The Mark - October 2014 Issue

The Mark
Volume II . . . No. 7 MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014 FREE.99
Catching up with CMA in their second year of operation
Adventures in British Columbia’s Backyard
Block break has always been
a time of relaxation, adventure
and rejuvenation. Typically, it is a
time to either get off the hill or chill
out and do nothing for a few days.
Fourth year Andrew Simon had
a vision to break this status quo
by designing a trip that satisfies
not only our sense of adventure
but also our thirst for learning.
Simon’s idea came to life this
past September block break when
a group of 14 Quest students em-
barked on an kayaking journey
to circumnavigate the northern
half of Galiano Island to Dionysus
Provincial Park. Behind Simon’s
vision for the trip was the phi-
losophy of place-based learning.
This pedagogy focuses on learn-
ing from a specific locale and em-
ploys the support of local organi-
zations, agencies and businesses.
Within a few hours of arriving
on Galiano Island, students were
busy catching crabs, visualizing
their spirit trees and identifying
edible berries under the guid-
ance of knowledgeable communi-
ty members. The teacher role of
this trip was not filled by a single
person, but by several, including
a local filmmaker, an eco-psy-
chologist, a dream specialist and
Not your typical kayaking adventure
members of the Galiano Land
Conservancy. Most important-
ly, students acted as co-educa-
tors by provoking thoughts and
questions for each other about
their surroundings. “There is
something about the island that
you can’t really know about un-
less you go there,” noted second
year student Shane Degroote.
The outdoors proved to be
a dynamic classroom. Eco-phi-
losophy was discussed around
a campfire, students witnessed
forest restoration practices and
visited the chairperson of an in-
tentional community. These ac-
tivities may be unconventional
in a standard university educa-
tion. Nevertheless, second year
student Bianca Wagner noted
that, “we were able to put our
experience into an academic
context.” This outcome aligns
with Simon’s idea of what place-
based learning can accomplish.
“The more we can relate very
complex issues to particular con-
texts, the better for understand-
ing these issues,” stated Simon.
The success of the Galia-
no trip provokes a reflection of
our own learning style at Quest.
Should Quest incorporate more
place-based learning into its
course plan? For trip partici-
EDUCATION NEWS
& OPINION
PAGE A2 & A3
By ELEANOR PARKER AND
MERIYA GMEINER-MCPHERSON
ELEANOR PARKER
What Is All The Fuss About?
By NEDER GATMON-SEGAL
When I heard fourth year
student Conlan Mansfield’s public
complaints about the Research
Ethics Board’s (REB) decision to
deny his keystone research pro-
posal, I was intrigued. The REB is
in place specifically to review re-
search proposals for projects such
as keystones and individual tutor
research involving human subjects.
Mansfield’s situation piqued my in-
terest further: I had never heard of
the REB beforehand, nor had I ever
heard of a student’s research pro-
posal being denied. Mansfield was
stirring up outrage in some student
social circles, so I decided to inves-
tigate; what was all the fuss about?
I decided to start by going
straight to the source. Mansfield
has been extremely outspoken
about his denied research propos-
al and the process underlying it.
He has had a busy work schedule
since being forced to change his
keystone project, touching on the
question, “what is suffering?” His ini-
tial research proposal was to go to
a prison and investigate the idea of
prisons, both “psychologically and
philosophically,” as a means of re-
ducing harm and inmate rehabilita-
tion. “Specifically,” he emphasized,
“from the perspective of the peo-
ple incarcerated... Most research in
psychology in this context is done
on people, rather than for people
or with people.” Mansfield decid-
ed to focus on First Nations youth
incarcerated in a Vancouver-area
prison, specifically because their
presence in the prison system is
disproportionate to their relatively
small provincial population. Mans-
field hoped to conduct interviews
that focused on systemic issues,
rather than strictly individual ones.
For example, he would ask partic-
ipants if and why they started us-
ing narcotics, rather than simply if
and when they did. This, he hoped,
would shed light not only on indi-
vidual factors that had caused the
youth to be incarcerated, but also
on overarching societal factors
that affected their life trajectory.
According to Mansfield, who
started the application process last
spring, he was recently informed
by the REB that “the harms and
risks to [himself] and to participants
did not justify the benefits from the
research.” Mansfield detailed some
of the specific concerns the REB
voiced about his research. After
hearing the concerns from Mans-
field, I wanted to confirm them with
the REB, but this is where, as a jour-
nalist, I hit the proverbial brick wall.
It is REB policy not to dis-
cuss individual cases with anyone
other than university employees,
even if said individual provides
consent. How was I supposed
to present a balanced and unbi-
ased article when only one party
Continued on page A2
How High is Your Higher Learning?
By DORAH PRIETO
Definition: The term ‘study
drugs’ describes prescription
amphetamine and methyl-
phenidate stimulants used for
non-prescribed purposes, spe-
cifically for academic perfor-
mance enhancement.
For Quest students, the de-
mands of academic life can be
stressful. Coping strategies vary
from Halloween chocolate off-sales,
to running half marathons to, in-
creasingly, using study drugs. Ac-
cording to the University of Mich-
igan Substance Abuse Research
Center, 10 to 35% of American
college students use prescription
stimulants for academic focus,
with a notable increase in usage
in the past 10 years. This study
drug phenomena has gained at-
tention for study drugs’ use as an
academic performance enhancer,
for various health concerns, and
for stoking an ethical debate.
A study conducted by Cher-
well, the Oxford university news-
paper, found that 7% of Oxford
students had taken study drugs.
In Cambridge that number rose to
10%, with York University in Toron-
to at 20%. Out of 226 survey partic-
Coast Mountain Academy: If Quest Were a
High School
By KENDRA PERRIN
I knew that the little peo-
ple in uniformly blue shirts who
occasionally ate in our cafeteria
belonged to a high school, and I
knew that high school had some
land on Quest’s campus. That was
it, though. Coast Mountain Acad-
emy, or CMA, is an innovative, in-
dependent, university-preparatory
school for students in grades 7
through 12. Only in its second year
of operation, it now has 66 students.
This represents an enrollment in-
crease of nearly 300% from last
year, when it had only 17 students.
Continued on page A2
Squamish has plenty of op-
tions when it comes to K through
6 education. There are four public
elementary schools, two Montes-
sori schools, one Waldorf school,
and one French immersion school.
However, “for high school there
was only one option, and it wasn’t
a very good option,” explained
Quest’s President David Helfand,
referring to Howe Sound Second-
ary School, which, until recently,
was the only secondary school
in Squamish (not counting Don
Ross Secondary in Brackendale).
