?”

Sylvestor was followed by Mary Isaac, who reminded the crowd about the real root of the issue. “This is about corporations trying to steal our natural resources and keep us fighting as a distraction,” she said, and encouraged everyone in attendance to “unite as one people” instead of resorting to violence and conflict.

Dolena Poulette, from We'koqma'q First Nation, April and Darlene Prosper, from Paq’tnkek First Nation, and Marin McBeath, a history student at StFX, also stepped up to the mic.

While the speakers were on stage, two rubber boots also made their way through the crowd, collecting funds to be sent to the front lines in Digby and put towards buying necessary supplies. Attendees raised a total of $1145 in monetary donations, and event organizers are looking to collect further donations in material items to send along as well. Readers looking to lend support are encouraged to write, call, or email their elected officials to call for action. Monetary or material donations are also welcome. Charlotte Conolly, an activist from Halifax (K'jipuktuk), has created a list of the various places to donate, alongside templates for reaching elected officials, lists of most needed supplies, and trustworthy news sources; her list can be found online here.

Three dancers led the march.

Photo by Addy Strickland

The rally ended with a march, led by three young dancers, routed from Chisholm through the StFX campus. Marchers waved at the Antigonish RCMP station as they made their way back along West Street.

A livestream of the event can found on The Xaverian Weekly’s Facebook page, here. A recording of the event will also be shared on this week’s episode of Social Justice Radio, Thursday at 5pm on 93.3 The Fox.

An Interview with Hunter Park, Candidate for First Year Representative

Editor-in-Chief Will Fraser sat down with each of the candidates for 2020-2021 First Year Representative.

Candidate: Hunter Park
Slogan: Let’s make this year like no other, vote for Hunter!

WF: Tell us a bit about yourself and why you decided to run. 

My name is Hunter Park. And I'm from a small island in southern New Brunswick with a population of 2500 people. And I came to StFX because I had visited here a couple times, and I love the community feel. In high school, I was co-President of Student Council. I was vice-president of my class and editor of the yearbook. So, I love being involved and I love student government. I'm a first-year business student at X and I'm staying in MacIsaac Hall, and I'm loving it here. 

WF: Can you tell us what the job of first year rep involves? 

So, the first-year rep to me is to represent the views of everyone in first year, and what they would like done. So basically, advocating for what they want as a group and being there to listen to their opinions and what they'd like to do. 

WF: What is your platform? 

My platform is based on three main points. The first one is equity and diversity. The second one is student involvement and activities. And the third one is safety.  

So, in equity and diversity, I'm openly gay. So I understand how it feels to be left out, and I understand the importance of inclusion on campus and Equity and Diversity being something that StFX strives for, I would love to stand for that as well and it would be my goal to make campus feel like a safe place for everyone. 

So, student activities. I understand there's a house point system here, but not a lot of people know how many points their house has, or what the rankings are and I would like to implement a system whether that be an app or a website, where students can see where their house is standing, and what activities there are to participate in. and saying that I would also like to have more fun activities, while maintaining safe COVID regulations.  

Moving into safety. The main thing that I've heard the students of the class of 2024 want is to reduce restrictions. So, my goal is to maintain a balance between staying safe during COVID, and loosening restrictions as much as safely possible. 

WF: If you can only accomplish one thing on your platform, which would it be? 

If I could only accomplish one thing on my platform, it would be the Student Involvement part. It would be to make it a more fun year for everyone and to listen to what activities and things students would like to do this year. 

WF: The Students’ Union has historically been criticized for being elitist. How will you make The U more open and approachable to students? 

I never had that impression personally of the U, but now that I know that that's a reputation that they have had, I would strive to approach everyone in first year and try to make them comfortable giving input and communicating with the union input in what happens with the union and communicating with me for the union. 

WF: What do you think of StFX’s handling of COVID-19? What would you change? 

I'm very happy that we get to be here in person, and I think that StFX has done a great job with creating a place where we can feel safe. However, there are a few things that I would change, such as I would remove masks in residence buildings and in meal hall, I would create eating areas per each residence house so that you're not sitting with people from different houses, that way you can feel safe in your residence and maintain distance from people within other residences.

WF: Looking at the other candidates, why should first years vote for you over them? 

I personally love all the other candidates and spent time with a lot of them and I think that we'd all be really good choices for the part. However, I as well as other candidates have had experience with student government and representing people. And I would love to represent students of '24. 

WF: If you were to lose the election, which candidate do you hope would win? 

All three candidates have advantages, specific advantages, so I can't pick one to win. 

WF: Anything else you’d like to say to first-years? 

I'd love to have this chance to represent you guys and I hope in the case that I do get elected, that you feel comfortable talking to me about anything, and I'm doing this for the class of '24. 

An Interview with Brendan Roberts, Candidate for First Year Representative

Editor-in-Chief Will Fraser sat down with each of the candidates for 2020-2021 First Year Representative.

Candidate: Brendan Roberts
Slogan: satisfying your hunger for change

WF: Tell us a bit about yourself and why you decided to run. 

My name is Brendan Roberts. I'm from Calgary, Alberta. I, you know, grew up in Calgary, but I lived in Halifax for a few years. My family still has a cottage in Nova Scotia, that we usually come back to. You know, so I do, I do have a bit of a connection to Nova Scotia and that's sort of why I came to StFX originally. I'm running because I've always really been interested in student government. So I was my high school student council president and I've always been trying to get really involved. So you know, here at StFX, I'm actually the director of academics for the Schwartz Business Society. And yeah, I'm just running because, you know, I've heard from a lot of different students just, you know, there's some clarification, I think that could be made, just regarding different policies, especially in terms of the COVID-19 policies, that maybe students aren't fully understanding and I'm not saying that, you know, we're gonna get everything changed, and it's not going to be a normal year, because it isn't a normal year, but, but perhaps maybe just asking for a bit more clarification from the university. 

WF: Can you tell us what the job of first year rep involves? 

It's obviously to represent the voices and the opinions of all first years on campus to the best of your ability. So, for me that looks like, you know, trying to try to take polls and surveys from first years. So I would definitely try and incorporate as much input from the broader first year community as I could, you know, I can, I can always just ask my friends, my personal group of friends, but that doesn't necessarily represent everyone else on campus and I know, you know, opinions vary between residences and friend groups and programs and stuff. So it's kind of just taking all the opinions of all first years on campus, and trying to decide, you know, what's in the best interest for everyone and I can obviously relate to that, because I'm a first year myself. 

WF: What is your platform? 

So, I have three main points for my platform. The first is diversity, equality, and, just inclusivity on campus. So, trying to promote kind of those three things and diversity amongst different people and also trying to promote and support the different groups and kind of programs on campus. So ones like the, different societies that support different minority groups, as well as like the sexual violence support program, I can't quite remember the name, but there is one on campus that I would like to support a little bit more and kind of promote it and make people aware that those programs are on campus, for the students to access if they need them. My second biggest point, or platform policy idea would be trying to work with the university and with the Students' Union, just to, if we are still required to self-isolate, after the semester one break during the holidays. It's trying to make a better self-isolation plan. So just, you know, taking what we learned in semester one and applying it to semester two, and just trying to, you know, maybe that's something that looks like pushing the start date of classes back another two weeks, as we did in semester one, or maybe it looks like starting classes on a normal time, but doing the first two weeks online so that students have something to do while they're self-isolating. I mean, there's a million other possibilities. So, it's kind of just taking everyone's sort of opinions and ideas and trying to collaborate with everyone. And then my third and final biggest point is just as I said before, working with the university and working with first years to help sort of provide a bit of clarification and communication between first years and the university administration just to you know, if there's policies or rules that students don't quite understand, sort of trying to voice on behalf of the administration, why things are that way, and then also voicing the concerns of first years for policies that maybe, you know, we don't quite understand and we don't feel that should be in place, voicing those concerns to university administration. So, to kind of create a bit of a two-way street there. 

WF: If you can only accomplish one thing on your platform, which would it be? 

If I had to pick one, honestly, it would be trying to promote the diversity and the inclusivity on campus just because, you know, people can live with some odd rules and restrictions in place in terms of the COVID-19 crisis but for people who are maybe facing discrimination or things like that, that's something that they're going through every day and I think that for trying to make a difference in their lives for people who have maybe been going through this their entire lives, this is probably what I would want to try and accomplish the most. But, obviously, that's not to say that I'm going to work any less hard at trying to create communication between university administration students, first year students, in terms of the COVID-19 crisis. 

WF: The Students’ Union has historically been criticized for being elitist. How will you make The U more open and approachable to students? 

You know I think that by being a first year student, myself, and not having any previous connection, or any connection at all, to the U, I think that sort of the first step here, you know, I've heard, you know, people, you know, when whenever there's sort of a bigger, sort of godlike figure, in this case, I guess you could call that the U, people will always be critical of organizations like that. But, you know, for me, I want to try and be sort of communication between the students and the U. So, by being a first-year student, by not having any connections to the U, I think that I can be a bit more approachable than, say, one of the VPs on the U. 

WF: What do you think of StFX’s handling of COVID-19? What would you change? 

Yeah, so I mean, this is obviously part of my platform, so I've spoken a bit on this already. But I think that StFX has done an amazing job. You know, in hindsight, we can talk about all the little things but, but in hindsight side effects has done an amazing job at handling this crisis, just because, you know, they, they took a world pandemic, and, worked with the community with intergovernmental organizations, provincial government with the health care system, and put in place a plan so that students could come from across Canada, and there's even a few, you know, students from outside Canada that are able to come in and study here and we're one of the only universities really, that I've heard of that is doing in person classes at all. So, I think that's a really amazing thing and it's, it's such a privilege, and I think that all the students here should be so appreciative and very lucky, 

that we're in a position where we can, you know, be a part of this. Now, having said that, you know, I do think that there's some restrictions, you know, that are maybe a little over the top. For example, you know, the other day, my dad picked me up, he was taking me out to lunch and it was, I believe is on Sunday, but I was walking out to the car, he parked a couple streets over just on campus but I had to walk in, you know, I walked with my face mask on, but I was walking alone, there's no one out. So, you know, it seems a little odd that we have to wear face masks outside, you know, especially when we're not near anyone. You know, another big thing I think, for me that I would like a bit more clarification on is, you know why we have to wear face masks when we're in our residence with, you know, a couple people of we're in our rooms and we have friends over whatever, why we have to wear masks then but you know, we can go to meal hall and, and you can have 15 people or whatever sitting at a table from all different residences, eating without your masks. So, you know, just things like that, I think, could use a bit more clarification and maybe some review from the university but in, you know, in the grand scheme of things, I think universities done an amazing job. 

WF: Looking at the other candidates, why should first-years vote for you over them? 

I think first year students should vote for me because, well, I was, at first the only candidate and I'm one of the only candidates still to have actually released a platform. You know, I have my website linked to my bio that goes into fairly good detail just about my platform, my points and my points of recommendation, but, you know, I'm still one of the only candidates to actually have released a platform at all and I'm the only one to have gone into detail about how I'm going to get things done and exactly what it is I want to try and do. I think that the other thing is, I'm, you know, I've taken a lot of time, especially just this past weekend, where I was walking around with my campaign manager, Marcel, and I was just walking around, you know, just around campus, and we went to the wheel, and just talking to people and just sitting in and seeing what their concerns were, and trying to understand, you know, because my opinion of what's important as a first year might be very different than someone else's. So just trying to understand different people's opinions, and different people's experiences. As a first-year student, I think it's sort of what sets me apart from my opponents. 

WF: If you were to lose the election, which candidate do you hope would win? 

I can honestly say, you know, all the candidates are, really good people, I don't think I could pick just one candidate. You know, I can say great things about all of them. Katia, she's a really, really kind person, she has, you know, a great deal of respect for me, she's, sort of one of those people who is, you know, she tries to see the bright in things, and she tries to work hard for what she believes in. Hunter actually released a platform a few days ago on his Instagram and, you know, he's been pretty vocal about, you know, what his, what his platform is, and what he wants to try and accomplish in the university. And Anna you know, she's also just an excellent, she's a very kind person as well, like, she, you know, she's working hard and you know, she's just overall a very decent person, a very kind person to speak to, and I think that, you know, whoever gets elected on Thursday you know, they'll have my support and I think any one of us would do a great job. 

WF: Anything else you’d like to say to first-years? 

I think the biggest thing for me is as much as I would love to have your vote, and I, you know, I will obviously continue to campaign 'till the end of the campaign period. And as much as I want to say, you know, vote Brendan and support me in my platform and, and work with me, you know, the biggest thing is just get out and vote. So, on Wednesday, students, you'll get an email to your X account, with a link from the Students' Union, just where you can log in, and you can vote on Wednesday. But yeah, the biggest thing is just vote and don't forget that on Wednesday, there's a meet and greet at the Inn and if you can show proof that you voted, you get 50% off appetizers. 

An Interview with Katia Beales-Salovitch , Candidate for First Year Representative

Editor-in-Chief Will Fraser sat down with each of the candidates for 2020-2021 First Year Representative.

Candidate: Katia Beales-Salovitch
Slogan: A voice for you. 

WF: Tell us a bit about yourself and why you decided to run. 

So, I'm Katia, I'm originally from New Jersey, but I live in South Carolina now. My mom went to X so that's what drew me to the school to begin with. I'm a business student, and I'm minoring in political science. I plan when I graduate to go into politics. So, when I saw this opportunity, I jumped at it.  

WF: Can you tell us what the job of first year rep involves? 

The job of the first-year rep is really about advocating for the first-year reps, you know, every year, there'll be different issues and different things that come up in discussions. So, it's just making sure that you are making decisions and speaking on behalf of the class and not just you know, your personal opinions. 

WF: What is your platform? 

My platform this year is "a voice for you." and what this means to me is making sure like I said in the previous question, really making decisions and speaking on behalf of the class, far too many times this role is used as a way for, you know, someone to make their own personal decisions on what they think is best and I'm really about my platform is really about making sure everyone in our class as many as possible, you know, can really get their opinions and their ideas out during our first years, students here at X. 

WF: If you can only accomplish one thing on your platform, which would it be? 

If I can accomplish one thing, it would really be about the main point of my agenda, which is a voice for you. My goal is, if I'm elected to, to hear out as many first years as possible, whether that be in person, you know, COVID-19, it's a little hard so that'd be in person or on social media or, you know, through email or whatever. To really just get to know first-years and see what they want to accomplish this year. You know, of course, every person has a different idea. So, you know, to get a cohesive conclusion of what everyone wants to accomplish is my goal. 

WF: The Students’ Union has historically been criticized for being elitist. How will you make The U more open and approachable to students? 

Especially nowadays inclusivity is a huge deal, especially to me personally, I think that constantly working on making not only the Student Union, but you know, our class, our school and, you know, everything on campus as inclusive as possible is always a constant goal that we should be working on, and with my platform a voice for you, I think that part of that is, you know, being inclusive, not just listening to people that I personally hang out with, or see on a daily basis or have in my classes, but, you know, see the person that I normally would never come across on campus and listening to what they have, I don't want to just listen to people that have the same opinions as me. If not, you know, that would just be my agenda I want, I genuinely want to hear everyone out because I think that's the best way we can come up with ideas and goals that we want to accomplish, just, you know, sometimes other people that you wouldn't even think to talk to, you have some of the greatest ideas. And that's something that I just really want to focus on this year, and make sure that everyone's included, and not just me, or, you know, whoever wins for sure, not just us, you know, kind of thing. 