For parents dissatisfied with
the quality of secondary edu-
Continued on page A3
A conversation around use and prevalence of study drugs at Quest Research ethics examined through the lens of
one student’s denied research proposal
pant Teddy Rose, the answer is
obvious: “let’s imagine a school
where place-based learning was
the norm, and then if some-
body brought up the alterna-
tive of, ‘well how about we sit
around a table and talk about
something, or read and look at
pictures on a power-point’, well
it would be a no-brainer. Why
would you ever do it that way
when you have the opportuni-
ty to do place-based learning?”
It must be recognized that
Quest does offer a spectrum of
classes with experiential learn-
ing components (i.e Visual An-
thropology, Antarctica Excursion,
Sustainable Community Devel-
opment in Belize, Ecological Self,
Squamish First Nations Culture &
Lifeways and Tectonics of West-
ern North America). However,
these courses may feel inacces-
sible to some students because
they are all Concentration level
and some include extra costs.
As Rose puts it, “you don’t have
to go halfway around the world
to change your life, all you have
to do is look in your backyard.”
What seems to be lacking
at Quest is a habit of learning
from our own community as
a feature of more classes. Al-
though some disciplines lend
themselves readily to experien-
tial learning, it is hard to imag-
ine others such as philosophy
or calculus being taught outside
of the traditional classroom. Cre-
ativity and progressive thinking
would be needed to incorporate
a community-based experien-
tial component to these classes.
In the meantime, Simon just
submitted a proposal to have
the Galiano block break trip
become a full block class. The
class would include an adven-
ture component similar to last
block break’s sea kayaking trek,
and would take an active role in
addressing key socio-cultural-en-
vironmental issues on the island.
ipants at Quest, 24% of survey re-
spondents had taken study drugs
at Quest at least once. Studies have
shown that numbers of study drug
users vary significantly between
schools, with the most users at pri-
vate and “elite” universities. Of the
24%, 30% had taken study drugs
only once, 35% had taken them a
couple times per year, 13% monthly,
6% weekly, and 16% daily. The ma-
jority of respondents used study
drugs for humanities courses.
Of the 54 respondents that had
taken study drugs to do school
work, 32 students desired con-
centration or focus, 13 used them
cation, this lack of local choice
meant making the eight hour
round-trip to independent schools
in North or West Vancouver
every weekday. Understand-
ably, this wasn’t a feasible op-
tion for every dissatisfied family.
“Some local people, of whom
Toran [Savjord] is one, concerned
about their kids’ education,
thought — ‘this is crazy. Squamish
is growing so much, there are so
many little kids here, and, in anoth-
er few years, they’re going to need
a place to go, they’re going to need
another option’,” said Helfand.
OPINION
PAGE B1 & B2
SCIENCE
& ENVIRONMENT
PAGE A2 & A3
A2
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014
The Mark EDUCATION
A nomadic alternative to ‘desk and blackboard’ education
Classroom Alive
On May 26, 2013, three young
men began walking on a six-
month journey from Jårna, Swe-
den to Athens, Greece, engaging in
self-directed higher learning along
the way. Caleb Buchbinder, Mathi-
js Poppe and Mischa Saunders
conceived of Classroom Alive–an
alternative to traditional class-
room-based higher education–as a
peer-led learning collective aimed
at integrating “all the processes of
life into a framework to study dif-
ferent fields.” They were joined by
30 other students at various points
throughout the walk. The group
split their eight-hour days evenly
between walking and studying,
covering topics like the Philosophy
of Science, Art and Activism, Nutri-
tion, Portrait Drawing, Finance, and
Social Narratives.
“Largely, in our society, if
you’re going to study it means to
sit at a desk and take notes and
write papers, and that’s one form
that learning can take,” says Saun-
ders. “But, in addition to learning
whatever the professor is telling
you, you’re also learning how to
sit at a desk and take notes. We
wanted to explore different forms
[of learning] because the two are
not necessarily connected.”
Classroom Alive fundamen-
tally strives to embrace everyday
processes, such as students’ re-
lationships with each other and
financial management, as avenues
to study a given subject, along with
conventional methods like analyz-
ing texts. “Instead of just hoping
to learn to be socially aware and
socially creative, we saw relation-
ships as an actual place of learning
and as having a capacity which
can be developed in the same way
that mathematics can,” explains
Buchbinder. “What we were able to
do was connect, to some degree,
inner personal learning with outer
analytical study, but the ways that
we engaged in the latter remained
largely reading and writing.”
For their pedagogy, they held
weekly “circle check-ins” during
Study Drugs cont.
By ALESSANDRO TERSIGNI
which students would present
what they were presently learn-
ing about to the group, followed
by hour-long mentorship groups
of three or four students to share
more in-depth challenges and
feedback. They also held “focus
weeks,” during which they would
come together for three to eight
days to discuss a shared topic,
each bringing relevant questions
to the group from whatever field
they were exploring. These shared
topics included Money and Basic
Income, The Philosophy of Free-
dom and the Eurocrisis, the last of
which they examined while stay-
ing in a gutted building in Greece.
Finally, they facilitated “nodes”, for
which they hosted guest speakers
and organized discussions in the
cities they visited, addressing top-
ics such as The Need for Diversity.
for staying awake, five used
them for speed, and four used
them for relaxing or feeling calm
enough to do homework. Galaxy
Jim, a fourth year student with no
prescription says, “my friend gave
me some adderall and I was able
to stay up all night. I’d take them
again to stay awake.” According
to the National Institute on Drug
Abuse, prescription stimulants
do promote wakefulness but are
not correlated with enhanced
learning or thinking abilities.
According to Dr. Maria Rogers,
assistant professor and director
of the ADHD and Development
Lab at the University of Ottawa,
study drugs increase levels of neu-
rotransmitters (particularly dopa-
mine) in the brain that help with
concentration and focus. However,
these effects are also what lead
to addiction. Fourth year Quest
student Astral Ben says, “I had a
roommate who started off using
them for writing essays and then it
turned into an addiction problem”.
According to WebMD, a pop-
ular medical website, appetite loss,
sleep problems, and irritability are
the main side effects from amphet-
amines and methylphenidates.
The National Institute on Drug
Abuse warns that negative effects
include increased blood pressure,
heart rate, and body temperature.
Nebulous Nika warns her fellow
Quest students: “I don’t think peo-
By DORAH PRIETO
Costs ran at approximate-
ly $100 per week per student, or
$2500 for the full six months, and
mainly covered food but also gear
and other minor expenses. Financ-
es were shared to a certain degree
by using a collective bank account
which was kick-started by grants
from foundations and private do-
nors, as well as contributions from
the students themselves. “When
each person joined, they were giv-
en a general estimate of costs and
would give an amount of money
they felt they could ... the inten-
tion was to make the experience
economically accessible,” says
Saunders. Accommodations were
consistently accessible and free.
“Every 15 km for six months we
were able to find space to pitch 10
tents, and we paid twice to do so,”
says Buchbinder.
In terms of accrediting Class-
room Alive, the founders laid out
two possibilities. Saunders de-
scribed a “community certified
diploma” as “assessing your skills,
going out, finding the people who
are the most advanced in those
skills, and getting them to verify
it,” as a possible alternative to the
current system of higher learning
accreditation. Alternatively, Bu-
chbinder explained that there’s
a whole field of institutions that
you can pay to test and accred-
it endeavors such as Classroom
Alive. For example, Portland State
University offers accreditation
for self-directed studies that have
been outlined in a pre-approved
learning contract and done in cor-
respondence with a faculty spon-
sor.
At Quest, each student studies
a wide range of fields and works
together in class to figure out how
each subject is related. At Class-
room Alive, each student studies
one field and then works with
their peers to make connections;
the emphasis is placed on using
students’ relationships with each
other as learning tools, especially
through peer teaching. As alterna-
tives to traditional higher learning
forms, both Quest and Classroom
Alive challenge the relationship be-
tween lecture-style professing and
studying. If you’re interested in tak-
ing part in or initiating a Classroom
Alive-based program–experiential
learning?–find more specific DIY in-
structions at www.classroomalive.
com. The most recent trip was
Classroom Alive Ireland, a 70-day
walk up the island’s Atlantic west
coast this past summer.
ple are educated on the effects of
study drugs. I landed in the hospi-
tal with an almost lethal overdose
once.” In fact, they are classified
as schedule two drugs alongside
methamphetamines and cocaine.
Toby Freyer, a fourth year student
with a prescription for ADHD, says
“I always warn anyone I talk to who
has thought about doing them that
it’s going to mess with your body
and you don’t know exactly how”.
However, the majority of survey re-
spondents didn’t think that study
drug usage is a problem at Quest.
When asked about opin-
ions on study drug use at Quest,
many respondents thought that
usage was a personal choice and
therefore were not concerned
with study drug use at Quest (54
responses). Quest student re-
spondent Meteor Mave says, “I
don’t think it’s healthy for your
body but I wouldn’t consider it
‘wrong.’ It’s just personal prefer-
ence.” Many respondents were not
aware of any usage at Quest at all
(34 responses), and those that ex-
pressed concern were mostly con-
cerned about health-related issues
(27 responses). However, student
respondent Asteroid Leo says “I
don’t agree with it at all because
it puts a disadvantage on other
students,” a sentiment reflected
by the eight respondents that felt
study drug use was cheating or
unleveling the playing field. Albe-
do Juan, who has occasionally
distributed Concerta to Quest stu-
dents says “people have come to
peer-reviewers must submit an ap-
plication, with the recommendation
of a faculty member, which assures
the student is comfortable provid-
ing critical and useful feedback.
After all the editing and refin-
ing work has been done with help
from peer-reviewers, the final pro-
nouncement for publication will
depend on the Faculty Selection
Committee. Several tutors have
already agreed to be part of the
committee. Among them are Da-
vid Helfand, Shira Weidenbaum,
Doug Monroe, Annie Prud’hom-
me-Genereux, James Byrne, Jon-
athan Warner and Rich Wildman.
The idea of creating an inter-
nal Quest Academic Journal was
sparked last year by current SRC
President Celine Allen. However,
because of time constraints and
challenges getting support from
faculty members, the project did
not materialize. This year, Bryce
and McKenzie decided to work
towards consummating this idea.
Both Ministers think the jour-
nal would give students a better
understanding of what is behind
publishing academic work. Bryce
says that, having gone through
the publishing process herself,
she understands “how valuable
it is and how much work goes
into it.” McKenzie insists that, “re-
gardless of whether the paper
is published in this year’s pub-
lication, going through the pro-
cess as an undergraduate will be
a valuable experience in itself”.
Faculty members will be invit-
ed to nominate papers they think
could become excellent academic
pieces. Bryce expects to have each
faculty member nominate one
or two papers per class. There-
fore, the Quest Academic Journal
should include work from a wide
array of fields and academic topics.
Nominations can also be
self-endorsed. Students under-
taking independent research are
welcomed to submit their work
for the peer-reviewing process.
Keystone projects, or refined ver-
sions of these, could potentially be
featured in the publication. How-
ever, there will be a 10 page limit
on the submissions, to allot space
for multiple sections in the journal.
The publication will run on a
rolling basis. The deadline to sub-
mit a paper for this year’s publica-
tion will be in early March. The first
issue, which will be accessible in
print and online, is scheduled to be
published in April 2015, and is ex-
citing news for Quest’s Academics!
Quest’s First Aca-
demic Journal
By ANDREA PRUDENCIO
CARRIAGA
# of students
Fig. 1 Disciplines for which respondents used study drugs at Quest
D
i
s
c
i
p
l
i
n
e
me at Quest and say ‘hey I have
this thing due in 12 hours and I’m
really stressed.’ I’m very reluctant,
but sometimes I help them out.”
So what does this mean for
Quest? Fourth year student An-
drew Luba has never taken study
drugs and feels as though they en-
gender a spirit of competition that
runs perpendicular to the collab-
orative pedagogy of Quest. Luba
says, “it could create a race to the
bottom in the spirit of competition,
but the point of Quest is that we
are willing to collaborate.” Second
year student Alanna Ryan was di-
agnosed with ADHD in highschool
but has never filled her prescrip-
tion, partially because the block
plan works well for students with
ADHD. Ryan says, “with the block
plan and discussion-based classes,
I am able to pay attention more eas-
ily,” a sentiment that Freyer agrees
with; “I was encouraged towards
Quest because of my ADD. It’s eas-
ier for me to focus because of the
block plan”. Study drugs have a
clandestine but complex presence
at Quest, a phenomena that has
sparked a multifaceted dialogue.
Foundation and Concentration
SRC Ministers, Nessa Bryce and
Nigel McKenzie, are spearheading
the creation of the inaugural Quest
Academic Journal. This publica-
tion will showcase exceptional ac-
ademic work from all fields written
by the student body. The journal
will provide a space for students to
get involved in the academic writ-
ing process, as both authors and
as peer-reviewers. Moreover, facul-
ty endorsement and participation
in the selection process will assure
the legitimacy of the publication.
All submitted papers will go
through the peer-reviewing pro-
cess. Three peer-reviewers will
read and edit each paper, giv-
ing the author a chance to refine
and improve their work. After
comments and suggestions have
been addressed, each paper must
then be endorsed by at least two
out of the three peer-reviewers.
Papers that make it through this
academic odyssey will then be
presented to the Faculty Selec-
tion Committee. Bryce estimates
that about 10 papers will be se-
lected to be published this year.
Primarily, peer tutors from
the Learning Commons will serve
as peer-reviewers. This project
will enhance the role of peer tu-
tors by involving them in perpet-
uating high level academic rigour.