WF: What do you think of StFX’s handling of COVID-19? What would you change? 

It's a great question. So, I'm from the States. So definitely, COVID-19 is way worse there and it's not being handled the best, most of my friends are having to be sent home from college, which is not the best scenario, especially because most of my friends are first years, I think StfX is handling it honestly, so good. You know, we're one of the only schools that is in person at all, let alone we have no cases so far, which is, you know, amazing. We've all been able to, you know, still socialize, and, you know, following the COVID guidelines and all that and we've also still got to, you know, participate in all these great things, there's been so many volunteering, there's been hikes and stuff, you know, I think, I really do think X has done a great job and the only thing that I would push to find out soon is what, you know, Christmas break and second semester is going to be this year, you know, I know, that's a lot of stress on people's minds, and, you know, with plans and just, you know, the second semester in general. So, I definitely would want to find out as soon as possible, what that entails and, you know, what are what are the options for that? 

WF: Looking at the other candidates, why should first-years vote for you over them? 

I really do think all of our candidates this year would do an amazing job. They're all so nice, and, you know, awesome people that I've really been grateful to get to know, these people, like I said, I would never have talked to outside of this. So, it's really awesome that I've gotten to do that and that's exactly what I hope for of I become first-year to just meet more people just like this. I think that my experience in high school will really help me with this role. I've had a lot of leadership experience, you know, being president and being on other members of executive teams for my high school and leadership activities. I have a huge passion for this, it's not just something that is a fun thing for me, I really do love it. And it's something that I want to do, you know, this is what I want to do as my career. So, I put a lot of focus into this and a lot of time and effort into this. So, I think that although my other candidates are great, because my passion is so huge for this, I will be spending so much time and you know, my mind will really be focused on this throughout the year. 

WF: If you were to lose the election, which candidate do you hope would win? 

If I lose the election, I hope that whichever candidate people, you know, connect with the most, of course, I want to win, you know, anyone that's running wants to win, but I really do want all the first years that decide to vote to vote for who they think is best. You know, of course, everyone has friends and, you know, you know, people from this that are the other thing, but I think everyone should vote for who they think is going to do the best job and who lines up with what they want to do the best. I think everyone has their personal opinion, and I hope whoever, I really do hope whoever gets the most votes, and whoever people align with the most wins, and that will do the best job for our first year because it's my first year as well. So, I really do want any of the four of us to succeed. 

WF: Anything else you’d like to say to first-years? 

I want to say that I know this year is not the most conventional year with COVID-19. But, you know, we just got to take it day by day and you know, the stresses will go away, hopefully soon. 

And, you know, to keep their heads up and within this election, like I said, you know, vote for who you personally think will do the best for you. If that's me, great and if not, that's totally okay. My campaign is about a voice for you because I want to listen to everyone's opinions and have conversations and, you know, really make this year about all of us as it should be, you know, we're all first year it's not just me, so I hope that if I'm elected, I get to meet as many of you guys and, 

you know, have conversations with you, whether that be about student union business or not. 

But you know, please feel free even after the election to direct message me on my Instagram or Snapchat me or email me or whatever, ask me or talk to me about anything. 

An Interview with Anna Hancin, Candidate for First Year Representative

Editor-in-Chief Will Fraser sat down with each of the candidates for 2020-2021 First Year Representative.

Candidate: Anna Hancin
Slogan: Let's make this year unforgettable 

WF: Tell us a bit about yourself and why you decided to run. 

So, my name is Anna Hancin. I am originally from Lindsay, Ontario. I have had lots of experience throughout my high school career, I progressively got more and more involved in my high school years, I realized that I love to make a difference in the school community. I was a founder of our high school's mental health team. So, our goals were to advocate for mental health resources within the school and within that group, I was able to organize mental health conferences, advocate for students get some resources available. So, I feel like I am qualified for this position because of that experience. As well, as part of the mental team, I was also a school announcer, so I am very articulate, and I'm confident in my speaking. I like to advocate for others and organize events for the better of the community. I love to talk to others and listen to others, get their inputs. I enjoy advocating for others listening, and I'm passionate about what I do. When I set my mind to something, I do the very best that I can to make that happen. I'm very determined and passionate. 

WF: Can you tell us what the job of first year rep involves? 

My job is to represent first years in the Student Union. So, I am here to be your voice in the Student Union, advocate for what the first-years want, the changes that they want to see. I want to make sure that the class of 2024 is happy and is represented I am your voice. Especially during COVID, as a part of my campaign, I've made myself available using email and Instagram, and I really just want to connect everyone amongst this pandemic. We're all going through this together. So, I want to bring all of these first-years together to share their experiences. 

WF: What is your platform? 

So, my slogan or motto this year is to "make this year unforgettable." It is an unprecedented year for sure. So that's why I want to bring all of these people together, we're all going through this crazy time together and I want to make sure students are getting the resources that they need. I want to make those resources available for the students and want them to know what's available. Yeah, and I'll advocate for first year students within the mandate of my position. So my goal is to advocate for communication between the administration and the students for mutually acceptable agreements. 

WF: If you can only accomplish one thing on your platform, which would it be? 

I think that the mental health of the students is one of the most important things. Making sure they are getting the resources that are available to them to help them through this odd COVID pandemic. Because it's such an odd time so many things have been changed in our first-year university experience that I want to have some achievable goals to make sure everyone is staying well and staying healthy. 

WF: The Students’ Union has historically been criticized for being elitist. How will you make The U more open and approachable to students? 

In my position I'm here to represent all of the first-years so I my platform is open. I am willing to listen I love hearing other opinions. So, I will bring what people are asking requesting to the table, make sure that these first years get their voices heard. And yeah, we're all we're all going through this together. So, I want to make sure that we're all treated fairly and equally. 

WF: What do you think of StFX’s handling of COVID-19? What would you change? 

I am quite impressed with how the school has set into place all these regulations and rules. Yes, it is hard for first-years to have that true university experience. But I am also really impressed and proud of how us first-years have handled it so far. I want to try and get those classic events like homecoming, house hockey things that are up in the air, we're not sure what's going to happen, I want to make sure that if those don't happen, we adapt to something within the COVID regulations. I think I want to work with the Student Union to make those events available to all first years and work within the health regulations, and the school regulations. 

WF: Looking at the other candidates, why should first-years vote for you over them? 

I am very approachable. I always take a positive outlook on life. So, I feel like listening to their problems, other thoughts, we can turn that into a positive experience, make a positive change for the better. I'm very open. I'm very passionate about what I do. So, I am going to make sure that not only that they're heard, but there will be action, there will be change. I also know that I want to make achievable goals for the first-years, and I feel like I can make those goals realistic. So that way, I'm not making any empty promises. We are working with what we have and from there, we are going to achieve our goals and make a difference. 

WF: If you were to lose the election, which candidate do you hope would win? 

I think everyone who I'm running against Hunter, Brendan, and Katia are all amazing people, they're also hard working. I would love to see any of them win and represent the first-years all fairly, equally, and take that positive outlook that I really want. 

WF: Anything else you’d like to say to first-years? 

I'll try and make the best of this COVID situation. Stay positive, stay healthy, and let's make this year unforgettable. Let's make the best of it. 