Nonetheless, peer-reviewer posi-
tions will be open for any student
that wishes to apply. Prospective
FLICKR
EDUCATION
A3
By JEANNIE RAKAMNUAYKIT &
ANDREA PRUDENCIO CARIAGA
Bias-Check Before Writing Teaching Evaluations
CMA cont.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014
The Mark
Helfand, informed of the de-
mand for a new school by Savjord,
couldn’t help but see the possi-
bilities both for Quest and for the
greater community of Squamish.
Quest had plenty of young facul-
ty with kids, and, as believers in
innovative education, they were
eventually going to need a good
place for their kids to go to high
school. Plus, there were plenty
of Quest students interested in K
through 12 education and, despite
having some luck volunteering at
local elementary schools, working
in the high school had essentially
been a no-go. “Having an option
for these students to do something
in more progressive education
was really attractive,” said Helfand.
Cue forward to the 2013/2014
academic year and we have the
humble inception of CMA, running
out of three rented classrooms on
the second floor of Quest’s aca-
demic building. This classroom
lease agreement was negotiat-
ed back when Quest had empty
classrooms to spare, and it was
originally meant to last two years.
By KENDRA PERRIN
Sitting at the Squamish Grey-
hound Station, I’m not surprised
to find a few other Quest students
waiting for the bus, talking about
their classes. I am surprised, how-
ever, when a student comments
that her class has not been as
challenging as she expected, at-
tributing this to her tutor being
“very pregnant”. Her friends agree
, saying, “yeah, that definitely plays
a role.” Immediately, I look up and
ask, “how does her pregnancy
affect the class?” They seem sur-
prised by my brusque response,
and quickly dismiss the topic. One
of the students says, “Oh, I don’t
know, it’s just that a lot of what
we’ve learned is common sense to
me.” The correlation is not evident
to me. Unfortunately, the bus ar-
rives and our conversation is inter-
rupted. They board and sit several
seats away from me.
The issue of faculty evalua-
tions has been particularly salient
in my mind after tutor Mai Yasue
presented on the topic last com-
munity update. Her presentation
meant to educate students on how
to write useful and respectful teach-
ing evaluations. She also wanted to
remind students to check them-
selves for implicit biases that could
colour their evaluations. In partic-
ular, she emphasized gender, sex-
ual orientation, and racial biases
that commonly infiltrate our minds
without our explicit endorsement.
In a later conversation, she
stated that, “students write things
in the teaching evaluations for fe-
male faculty that they would nev-
er dare to write for male tutors.”
Some examples include comments
about their appearance, their
‘motherly’ qualities, and, as exem-
plified by the overheard comment
in the greyhound station, referenc-
es to their personal family lives
and bodies. It’s hard to believe that
being pregnant has anything to do
with the content of a class or the
intellectual input of a tutor. How-
ever, as noted by Yasue, these are
the types of comments some fac-
ulty members have encountered in
their evaluations.
At Quest, we pretend we are
unaffected by the kind of discrim-
ination proliferated by the over-
whelming cultural forces of our
society. Yasue, who made a video
of faculty reading some of the less
useful comments they’ve received
in their evaluations, asserted that
they are “inappropriate and clear-
ly happen here [at Quest]”. She
added, “it is naïve to believe we
are immune to the discriminatory
beliefs in our society.” We can’t
forget we exist within a cultural
context in which specific messages
about certain groups of people are
played on repeat. It is logical we
would internalize these messages
to some degree. Thus, we need to
use our conscious brain to over-
ride our internalized assumptions
and ensure that biases are not af-
fecting teaching evaluations.
“Part of the problem is the sur-
vey itself” said tutor Megan Bull-
och. Of course, it is important that
the teaching evaluation survey has
effective and specific questions.
Fortunately, the administration is
working on changing the prompts
so that questions are less permis-
sive of useless, biased crap. Ques-
tions should be fixated on specific
aspects of teaching, such as class
However, following the enormous
incoming class of 2013/2014, it be-
came clear that CMA’s presence in
Quest’s academic building couldn’t
last beyond the year. Quite sim-
ply, we needed the space back.
The solution to the space-
squeeze was a 5-year lease of
the land right across from the
Swift Creek residences, which en-
abled CMA to establish a portable
campus and accommodate their
significantly larger student body.
Not only does Quest benefit from
the rent paid for this land (which
amounts to at least a few students’
scholarships), but the District
of Squamish required that CMA
“build [infrastructure] as though
they were building a four million
dollar school there,” said Helfand.
This is value added to Quest’s land
without a penny out of its pocket
Despite CMA’s now slightly
longer-term presence on Quest’s
property, David Baird, CMA’s
Head of School, explained, “we
don’t have a formal partnership
with Quest at all; it’s a friend-
ship.” Baird likes having CMA in
such close proximity to what he
considers an inspiring model of
post-secondary education, and
Helfand certainly doesn’t mind
having CMA around. Incidentally,
David and David are now neigh-
bors in Four Winds (i.e. the Lofts).
Baird’s background is with
international schools, and he has
worked everywhere from Swazi-
land to Vietnam. He hopes to re-
cruit more international students
to CMA, because he believes
exposure to a global perspec-
tive is invaluable for high-school
students “who can otherwise
be a little sheltered,” he said.
He spent time at several Unit-
ed World Colleges before com-
ing to CMA, experience that has
made him a big proponent of the
International Baccalaureate pro-
gram. “It’s the gold standard now
of high-school programs,” he said.
Though the money and mass
will have to come first, he hopes
to bring the IB to CMA at some
point in the not too distant future.
Baird is keen to have any Quest
students curious about secondary
education in CMA’s classrooms.
This could be experiential learning,
an independent study, or just a way
to spend a free morning or after-
noon—all options that a few Quest
students have already explored.
As for the future of CMA, the
vision is 220 to 240 students and a
permanent campus. Following the
conclusion of the five year lease,
Quest’s Board could issue them
pacing, particular content and
pedagogical tools. Yasue recom-
mended that students make spe-
cific notes throughout the block so
that on the last day they don’t feel
rushed and can give comprehen-
sive feedback.
Teaching evaluations are not
only read by the faculty that they
are directed towards, but are also
considered by the Performance
Review Committee when deter-
mining whether tutors will be
rehired. Therefore, if feedback is
swayed due to implicit biases, it
might be a dangerous mechanism
by which diversity and equity
among faculty is systematically re-
duced. Even if tutor are rehired de-
spite these types of comments in
their evaluations, it is still demoral-
izing, unjustified, and purposeless
to read them.
Signing teacher evaluations
would make students more ac-
countable to the sort of com-
ments they write, suggested Mai
Yasue. Although she recognizes
it would be difficult to implement
this at Quest, given the size of our
student population, she thinks it
COAST MOUNTAIN ACADEMY
would make critiques more re-
sponsible and useful. Moreover, if a
tutor takes their evaluations very
seriously and wishes to clarify cer-
tain comments, they could easily
contact the student. This would re-
quire a high level of trust towards
tutors, since students would have
to be confident that critical, but
grounded, negative evaluations
would not affect future classes or
their relationships with tutors.
Finally, Yasue reminded us
that faculty fully encourage more
critical comments from students.
However, these comments should
be detailed, respectful and uncon-
taminated by discriminatory bias-
es. I think back to the comment I
overheard at the station and hope
that the students who voiced it can
re-examine and filter their evalua-
tions, from a bias-aware stand-
point, and give truly useful feed-
back. Hopefully someday, faculty
won’t have to traverse through the
‘she’s so pregnant,’ ‘he’s too flam-
boyant,’ and ‘she is too aggressive
and demanding’ type of comments
to find the necessary feedback to
improve their teaching.
a longer lease (50 years is all that
is needed to build) or could, of
course, kick them off—gracefully. Ei-
ther way, they will not be selling the
land. CMA’s ideal is to stay, though
Baird explained they would need
5.5 to 6 million dollars in order to
build a permanent school on the
land they are leasing. “Fundrais-
ing, of course, is always the issue,”
he said. Surely, Quest can relate.
The future of the Quest-CMA
relationship aside, it sure is cool
to know that, just down the hill,
there are high school students
sitting around round tables in
small, seminar-style classrooms.
On Fridays, they are out in the
world for experiential learning.
This is all part of what CMA calls
an education fit for the 21st centu-
ry. Sound familiar? Maybe some-
day, some of these students will
head up the hill to join us in do-
ing pretty much the same thing.
“Quest is changing things a
lot, really shaking things up,” said
Baird. So are you, CMA, so are you.
To get in touch with Head of
School David Baird about visit-
ing CMA or volunteering, send
him an email at david.baird@
c oa s t mount a i nac ade my. c a
REB cont.
By NEDER GATMON-SEGAL
could share their opinion? Af-
ter contacting a number of REB
members, and interviewing Quest
tutor I-Chant Chiang, I realized
that the only sources that would
inform me specifically on Mans-
field’s case were the Tri-Council
Policy Statement and Mansfield
himself. What is the TCPS? It’s a
document that contains all of the
fundamental principles underlying
ethical research involving humans.
From going over the TCPS and
discussing with Mansfield the is-
sues that were raised by the REB,
I got a better picture of what the
REB’s concerns might have been.
One concern was that of consent.
According to Mansfield, the REB
was worried that participants
“wouldn’t feel truly free to consent
to the proposal, given the circum-
stances.” Under Article 3.1 of the
TCPS, it is states that “undue influ-
ence and manipulation may arise
when prospective participants are
recruited by individuals in a posi-
tion of authority... e.g. correctional
officers and prisoners”. Mansfield
was aware of this issue and made
certain provisions to address this.
However, with no access to his
actual proposal or input from the
REB, I can only assume his provi-
sions were not to the REB’s liking.
It seems as though the great-
est concern for the REB was the
risk to participants. According
to Mansfield, the REB was wor-
ried that “asking individuals the
questions... would cause [some
participants] to have a traumatic
flashback... [and] therefore actually
cause them harm.” This seems like
a logical concern, yet Mansfield
takes issue with the way the REB
calculates psychological risk. He
wondered, prefacing his question
with acknowledgment of the dif-
ficult position the REB is in, “how
do they evaluate, on the basis of
something so individual and ob-
jective, the idea of psychological
harm?” According to the TCPS, risk
should be empirically evaluated
on the basis of previous research
in that field. Mansfield claimed that
“contrary to [his] assumptions, [the
REB] had found some research
doing this sort of work before.” In-
deed, Chiang said that “it would be
very difficult to find a case where
a student is proposing a research
project [on which] there has been
absolutely no research done at
all.” However, Mansfield’s disagree-
ment with the REB goes deeper
than the available empirical data.
He has issue with the very way in
which REBs calculate risk. Citing a
paper by Kevin D. Haggerty, titled
“Ethics Creep: Governing Social
Science Research in the Name of
Ethics,” Mansfield ponders “how
likely must an eventuality be be-
fore a researcher must initiate
protocols to mitigate that risk?”
One of the REB’s suggestions
was that Mansfield, who has little
substantial qualitative research ex-
perience, conduct the study with
a more experienced co-researcher.
However, Mansfield decided not to
appeal the REB’s decision, partly
because the decision “caused [him]
to reflect to what extent research of
this kind can affect social change.”
The debate surrounding re-
search ethics on campus is valu-
able, but only if participants inform
themselves about both sides of the
debate. The subject brings with
it unique challenges, because of
issues of confidentiality and the
complexity that comes with con-
ducting research involving hu-
mans. However, that should not
deter students from going out and
asking the right (or wrong) ques-
tions. It is likely that most third
and fourth year students would be
more than willing to discuss their
research ethics concerns if their
keystone involves research on
humans. On the other hand mem-
bers of the REB, as Chiang put it,
“are very happy to talk with stu-
dents about their applications and
answer key questions.” This offer
should be extended by all faculty
members to all students, not simply
ones directly applying for research.
Although bound by confidential-
ity, faculty members can provide
insight into what is, admittedly, a
very complex issue. In the end,
this healthy inquiry and debate
will only lead to a more fruitful and
professional research community
at our seven year old university.
B1
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014
The Mark OPINION
This month, I set out to write
a hard-hitting, part opinion, part
exposé piece about how faculty
advising at Quest is failing. After
a less than satisfactory experi-
ence with the advisor I was paired
with during Cornerstone (who, to
their defense, was new, and who,
I imagine, was figuring everything
out just as much as I was), I finally
switched advisors. Did you know
you could do that? I didn’t. Only af-
ter the sympathetic tutor who had
adopted me as their honorary ad-
visee suggested I go on the Portal
and become their actual advisee
did I realized this was an option.
Once I knew, I got typing as fast as
my little fingers would let me and
made that switch. Apart from a
fairly awkward exchange of emails
with my now former advisor
(which isn’t a necessary part of the
process—I just thought it was com-
mon courtesy to let them know I
was no longer their advisee), it was
painless and absolutely worth it.
I emailed my new advisor in
the middle of the summer with a
panicked question about course
selection, and they replied within
a day. I informed my new advisor
about my maybe-questionable-
though-too-soon-to-tell decision to
go on exchange in the spring of my
second year and, despite the com-
plications it posed, they tackled
the challenge with me. Ecstatic, I
told my new advisor that I thought
I finally had my Question, and they
humored me with 45 minutes of
brainstorming and then sent me
off with a fascinating and pertinent
book. This, as far as I am con-
cerned, is what advising should
look like. I had finally overcome
the disquieting suspicion that my
academic questions, concerns,
and crises didn’t really matter to
the faculty until Question block.