An Unsung Hero - Interview with Gail Bowles-Fraser

It is rightly said that true heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic… It is the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

In the past few months, we heard many new words in the context of Covid-19, that have become a part of the daily vocabulary. Some words such as "corona warriors" or frontline workers, stand out immediately and bring a sense of gratitude for them. However, some undervalued heroes of the Covid-19 pandemic, who really need to be recognized, are the cleaning staff, very critical to preventing the spread of the virus. One such hero at StFX is Gail Bowles-Fraser from the cleaning staff, who is a very familiar face for all of us.

Gail is always there to help the new students at the residences, sometime even teaching them how to do laundry. The past few months have been challenging for Gail, who took some time off in summer, and is now back, ready to help us.

Gail grew up in Toronto but has been working at the University for the past 16 years. She lives with her husband in Antigonish. The people are very loving and supportive, she says. Talking about mental strength, Gail said, "the students provide me strength. And my source of motivation is seeing higher year students who are close to me. That is what gives me strength."

Gail said, "students become my family.” Her husband, Paul Fraser, is also very supportive of her work. Asked if she feels safe being back at campus, Gail says "knowing that there are testing rules on campus and everyone will be tested for Covid-19 before they arrive on campus made me feel safer too." "I can't wait to see all the students back on campus!"

Gail, who grew up in a rough neighbourhood in Toronto, but her husband is from Antigonish. She found the people here very nice, and this has been her since she moved here with her husband. Gail is very well connected with other community members and during her time off from the campus in summer, she would sometimes have tea with others at the porch. She really wants to do more for the Friendship Corner and the Library in Antigonish. However, the community that she loves the most and knows very well is the campus community. "I love that summer is over and the students are coming back… I am no longer just the cleaner to them; I feel more connected to the students here at StFX… almost as if I am their honorary aunt."

Gail loves to learn about other cultures and accept them in her life. Perhaps that’s the reason she is so close to students at StFX, who come from different backgrounds. Recalling her childhood, Gail says, "it was hard for us to be a blended family because we have many different blood streams and therefore different personalities but I believe that kindness helps to win people over, and I actually learned this from my mother."

She usually visits her family twice in a year but was not able to go this year because of Covid-19. She was also scheduled to visit Australia this year to visit her stepchildren and grandchildren, but it had to be cancelled. "My dream is to see the whole world," says Gail.

StFX Scholar Strike

On September 9 and 10, 2020, scholars at universities across Canada stepped out of their virtual and physical classrooms to protest racism and police brutality in North America. They paused their teaching and administrative duties, and instead organized marches, demonstrations, and teach-ins in support of a list of demands. Those demands include: defunding the police and redistributing the resources to BIPOC, queer, and trans communities; removing campus police; addressing the underrepresentation of BIPOC faculty at Canadian institutions; and committing to actively “recruit, admit, retain, and mentor” BIPOC students.

The Scholar Strike Canada website states that the concept was inspired by a tweet from Dr. Anthea Butler, who was inspired by the recent WNBA and NBA strike. Dr. Butler’s call for a similar labour action from academics quickly garnered attention, and spurred action in the U.S (her home country) as well as in Canada, where the nation-wide strike was organized by Beverly Bain and Min Sook Lee.

Photo by Addy Strickland

Desmond Cole, a Canadian journalist, author, and activist, gave the keynote to kick off the Canadian strike and teach-ins on September 9. Titled “Abolition or death: Confronting police forces in Canada,” the keynote asked “who is being policed in Canada and why?” The answer is the motivation behind ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, and the driving force behind the fight to abolish the police. Cole spends three minutes of the talk listing the everyday ways in which police violence is perpetuated:

“It’s the arrests and assaults on us that are then documented as assaults against the police … It’s the routine sexual assaults of women by police officers because they know that they can get away with it … It’s the clearing out of homeless encampments during a global pandemic because people who own property don’t want to see homeless people around them ... It’s the thousands of black people in this country who can’t apply for jobs because they have a criminal record for possessing or selling marijuana ... It’s the police intimidation of non-status families, who want to send their kids to school but don’t, because they are scared of being deported.”

Abolition isn’t about money, Cole says; it’s “about our lives.”

Scholars at StFX were quick to join the strike, and support the calls to action. Following Cole’s keynote, dozens of faculty, staff, students, and community members met masked and social-distanced in front of the Coady International Institute. Organized by Dr. Corrine Cash and Dr. Donna Trembinski, the gathering highlighted the voices of people of colour, featuring speeches from Denton Anthony, Tara Reddick, Dhruv Patel, Ornella Nzindukiyimana, and Wendy Mackey. Dr. Cash was very pleased with the turnout, seeing various athletic teams, coaches, and community members out in support alongside faculty and students.

In her own speech, Dr. Cash called for StFX administration to “create a multiracial committee that conducts an audit of all facets of the university to identity racism, discriminations.” She shared that she hopes a study of this kind could be used to inform real action, in the form of a

strategic plan aimed at obliterating racism and discrimination on campus. Dr. Cash encourages anyone who wishes to see the same to email StFX President Dr. Andy Hakin, and let him know.

The event comes at a pressing time for StFX, following the announcement of an increased RCMP presence on campus. A number of the event’s speakers explicitly condemned the school’s decision to allow RCMP on campus, and the province’s decision to involve them in check-ins for isolating students.

Photo by Addy Strickland

Following the speeches, the organizers led a march through campus, stopping to chant “Black Lives Matter” and “no justice, no peace” in front of Dr. Hakin’s office, as well as across from the RCMP station on West Street.

In an interesting turn of events, members of the school’s upper administration, including President Hakin and Academic Vice President Kevin Wamsley, were also present at the march. Donna Trambinski shares that “it was great to see them, but they’re putting into practice policies that are problematic for people of colour on campus.” Attending a march is one thing, but actually doing the work to ensure a safe and equitable campus environment is something else entirely. “It would be really nice to see them do something, and to respond to the problematic announcement of RCMP on campus,” shared Trembinski.

It is evident in their enthusiastic participation that many StFX faculty, staff, and students wish to see an end to racism and discrimination on campus. The question now, is what will it take for that to happen, and how much more of a push do administration need to act?

Pray For It: Bold Change or Failed Attempt? July Talk REVIEW

July Talk has always been known to please their fans. 

The Toronto band features the clashing voices of the soft and soaring Leah Fay, the gravelly and growling Peter Dreimanis, drummer Danny Miles, bassist Josh Warburton, and guitarist Ian Docherty. The group are known for their energetic and loud live shows, often involving Faye dancing around the stage and getting into the crowd, all while barefoot. The band has earned a reputation as one of Canada’s loudest and most in-your-face bands of the modern era.

Prior to Pray For It, July Talk released 2 studio albums — a self titled album in 2012, and Touch in 2016. The self-titled album inseminated the public ear with a brand of abrasive and loud rock music the band would be known for, a sound they would deliver again on Touch. 

While July Talk was hit after hit front-to-back, Touch showed signs of progression from the band, experimenting more with their sound and giving their tracks more room to breathe.

When the band began releasing singles for Pray For It, the songs signified a new sonic palette  for the band. Their signature gritty guitar riffs and fire-in-the-belly attitude was traded for something smoother, more relaxed and less in-your-face. 

Going into this album, the listener is posed a question: Is Pray For It a step in the right direction or a failed attempt at a new sound?

On Pray For It, the band has infinite space to move around and experiment with their sound. Is this album perfect? No. Is it a step in the right direction? Absolutely. After 8 years of sitting on the same material, the July Talk sound becomes stale. On Pray For It, the band presents a whole set of new ideas sonically and lyrically that blow their earlier material out of the water.

Although July Talk is known for their sound, the best thing about Pray For It, by far, is the songwriting. The group has always touched on social justice, gender and sexuality, violence. On Pray For It, the band looks at the way these themes affect society and explores a simple question: why? The band looks at  these relationships from a microscopic viewpoint and explores their intricacies on a level much deeper than surface. 