So mine is an advising mis-
hap turned advising success sto-
ry, but my happy ending wasn’t
enough to shut me up. Curious
Advising Blues & Some Revelations About Initiative
By KENDRA PERRIN
On the hunt for a small ‘s’ scandal, my most pronounced discovery was my own oversight
A Conversation Manual
It is imperative that we have
difficult conversations about im-
portant things. Every controver-
sial conversation that makes us
uncomfortable is usually one that
needs having. As an introduction to
a series of articles on how to have
these conversations, I will start with
some conversation “game rules” or
“terms and conditions”. Before we
enter into conversations, we must
recognize how our experiences of
privilege and oppression inform
our places in these conversations.
Rule 1: Accept that com-
mon ground does not exist.
Common ground does not
exist in these dorm rooms, this
school, this city, nor this world.
You can come close to it, but in-
evitably you and your fellow con-
verser are informed by different
experiences of the same world
(or maybe even a different world).
Intersectionality, a widely ac-
cepted theory in the social scienc-
es, says that we live in a complex
web of privilege/oppression which
informs our lived experience. Our
privilege/oppression is based on
our visible and invisible qualities.
Visible privilege/oppression cor-
responds to the way our bodies
exist politically in space. We all
have different bodies which are
read differently in different spaces;
our bodies are symbolic. Bodies
are read by skin color, hair, bone
structure, body size, sex, gender
expression, height, weight, cloth-
ing, visible disabilities and many
other physical indicators. The
context and environment that
our bodies inhabit also contribute
to how we read each other. The
world reads the symbols of our
bodies and doles out privilege/
oppression based on these sym-
bols from the moment we are born.
Invisible privilege/oppression
also shifts our positioning on this
intricate web. Because you can’t
see it, it is best to assume that you
know nothing about the experi-
ence of your fellow converser un-
What it really means to think before you speak
By MARIELLE ROSKY
View From Here
By SOMMER HARRIS
SOMMER HARRIS
Three thousand and five hun-
dred meters up in the air, I am nes-
tled among the shrubs between
two ridges in the Himalayan Moun-
tains; this morning, three friends
and I embarked on the Thousand
Lakes trek, a four-day hike near
Thimpu, the capital city of Bhutan.
The view from here is not dynam-
ic or far-reaching. Rather, we stare
out into whiteness. Suspended in
a cloud, it seems impossible that
anything else exists. I turn my
gaze from the pearly barrier to my
friends. Right now, these compan-
ions are my only reality. My view
from here: Renee, Net, Julian, a jar
of peanut butter, and some biscuits.
Though fogged by clouds, my
view is not clouded by thoughts
of the future. I see this moment.
Bhutan runs at a different pace
than British Columbia. At first, I
didn’t even notice, entranced by
the dynamic clouds and friend-
ly faces. However, after my head
stopped spinning from the initial
culture shock and altitude change,
the pace became clear. Traffic stops
for rodents to cross the road. ATMs
are often out of order. Blackouts
are common, and so is running
out of water mid-shower. There
isn’t yet the infrastructure for a
quick paced life without bumps.
I expected something along
these lines. Bhutan is still being
developed; according to locals,
twenty years ago Thimpu con-
sisted only of rice flats, a river,
and some farm houses. Now, it
has over 100 000 residents, and
dozens of new buildings each
year. The city is growing rapidly.
However, it still has a slow pace.
Normally, I’m two steps ahead
of each moment. While my friends
stop to smell the roses, I run to
the next bush or dig a new row
in the garden to plant more ros-
es. Envisioning the new growth, I
dig and plant and water and dig
and plant and water and dig and
plant and water. Sometimes, the
flowers I already have die because
my focus is on new sproutlings.
Refections on Dagala (Thousand Lakes) Trek
This life approach has not
worked for me in Bhutan. I’ve had
to shift my future-oriented mindset
to look at the moment in front of
me. What do I see when I look at
the immediate moment? I see Bhu-
tanese friends, reaching out to me.
I feel the honey-scented sunshine
and delicious grass between my
toes. I taste and savor each bite
of a meal: nourishment. I try to
see existence as an end in itself,
though I’m no Buddha. I feel love
and a Himalayan breeze. I lay in the
grass and eat savory and sweet
treats. All of this, an end in itself.
On the mountain – with the
whiteout around us – my expe-
riences are their own ends. Skip-
py peanut butter, for example, is
terrible for you, but it tastes deli-
cious. We’re improvising. In this
moment, the future takes a back-
seat. This moment (really, every
moment, but I usually forget this)
could not be anything but an end
in itself. How could it? I can’t see
farther than ten feet in front of
me, but the air smells like roses.
as to whether my experience was
unique, I began asking my peers
about their experiences with their
advisors. I will not proclaim to
have any kind of conclusive data
to report. However, what I can say
with confidence is: mixed reviews.
One of my peers switched to a new
advisor within the week after I told
them that this is, in fact, an option.
They, too, are now much happier.
Mixed reviews, I thought —
could be worse, but also could be
better. Convinced that I was on to
something, the next step in my
investigation was to chat with our
chief academic officer, Ryan Der-
by-Talbot. I wanted to know if there
was a disconnect between his vi-
sion of the advisor’s role and what
was actually happening between
advisors and advisees. In order to
know this, I had to figure out some-
thing more fundamental: what ex-
actly is an advisor expected to do?
Derby-Talbot provided
wonderful clarity, and my con-
versation with him has admit-
tedly changed the direction of
this article (which is now far
less hard-hitting and exposé-es-
que than I had once imagined).
Derby-Talbot explained, “ad-
visors are meant to be the peo-
ple that help ensure students are
getting off to the right start when
they come to Quest.” This includes
selecting appropriate courses, but
can also mean helping students
settle into what is essentially a
new world. For the thousands of
questions that some students have
during their first two years, advi-
sors are meant to be “the imme-
diate go-to person that can help
answer those questions,” he said.
Ok. Yes. This all sounded ideal—
this is what I had expected. Stand-
ing up, I remained unconvinced
that his vision of advising was
consistently materializing. What I
somehow didn’t expect, though,
was what Derby-Talbot offered me
as I prepared to walk out the door:
“If anyone has thoughts about how
we could improve the advising pro-
cess, I am very interested in these.”
Oh. Wait. What? I felt dumb-
struck, embarrassed, and a little
red, so I quickly strode out of his of-
fice after a meek, ‘Sure — thank you’.
How had I forgotten that the
people in power at Quest are not
just there to be interviewed? They
are there for us to consult with.
They are not only open to, but
interested in, hearing about any
disconnects between vision and
reality, because this knowledge en-
ables them to do their jobs better.
If you will forgive my being a
little didactic, I will leave you with
this: if you have a problem, like I
did, go the source. Though it can
be exciting to think about uncover-
ing a scandal, it is almost certainly
more fruitful to actually mobilize
and try to fix whatever it is you are
frustrated about. Figuratively, and
perhaps literally, go talk to R.D.T.
Then, if that still doesn’t work, I
suppose you could write an exposé.
less they’ve told you. Examples of
invisible qualities about a person’s
identity are their class, citizenship,
sexuality, mental and physical ill-
ness, to name a few. Our different
experiences must be acknowl-
edged and respected. To erase dif-
ference in an effort to start a con-
versation on “common ground”
is an insult disguised as equality.
So how does all this infor-
mation relate to our conversa-
tions? The privilege/oppression
we receive based on visible and
invisible qualities has informed
our perspective, our motives,
and our realities. Thus, it is im-
perative that when having con-
versation we observe rule 2.
Rule 2: Acknowledge where you
stand in relation to your converser.
The way that oppression/
privilege has been doled out
has made the ground uneven.
Some stand on higher ground
than others, whether or not they
want or know this. In light of this,
knowing where you and your fel-
low converser are both coming
from will help everyone under-
stand the context of what is said.
It is especially important to
question remarks that are coming
from a place of privilege. Kindly
point out that certain topics which
are framed as objective (example:
freedom) cannot be considered uni-
versal, as even in countries such as
Canada, some people experience
less freedom than others based on
their visible and invisible qualities.
Additionally, the oppression/
privilege status of yourself and
your fellow converser should
guide the very nature of how you
converse. If you stand on higher
ground than your fellow convers-
er, note that always getting the last
word, cutting them off, raising your
voice, or questioning their logic
in a way that is condescending
can emotionally set someone off
and halt the potential for fruitful
dialogue. Realize that institutional
racism, sexism, classism, etcetera,
play out in social situations, even
if so subtly that they can barely be
perceived. Remember: your body
does not exist neutrally in space. As
a person of some privilege, I have
to work to silence my loud voice
when talking to people who have
historically been silenced by those
who look like me. As a person of
some oppression, I expect my fel-
low conversers to do the same.
With these guidelines
in mind, see how your conversa-
tions about controversial topics
change and look out for next
week’s piece on how to ask ques-
tions and how to listen when
having these conversations.
OPINION
B2
TUCKER SHERMAN
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014
The Mark
What do we really mean when we talke about “gender equality?”
A historic look at Movember’s growth
Equal rights for women and
men are undeniably important,
and UN Women’s new campaign,
HeForShe, is a powerful tool in en-
listing the voices of boys and men
in the push for these rights. Celeb-
rity spokesperson, Emma Watson,
noted in her speech addressing
the United Nations in New York
City that, “men don’t have the ben-
efits of equality either.” The pres-
sures that men face to conform
to gender stereotypes contribute
heavily to the power imbalance
in the men-versus-women-dichot-
omy that pervades mainstream
discourse surrounding gender.
However, one critical component
that HeForShe ignores in its cam-
paign “to end gender inequal-
ity” is, well, any gender identi-
ty other than man or woman.
A 2011 report on the National
Transgender Discrimination Sur-
vey, published by The National
Center for Transgender Equality
and the National Gay and Lesbi-
an Task Force, presented data on
people who identify as a gender
other than man or woman. These
identities included transgender,
transsexual, gender non-con-
forming, and genderqueer, among
many others. The report, which
presented data on 6,450 transgen-
der and gender non-conforming
people in the United States, con-
cluded that, “[transgender and
“If you touch each other, you
will get chlamydia. And die.”
If this sounds familiar to you,
congratulations! One or both of the
following statements are true: you
have seen Mean Girls, and/or you
went to public school, where you
were forced to sit through sex ed.
There, you were likely taught to
fear two principal risks of casual
sex: pregnancy and sexually trans-
mitted infections (or STIs).
What they probably didn’t tell
you is that many STIs don’t invari-
ably end in death. Often, even our
fear of the STIs that ‘never go away’
is disproportionate to the patholo-
gy of those STIs. They are manage-
able, and in some cases, they do
go away.
Genital warts is one such STI
that is reputed to stick with you
for life. While there is no medical
cure, your body can fight it off -- so
the warts aren’t permanent. Gen-
tial warts is one expression of the
single most common STI in North
America: the Human Papillomavi-
rus (HPV). A local doctor claims it’s
so commonplace that “if you have
had sex with somebody who has
had sex before, you have or have
had HPV.” In fact, the Center for
Disease Control states that nearly
all sexually active adults will con-
tract HPV during their lifetime.
So what does this mean for
your health? HPV causes an ab-
normality in your tissues. Most
strains of HPV can be divided into
two categories: high risk strains
(the kind that can cause cancer),
and low risk strains (the kind that
can cause genital warts).
Contracting any strain of the
virus does not guarantee cancer
or warts because your body can,
and often does, fight it off. If your
body fails to do this, though, the
only way for women to find out if
they have the the high risk strain
is via pap smear, because the kind
that causes cancer most common-
ly appears on the cervix. For men
there are still not recommended
tests. How you deal with high risk
strains of HPV is between you and
your doctor.
Dealing with low risk strains is
a different story. Warts can appear
anywhere from 3 months to sev-
eral years after infection, but a lot
of the time people remain asymp-
tomatic even though they might
be carrying the virus. Usually with
low risk strains, your body will
fight it off naturally and you’ll never
even know that you had it.
Freaking out in the shower
is not an uncommon reaction to
finding unidentified bumps on
your genitals, but the truth is most
people tend to overreact to gential
warts. They aren’t necessarily a
gender non-conforming people]
were more likely to have expe-
rienced harassment at work, at
school, in the doctor’s office, or on
the street than to have escaped
such mistreatment...and at rates
far above the national average.”
Global marginalization of
women is real and demands our
attention, but to have a campaign
in the name of gender equality
that completely ignores non-nor-
mative genders does more to rein-
force the concept of the man-ver-
sus-woman dichotomy than it
does to challenge it. It must be
made clear that this is not an in-
clusive gender equality campaign;
it is a women’s rights campaign.
When campaigns like HeFor-
She present complex issues that
suddenly become the focus of
massive online attention, it can be
difficult to recognize their implied,
and sometimes harmful, state-
ments. Generally, when a good
looking, intelligent celebrity tell us
to do things, we do them — or at
least let other people know that
we agree with that good look-
ing, intelligent celebrity. But to
take something like this at face
value is to give in to slacktivism.
This isn’t to say that celebri-
ty endorsements are a bad thing;
many studies done on the topic
show that celebrity spokesper-
sons garner significant amounts of
public interest for the causes they
advocate. A campaign’s market-
HeForShe: Good But Not Good Enough
threat to your health; most of the
time, the most challenging part
of dealing with an STI like genital
warts is the stigma.