This all starts on the opening track, and third single from the album, Identical Love, which starts the album on a very haunting note with a very fragile and sweeping drone that builds throughout the song and erupts like a firework display later in the track. The writing is almost poetic.

“The evening heat surrounded us // It blossomed from the cup // The only one of their kind // Welcome inside”

The album then moves into the song Good Enough which has very dark lyrics about feeling inadequate and being in a manipulative relationship, but is played almost like an 80’s dance song. It features really bouncy drums that make you want to get up and dance mixed with echoing and sustained synth chords. 

Although the album has several other high notes like Life of The Party, Pay For It, and Governess Shadow, the album has some pretty unignorable missteps. 

Pretender almost feels like a B-Side from Touch. It is very reminiscent of the band’s older sound by incorporating distorted guitars and a loud, gritty delivery from Peter on the chorus. While the song is enjoyable, it feels like the band holding onto the familiar instead of exploring their new direction. 

The most criticised track on the album, Champagne, is also the most socially conscious.The song seems to reflect the concept of Champagne Socialism — someone identifying as a socialist while living a luxurious lifestyle — but instead of referring directly to socialism, the term is being more directed toward social justice and fake activism — people virtue signalling while reaping the benefits of white privilege without using their resources to support the movement in any meaningful way. 

The track is essentially a gospel song which may be the reason so many people dislike it. Sonically, Champagne sticks out like a sore thumb in the track list. While the idea is very meaningful and important, the execution falls apart and really doesn’t fit on the album.

Pray For It closes on a very dark and brooding note with Still Sacred. The track is almost frightening with its hammered and distant piano chords laying on top of some really languishing guitars. It acts as a nice book-end to the album by sounding tonally similar to the ominous opener, Identical Love. 

Overall, Pray For It is a good album and successful foray into a new sound for the band. Although there are some pretty notable missteps on this album, it is still a step in the right direction for July Talk. Their songwriting has improved and they’ve shown they can contribute meaningfully to current social discourse. 

The band’s new sound mostly works and while there were some flops, the songs that swing hard enough knock it straight out of the park.

It makes me very excited for their next album, hopefully we don’t have to wait until 2024 to hear it. If you’ve never heard July Talk before, I recommend listening to this album and exploring their earlier two releases as well.

RATING: 7/10

An Interview with Martha Wilson

Arts & Community Editor Addy Strickland interviewed author Martha Wilson over Zoom on July 16, 2020.

Martha Wilson's short story collection, Nosy White Woman, was recently awarded the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction at the 2020 Atlantic Book Awards. The prize was established in 2015 to honour the memory of Alistair MacLeod, a masterful short fiction writer who called Nova Scotia home. Wilson was also a finalist for the New South 2018 fiction prize and runner-up for the 2017 Peter Hinchcliffe fiction prize, and has published work in the New Quarterly, Real Simple, The New York Times, The Japan Times, Kansai Time Out, and the International Herald-Tribune. Nosy White Woman is Wilson’s first published collection of short fiction.

AS: Can you start by telling me a little bit more about you?

MW: I’ve been in Canada for twenty-five years. I’m American, and I feel very grateful and lucky to be in Canada. My husband is from Nova Scotia. We were in Toronto for ten years and moved back to Nova Scotia when our children were small, so my children have grown up in the country, in rural Nova Scotia, which has been a wonderful experience for them. I’ve really appreciated having the chance to have lived, as a younger adult, in a big city, and then as a mom in the country. I read a lot, though especially during this pandemic it’s harder for me to read a book than it used to be. And I do read Twitter a lot. Like, way, way too much. I especially read political Twitter, and since I still vote in the United States, I follow a lot of Washington journalists and track U.S. political news pretty closely. That takes up a lot of my attention, and I don’t know a lot of Americans here in Nova Scotia who are as focused on it as I am. It can be a little bit isolating, since my family doesn’t want to hear about it. That’s probably my big “hobby” —following U.S. politics.

 AS: Can you also tell me about your journey as an author?

 MW: I always knew I wanted to write, so it was really so satisfying to have published this book. It took me twenty years to complete it, and in finishing the book, I realized that I was able to finish it and publish it because my mother had died. She died in the spring about five years ago, and in the summer, I signed up for the Humber distance writing course, and I thought, “I’ll finish this short story collection.” I worked on it for a year and then started the publication process, with literary press Biblioasis. We were well into the editing of it before it dawned on me that I’d been able to write it because my mother was gone. I was really surprised by that. Not by not having been able to finish it, but by the opacity of that process—that I did not realize what was going on for months and months, even though I was really engaging with the stories and the publishing process. So I’m very interested that things that can be so apparent in retrospect can be so invisible at the time. It’s not that I thought the stories would be painful for my mom, or too specific—my mom’s not in the book—but it was just too close while my parents were still around.

 AS: Did you go into writing these stories with the intention of publishing a collection?

 MW: No, but I've always loved short stories, and for years and years I subscribed to Harper's and The Atlantic. Those two were monthlies. The New Yorker obviously has amazing fiction, but it comes every week. I could never finish a New Yorker before there's another one dropped through the mail slot; they just come all the time. The Atlantic and Harper's, during my twenties and most of my thirties, were publishing one story a month each; it was the perfect amount. It was as if the fiction was titrated at a dose to perfectly match the attention and thought I would give it over the course of the month. A novel, you choose it yourself: you go to the bookstore, you order something; or you like a writer, so you buy their book. With the short stories in monthly magazines, it's like they're assigned to you. They just arrive. That had a really big impact on how important short fiction became to me. I still remember a lot of those stories that I read when I was a young adult. I remember them with great clarity. It's something that has nearly disappeared from public life during my adulthood, and that makes me sad. (But it's okay; we didn't have Twitter then.)

 AS: For people who are interested in reading Nosy White Woman, can you give us an idea of what to expect?

MW: Because I'm so interested in politics, there's a lot of that; I'm extremely interested in the effects of policy on our daily lives. I'm always telling my daughters who are teenagers that policy is more important than anything else. At the same time, that’s not exactly what the stories are about. They're about families, they're about adult children, they're about marriages, they're about fear and worry and happiness. They're a lot about privacy, and the fact that we all have that private internal life that’s separate from the life that even our most intimate family members see.

Most of my stories are not about race, but I was very conscious about not having whiteness as the default. The title story is about police brutality, especially against men of colour in the United States.

 AS: Can you talk to me a bit about the book’s title? Why did you decide to call it Nosy White Woman?

MW: At Biblioasis, Dan Wells (who established the press), suggested it. Fiction editor John Metcalf and I had “The Golden Bra” as the title story, and Dan said to me, what would you think of changing it, making “Nosy White Woman” the title story, because that's really more reflective of your interest in policy and politics and societal issues, and how those play out in our daily lives. And I agreed. I'm not sure of the date; I think it was probably fall of 2018, but one thing that I talked about in “Nosy White Woman” was that we had seen on YouTube and on social media the deaths of Philando Castile, of Freddie Gray, and several African American men shot by the police, for not-valid reasons. It became clearer and clearer over the years I was working on these stories that my experience with the police in the United States is a completely separate reality from the reality that a lot of people have. I've been shocked to come to understand how different those are, and that's the reckoning that white people are coming to. We've really seen that this summer with how white people regard the Black Lives Matter movement: the belief that white Americans have in the validity of that movement has just skyrocketed over the summer.

AS: What do you hope that people take away from reading this collection?

MW: Even though I talk so much about politics, and it sounds like that's all I write about, that's not it at all. One of my early readers, Catherine Newman, called the book “gloomy and hilarious.” I really love that description, and asked the publisher if we could put that on the front—it's my favourite tagline. So I guess I couldn't imagine a better way for my book to be described.

AS: You were recently awarded the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction for this collection. What does receiving this prize mean to you?

MW: It was very exciting. It was encouraging and gratifying to be linked with such an admired name in Canadian fiction, someone so beloved. That was a lovely thing. I also thought it said that my book is in some way speaking to this moment. This particular summer, at least. Especially in the United States, white people are learning more about white privilege, which is one of the most important ways our society is going to move forward.

AS: You’ve lived in Nova Scotia for the last 15 years, and before that, you lived in Toronto after coming from the United States. Has living here, or moving here, impacted your writing?

MW: Yes. It brought me back to my childhood, because I grew up in a small town. I live near Windsor, Nova Scotia, and it's very much like the town in Georgia I grew up in. One of the things I wrote about in what's probably one of my favourite stories, “Midway,” is how small towns used to be much more rural. Talking about when the protagonist is growing up, I wrote, “Since we lived in a town, I thought that was my identity: town person. Now I can see how newly scratched in the dirt that life was, how essentially rural it remained. How all of that held me.” That's something that I've really gotten back in touch with since moving to Nova Scotia 15 years ago. I grew up in a small town but it was really like the country. So many of the people I went to school with were farm kids, and we had FFA—Future Farmers of America; we had 4H. Many of the kids I knew a raised chickens, and the boys would be driving tractors after school and on the weekends. That was the life I was familiar with. Moving back to Nova Scotia has reignited those memories, because that way of making a living is still so apparent here, in ways I never saw in Toronto.

 It's really important to honour that lifestyle and not look down on it a second-best. My younger daughter is dying to get out of Nova Scotia. She has very specific plans to go to university in either Toronto or Montreal, and she is out of here the day she gets that high school diploma. Which is fine, obviously. But it's important that we not fall into a trap of believing cities are somehow cooler, or a better way to live.

AS: What can the world expect next from Martha Wilson? Are you working on anything new?

MW: I'm working on a new short fiction collection. A lot of it is about working in a church. Church life really fascinates me, especially the behind the scenes of church life that isn't about attending church, but about the church office. That's something I'm working on now.

The CSSG has an Equity Problem

On Thursday, June 25, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG), which provides students with up to $5,000 for volunteering in programs related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The multi-million dollar contract to administer the grant was initially awarded to WE Charity, a Canadian organization that claims to empower youth to make a difference, but the contract has since been rescinded in response to public criticism. Looking deeper, there are also a number of equity concerns within the structure of the grant itself.

 Even though they are no longer engaged with the CSSG program, the fact that the government awarded WE Charity the contract to begin within warrants concern. The obvious ties between the Trudeau family and WE were immediately criticized by the media, given that there has been little information provided on how the decision to allocate the contract was made. This past week, a number of current and former WE staff have also come forward with allegations of racism, homophobia, and censorship against the organization and its leadership. Former WE employee Santai Kimakeke alleges that he is currently separated from his family and unable to travel from Kenya as a result of false accusations pitted against him by Marc Kielburger (one of the organization’s founders). Kimakeke has also accused Marc Keilburger of psychological abuse and misuse of power, and has further detailed fraudulent and criminal practices, misappropriation, money laundering, and tax evasion committed by the organization on his blog, “Odd Truths About We Charity.” Amanda Maitland and Talitha Toles are two other former staff members who have spoken out, detailing the organization’s racist tendencies. 

For those familiar with the organization, these recent allegations shouldn’t come as a surprise. Jaren Kerr, a reporter for Canadaland, has investigated ethical issues within the organization since 2018, with findings including the use of child labour in their supply chain, a toxic work environment, bullying from senior leadership, high burnout rates, false advertising, and a lack of professional boundaries. Even earlier, in 2015, WE came under fire after footage of We Day and criticism of WE trips to Ecuador was scrubbed from CBC’s “Volunteers Unleashed” —a documentary centering on the harms of voluntourism—just before its air date. The footage that did make it into the film, according to the interviewee featured, was heavily altered to direct criticism away from the organization. 

Looking to the grant itself, its valuation and structure have also raised a number of pay equity concerns. The grant provides students with $1,000 for every 100 hours volunteered, up to $5,000. Broken down to an hourly wage, that comes to $10 an hour—well below the minimum wage across Canada. Coupled with CESB, students could potentially earn $22 an hour if they are able to complete the full 500 hours of volunteer work—but the likelihood of that happening seems slim. 500 hours is an extremely high expectation (equivalent to the number of hours they’d work over the course of 3 months at a regular 9 to 5 job). For students who are also caring for family, pitching in at home, taking courses online, or actively looking for work, 500 hours would prove next to impossible. 

The way the grant is structured adds to its inequity as well, in that it has the potential to leave huge amounts of labour unrecognized. Because the grant is broken into sections of 100 hours, if a student volunteers 199 hours, they’ll only be paid for the first hundred. Unless a student is completely certain they’ll be able to complete the hours in sections of 100, they could finish the four months with a lot of uncompensated work. 

The initial CESB announcement was already concerning for many, given that it was a hefty $750 less than CERB’s $2,000—appearing to value students less than the working population. Now with the announcement of the CSSG, the pair suggests that the government only values the wellbeing and security of students if they are able to benefit from their labour. CESB hardly provides enough for students looking to pay for rent and food, let alone tuition, so many will have no choice but to sign up for the CSSG. Funnelling students into a semi-accessible four-month volunteer program through which they will be underpaid, and that appears to take the place of efforts to create student jobs, is exploitative at best, and takes advantage of students who are struggling financially. 

Can we really call it “volunteer” labour if students need the extra money in order to survive? 

 It is also important to recognize who is eligible for the program. International students, students over 30, and students who have received CERB at any point—which is quite a large portion of students—are ineligible. Those students are not immune to the costs of living in Canada, and some (international students) pay far higher fees for tuition while at school, likely increasing their need for such a program. Evidently, then, the grant isn’t meant to support all students.

The CSSG as a program is deeply flawed. Taking the implementation of the program out of the hands of WE Charity is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't solve the issues that come with the grant itself. Whether the grant proves to be successful for the young people who apply remains in question, but the outlook, considering the issues presented above, isn’t good.

The Waiver: an Article on Complicity

​Dear X, 

​I knew this day would come. My story, my unique StFX experience, that made national headlines would one day feel meaningful to tell. Though my name was hidden I was the student Dr. Robert Strang was talking about, the student CBC was talking about, and the student my campus was talking about. I was the kid that beat meningitis twice. My Xaverian journey begins in 2014. 

 ​Like many of my peers I moved to Antigonish as a first-year student from Ontario. I had never lived away from home before. I was now to fend for myself in this new grown-up world. I adjusted and found a new home in Antigonish. I moved into residence, befriended my roommate, expanded social circles, participated in my classes as well as frequented the intramural sport arena. I was becoming someone, something I was unable to do back in Ontario. I was at peace. The safety and security I felt in my new home was beyond description. Then one night my peace was shattered. I found myself unable to hold down any food, water, or cold medication. I could not sleep, for the pain exploding through my spine was horrific. I felt like I was made of glass. My head was spinning, my eyes so sore I could not see very well and yet that afternoon I was happily sitting in meal hall. The symptoms appeared so quickly that by the time my roommate awoke on November 10, 2014, I was already dying. Once admitted to the regional hospital I began to deteriorate. Spinal fluid, blood samples, and stool samples all returned congruent with a horrifying discovery. I had contracted Bacterial Meningitis Strain-y. Immediately I was rushed to the ICU and the garments of people around me began to change. I was suddenly too sick to touch and or even share the unfettered air. I remember wondering If I would die alone before I was 20 years old. Would anyone even know I was dead? Then I blacked out. I awoke and my mother was beside me in a hazmat suit holding my swollen speckled hands. IV’s dotted my arms pumping me full of heavy medication. I was alive, somehow. I spent the next weeks attached to heart monitors, slow drips, and oxygen masks. I felt like I was rotting. I felt like my life was over. The comfy new home I had grown accustomed to had been ripped away and replaced by something cold and metallic. My new university friends came to see me, my new friends have supported me, my new friends have constantly been their for me, my new friends are everything to me. My new friends turned into my best friends but my best friends could not wait on their Xaverian journey for me. I lost my first semester but I survived the unthinkable. 

​I made the decision to return to my studies in second semester. I felt well enough and though my parents were skeptical I was determined to return to StFX. I agreed to a reduced course load and a different way of life. I was the student that beat the deadly disease that swept through the province. The first time I ever really heard tell of an outbreak was when it was used to describe my illness. I was ostracized despite my friends best efforts to keep my self esteem in check. Any and all conversations resulted in my struggle with the disease. Jokes were made at my expense by strangers who had no understanding of what kind of illness I just defeated. Upon my return to StFX one would think I was present the entire fall. I was not approached by any StFX resource to aid in my transition back to classes. I was not offered any refunds for the class I missed, the meals I did not eat, nor the nights I did not sleep in residence. I was forced to negotiate the exemption of my winter examinations. I felt alone and isolated by the university that made me feel so welcome. The one thing that infuriated me was that the university did not look into the outbreak on my behalf nor did they complete any precautionary measures to ensure something like this wouldn’t happen again. I was expected to just pick up where I left off thinking I was at least protected by my institution. 

​On January 28, 2015, I contracted a different strain of Bacterial Meningitis from the one I had less than two months ago. I almost died at the same University, in the same residence, from the same deadly disease. This time I was the boy who cried wolf. Not a soul on campus believed my cries as I lay crippled in my residence. The residence staff were hesitant to call the ambulance so they didn’t. By the time those around me realized my situation was deteriorating again there was no time to wait. I was put in the back of a taxi cab and rushed to the hospital again. My grip on reality was slipping. My body was failing me again. I found myself in a very familiar position second semester of my first year.  I was alone in a hospital wondering if I was going to die, I watched the scrubs of the medical professionals around me change from colourful shirts to hazmat suits, I watched watching IV’s and needles force their way into my veins and spinal fluid once more. My grip on life slipping away from my swollen hands speckled again, pockmarked by liver failure. I awoke to my family beside me. I awoke to my name being in the mouths of my peers as they circulated campus. I awoke but this time I had lost my will to fight anymore. I medically withdrew from StFX. I was lucky to be alive. 

​Upon my medical withdrawal I was offered barely 1/4 of my tuition, even though I missed 3/4 of the school year. I was not informed of any tests done by the university to understand the causes of the outbreak despite StFX’s name spattered across CBC. There was no attempt at acknowledging any accountability. I was just a number but I didn’t find that out until the end of my second year. 

​My second year was a mistake. Since surviving meningitis I had contracted three new ailments. I was diagnosed with Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and debilitating anxiety. I was not ready for anything close to the cognitive levels required to participate in scholastics. I descended into a chaotic spiral. Nearly one year to the day of my contraction of Meningitis I mentioned my desire to take my own life. I couldn’t cope, I couldn’t keep up with school, I thought I would never be able to operate like I once did. I was visited by my residence  Hall director but nothing was done to help me. I made up my mind and ran from the building towards the highway that ran behind our residence. One of my closest friends followed me to the bathroom and watched me try and run to the highway. He stopped me, hugged me, and told me it was going to be okay. My friends took it upon themselves to sleep on my floor and they are the reason I am here today. If you are reading this, thank you. I decided to move off campus to a safe environment where I was surrounded by close family friends. Despite my feeling of safety I could not cope. I failed most of my classes and failed out. StFX was going to let it happen, no questions asked. I got my doctors to weigh in and fight for me to avoid the hefty academic expulsion. I was reinstated. 

​I am 25 now. I started my Xaverian journey at the age of 19. I am set to graduate this year. I am finally able to call an X-ring mine. I can finally say its over. I have yielded to the whims of time. I am no stranger to highly contagious diseases. I am no stranger to the sharp needles of the regional hospital. I am no stranger to being locked up in an ICU containment room. I am no stranger to Dr. Robert Strang. I am no stranger to StFX. So please hear what I say. Making students sign a waiver is insulting. It is insulting to the wonderful staff at X who make up this university. You have metaphorically cut away the life boats and forced them to go down with the proverbial ship. I cannot emphasize this enough; having to deal with medical complications alone in first year University derailed my life for nearly five years. The completion  of my studies is a testament to the support systems that have surrounded me. I cannot believe StFX is acknowledging the dangers of a return to campus. Your waiver may absolve you from legal trouble but this is direct act of dangerous complicity. Complicit just like back on November 10, 2018, when you sent out an email in regard to another Meningitis outbreak on campus. In the very same residence I nearly died in twice. How dare you demand anyone to sign a waiver and usher a student into a potentially harmful environment? Your lack of awareness to the dangers of highly contagious diseases has nearly resulted in the deaths of two of your students. 

​If I should be able to receive my X-ring in person or it is delivered through the mail I will be hesitant to put it on. The message you are conveying is that student well being can be summed up in a legal document. The message you are conveying is the deficit that the university has incurred is more important than one students life. The message you are conveying is that I am just a number. When I receive my X-ring and Diploma this year I hope that I will be able to look back fondly on the instances where the Xaverian values have made me a better person. I just hope that you will reconsider opening campus if this waiver is your ticket to a fall semester. I worry about the first years who might wind up in an ICU. I worry you won’t have their backs like you didn’t have mine. I worry that this is just a numbers game. I worry I fell in love with a University that practices a different sermon than the one being preached. Hail and… saying Health in this situation would be a bit redundant no? Get better X. 

With warmest regards,

The Former Patient Zero

Signing the COVID-19 Waiver: Is it worth the risk?

Our true character is revealed in times of crisis. For universities,the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the largest crises they have faced in recent history. Not only does COVID-19 threaten the safety of students, staff, and faculty, it also impacts a university’s bottom-line. Small universities such as St. FX rely significantly on students who not only pay tuition but also residence costs and meal plan fees. In this regard, the prospect of going fully online would be financially catastrophic for these small institutions. It is not a surprise then, that Mount Allison, Acadia and St. FX have all decided to re-open in the Fall, each with varying degrees of online-course delivery.

With re-opening comes a variety of risks for universities. In a Cornell study on small universities, researchers created three simulations to model COVID-19 spread. Even when eliminating sporting events, large classes and shared residence rooms, the virus still had multiple pathways in which to proliferate. Indicating that if COVID-19 enters the campus, it is likely that it will be passed on. While much is not known about COVID-19 and this is simply one study, it is worth noting that St. FX, being a for-profit institution, likely understands the potential risks of re-opening and has evaluated those risks against the benefits(mostly financial) from opening in the fall. 

It is for this reason that they want students to sign the waiver emailed on July 10, 2020, in order to be allowed on campus. In signing the waiver, students release St. FX from all liability in the event that student(s) contract COVID-19 and are harmed. In a lot of cases, this kind of waiver is standard. If you go to an amusement park and break your leg after falling off a roller coaster, the amusement park is not responsible for that injury if you have signed a waiver releasing them of liability. In this case, you have acknowledged that you understand the risks, and your relationship with the amusement park is not significant enough to indicate that it should have protected you beyond a certain level.

The relationship between universities and students are fundamentally different than the relationship between a private citizen and an amusement park. Universities are institutions that operate under a high-level of trust on the part of their patrons, the students. In other words, they have a fiduciary duty to take reasonable measures to protect them. In some circumstances, if they haven’t taken reasonable measures to protect students, they can be found to have breached their duty of care or to have acted in a negligent manner in court and may be ordered to provide compensation. Under this waiver, they ask students to waive their right to sue the university for negligence or a breach in their duty of care, in exchange for students’ ability to go on campus.

So, what does this mean? Primarily, it means that St. FX expects to students to spend thousands of dollars in tuition and other costs but is unwilling to take responsibility in law to reasonably protect students from the risks of COVID-19. Students are asked to agree to the statement: “I understand that I may be infected by COVID-19 as the result of negligence on the part of the Releasee (St. FX).” Indicating that rather than take reasonable responsibility for the risks involved in reopening, and possibly purchase insurance, St. FX has decided to transfer the risk involved to the student body.

Further, students are asked to agree that in entering in the “Release Agreement” they are not relying on any “oral or written representations” made by St. FX with respect to the safety of participating in St. FX activities, or being at St. FX, other than what is set forth in this “Release Agreement”. Meaning that under the law, St. FX does not have to follow their own COVID-19 Pandemic Plan in order to mitigate risks, and that students need to indicate that they do not expect them to. In other words, the university has not put their money where their mouth is, in that any plan St. FX creates to respond to COVID-19 has no legal value.

What’s most significant is that St. FX has unbalanced bargaining power in this circumstance. For a lot of students, missing a year of school is not an option, leaving them vulnerable. Further, other than in the waiver itself, St. FX has not indicated the legal gravity of signing to students. Administrators, at the very least, should explain in plain language the rights students are giving up when signing.

It is important to stress that type of contract is not required. The university can create a waiver that obligates them to take reasonable steps to prevent harm to students, and in the event of circumstances they could not prevent, they can ask to be absolved of liability. This would be a fair contract with students and reflect the responsibility that administration needs to undertake in their decision to re-open, when other universities have not.

The COVID-19 waiver stands in direct contrast to the consistent messaging by the university administration on working together as a Xaverian community to ensure safety for everyone. If the university will not obligate itself to take reasonable measures to ensure safety for students, how can it expect students to do the same?

 Given this information, the question before students is if they should sign. It is unclear what the repercussions would be if not signing. St. FX indicates in their email to students on July 10, that they will not be allowed on campus. How will that be enforced? Will students not be able to attend class? It is also unclear if the university is legally allowed to prevent an individual from receiving higher education on the basis that they do not sign this waiver. 

 If you are a student who believes that the university should take reasonable steps to prevent the spread COVID-19, and that if they do not they should be held accountable in court, think twice before you sign.

Faculty Split on Reopening

On June 19, 2020, StFX University announced its intentions to host students back on campus in September, with the majority of classes being offered in-person. Until the nineteenth, StFX was one of the few Canadian universities yet to make a decision regarding online vs. in-person classes, and students, staff, and faculty alike were eagerly awaiting the official announcement. Now that we have an answer, the question is, what does everyone think?

For the week following the announcement, I collected survey responses from 88 members of StFX faculty to find out what they are thinking and feeling about the university’s decision. The responses came from both contract and tenure or tenure-track faculty, and from more than 22 different departments. This article is a summary of what I found.

Overall, faculty are largely divided in their opinions about whether StFX made the right decision. 35% of faculty surveyed agree or strongly agree with the statement that StFX made the right decision to host students on campus in the fall, while 42% disagree or strongly disagree. The remaining 23% opted to remain neutral.

For those who agree with the decision, the mental health of students is front of mind. Dr. Angie Kolen, for instance, believes that in order for us to remain mentally healthy, “we need to be social, see people—in person.” Another professor, who wishes to remain anonymous, agrees with the decision largely because the alternative (online delivery) would cause more harm, and exacerbate a number of problems that already exist. Those problems include the mental health struggles that Dr. Kolen mentions, as well as academic struggles and social inequity. Then, there would also be an array of new problems to deal with, such as inconsistent internet access. Online education, they say, “has been shown to exacerbate social inequities, further widening the gulf between high-performing students who often come from wealthier … backgrounds and students who are disadvantaged.”

Those who are more skeptical, however, also speak to the inequities that an in-person approach might exacerbate. A number of respondents point out that students and faculty who are immuno-compromised will likely face increased difficulties and lower quality education, having to take or teach all their courses online regardless of an open campus. One professor, whose son has asthma, worries that returning to in person teaching would put their son at serious risk. “What of faculty, students, and staff with serious health problems or in vulnerable age groups? What about parents with young kids and nowhere to place them? What about elder care,” they ask?

If an outbreak occurs, many faculty are also concerned that the resulting shift online will look much like it did in March: chaotic, rushed, and nowhere near the quality of education students are paying for. A scramble to get home could also create financial hardship for many students, or prove impossible for those who need to cross international borders. What more, faculty are being told by administration that “they do not have to provide any more accommodation for students who have to self-isolate and miss face-to-face classes than they normally would if students get sick,” despite the fact that the situation we are in is far from normal. The professor who pointed this out was also concerned that some faculty may be penalized for putting in the extra work to support sick students, and consequently spending less time on other aspects of their jobs such as research.

Another big factor for those against the decision was whether they thought students and faculty would follow the rules. 65% of faculty surveyed disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that they believe StFX students will respect social distancing protocols, while only 20% agree or strongly agree. Concerns about fellow faculty not following those protocols were expressed in survey responses as well. For many, this distrust in others is a big reason why they feel unsafe returning to work. For others, there are still simply too many unknowns. Dr. Tharshanna Nadarajah, who teaches Math and Statistics, believes that given the identified risks, “forcing students back on campus is putting the school’s financial interests over student safety—regardless of how they try and spin it.”

Of the faculty members surveyed, only 35% of faculty said that they had been consulted by StFX prior to the announcement, while an even smaller 30% agree or strongly agree with the statement that StFX adequately consulted with and considered the needs of faculty prior to making their decision. For those who were consulted, some also expressed that they felt their concerns were ignored because of the institution’s financial concerns.

The responses of contract faculty versus those of tenure or tenure-track faculty also revealed a number of inequities within the university’s decision-making process. While all faculty are being asked to contribute a significant amount of labour to preparing for both online and in-person teaching, part-time and contract professors aren’t being paid for that work. Another respondent pointed out that the various seminars, webinars, and townhalls being hosted by StFX administration might be missed by contract employees who are technically not employed by StFX during the summer, and may be busy with other jobs or commitments. This respondent wonders “how many contract employees will miss out on opportunities to learn online teaching methods, or proper safety protocols because of their current employment status?” Many contract faculty also don’t receive sick leave (paid or unpaid), or other health benefits, which in the midst of a global pandemic, makes returning to work all the more unsafe. Failing to provide all faculty with sick leave and health benefits while asking them to return to return to work, as one professor puts it, “is to treat them as disposable.”

Not all contract faculty were upset about the decision to open campus, however. One professor shared their excitement over the decision, because had the university decided to shift online, their position may have been cut; they were grateful to still have employment in September. Others appreciated the opportunity to learn how to teach online, despite the fact they weren’t being paid—looking at it as free professional development.

Overall, faculty opinions on StFX’s decision to reopen campus for in-person instruction are mixed. Some are overwhelmingly in favour, while others remain skeptical that the university’s plan will be effective in preventing an outbreak of COVID-19. The most common trend among responses was a concern about the inequities that either decision would have exacerbated, leaving us to wonder why so many inequities exist to be exacerbated in the first place. For an institution that prides themselves in social justice leadership, StFX has a lot of work left to do.