For example, we asked stu-
dents if they would have sex with
a person they knew had genital
warts, and the general consensus
was no. It’s not a surprising answer,
but it is important to consider why
we’re saying no.
One student said, “I don’t want
to sleep with somebody with HPV
because when you have HPV peo-
ple don’t want to sleep with you.”
This response illustrates the issue
quite clearly. It isn’t the warts
themselves we fear (as we said be-
fore, they are harmless). The only
thing we truly have to fear is the re-
jection created by the fear of rejec-
tion, which is created by the fear
of rejection... You see the dilemma.
The diagnosis is worse than the
pathology of this strain of HPV.
If you are worried about con-
tracting or passing on the HPV vi-
rus, sit down and talk about it with
your partner. If someone tells you
they have warts, be conscious of
your reaction. Think about it. At
the end of the day, only you can
decide what’s right for you, but
remember that the fear of genital
warts is the part that sucks, not
necessarily genital warts in and of
themselves. Communicate and be
considerate.
Play safe,
Kenzie & Caleah
By MACKENZIE ERLANK
& CALEAH DEAN
By JON FARMER
Getting Off
Why, You Moustache?
By ZACHARY KERSHMAN
ability shouldn’t be the sole factor
in evaluating its efficacy, it’s just
important to acknowledge that
good marketing doesn’t eliminate
the need for evaluation entirely.
Ideally, these viral movements
get people talking about global
issues and, ideally, these conver-
sations lead to meaningful change
and it’s all very idealistic and beau-
tiful, just like the celebrities inextri-
cably attached to these campaigns.
Hopefully, HeForShe’s exclusion of
trans folk and people of non-nor-
mative genders will become
one of its strengths, in that it will
spark debate about the absence
of these minority groups virtually
everywhere in mainstream media.
It’s November; the days are short-
er, the frst years are through rhet-
oric, and men around the world
are wearing moustaches. If you
don’t know about Movember this
growing movement may seem
strange. If you’re curious why so
many of the men in your life are
suddenly wearing moustaches or
posing in photo shoots, I can tell
you. Tey want your attention,
but not for themselves, to raise
awareness and money for men’s
health issues.
Men live on average 4-5 years less
than women and Movember’s
website attributes this statistic to
their lack of awareness, unwill-
ingness to discuss health issues
and act when unwell, high risk
activities, and stigma surround-
ing mental health. Tis culture of
silence ignores the fact that men
are afected by health issues while
common sense and plenty of sta-
tistics prove it. For instance, 1 in 7
men will be diagnosed with pros-
tate cancer in their lives and four
times as many men end their own
lives compared to women. Mo-
vember’s website also cites that
“4 out of 5 suicides among young
people in Canada are commit-
ted by men, despite men’s lower
- reported rates of depression.”
Tese are heavy statistics but part
of Movember’s genius is to make
space for important conversations
in a fun way, starting with the
space of stubbly upper lips.
Movember is a fantastic excuse to
have fun, get silly, and build com-
munity but at its heart it’s about
people. Statistics on men’s health
are impressive and shocking but
they aren’t really powerful until
you put a face to them. Finding
a human face is easy; everyone is
afected by men’s health in some
way. It only takes starting conver-
sations to fnd out how.
Personally, the men in my fam-
ily have weak hearts. When my
paternal great-grandfather died
of a heart attack my grandfather
had to drop out of school at 15 to
support the family. In turn, my
grandfather had a massive heart
attack at 52 that almost killed
him, forced him to retire, and lef
him with just 40% heart capacity.
Examples of mental health is-
sues are also surprisingly easy to
fnd among family and friends
although we seldom talk about
them. In 2012, 4 separate friends
confded to me that their fathers
-- all middle aged profession-
al men -- had made attempts on
their own lives. Tose are extreme
examples but we all have friends
who struggle with mental illness-
es of one kind or another and
many of us deal with them per-
sonally but stigma ofen keeps us
from talking about it. Reducing
stigma around health issues is one
of Movember’s main goals and a
primary reasons it deserves sup-
port.
I’m not suggesting that we talk
about them all of the time or that
medical histories should be ex-
plicit or transparent. What I am
advocating for is the creation of a
popular image of manhood and
masculinity that incorporates
illness and health issues not as
a sign of weakness, but as a fact
of life. I use Movember and my
moustache to talk about these
things; this is why they’re here.
Movember formed in Australia
in 2003 with 30 participants, in-
spired by a beer fueled conversa-
tion about bygone fashion trends
and the desire to bring back the
moustache. In 2004 450 partic-
ipants ofcially raised $54,000
AUS for prostate cancer research
in Australia. Last year over 1.1
million participants in 21 coun-
tries raised $146.6 million CAD
for men’s health charities.
2013 marks Quest’s fourth cam-
paign and campus participation
has been growing steadily since
2010. I used it to justify my own
feeble facial hair that year and a
dozen people celebrated the end
of the month with a potluck and
silly auction in North Kitchen. We
raised around $150. In 2011 the
infamous Michael Luba suggested
we create a fundraising calendar.
We sold around 60 calendars with
images from a hasty photo shoot
in Riverside 201 . Between the cal-
endar and end of Movember auc-
tion in Swifcreek 202 we raised
over $600 in 2011. Last year
Quest raised over $2000, sold out
of calendars, and hosted an End
of Movember party on the third
foor of the library for more than
200 people. We also crowned Leif
Huot and exchange student Jen
Lobley as Quest’s inaugural Mr
and Miss Movember. Tis year
promises more of the same with
a calendar well on its way to pro-
duction and a month’s end open
mic scheduled for 8:30pm on the
29thin the Atrium.
Supporting Movember is
easy. You can donate money, buy
a calendar, or bid on a moustache;
you can ask the men in your life
about their health; or schedule a
physical or STI test for yourself.
You don’t have to do big things,
simple conversations help. But
if you are starting to think about
holiday shopping, keep the calen-
dars in mind.
FROM THE VAULT
SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
By ALESSANDRO TERSIGNI
By JONAH GOLDEN
Quest Pub Update
Album Reviews: October
By JACK LAMBERT
Sprinklergate
Corrections & clarifcations
When it comes to environmental activism, size matters
An article in this past Septem-
ber issue of the Mark on the prog-
ress of creating a Quest Campus
Pub stated that the SRC could take
out a mortgage to finance its con-
struction. It has since come to the
Mark’s attention that the SRC is not
an independent organization and
thus cannot take out bank loans in
its name.
As it is not a very profitable
venture, the pub is unlikely to be
C1
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014
The Mark
ARTS & CULTURE
of interest to external investors.
The Quest administration could
take out a loan on the SRC’s behalf
to fund a pub, but this is unlikely
because they have “money tied up
in other projects, such as the new
residences, Ossa and Red Tusk,”
says SRC President Céline Allen.
Brad Klees, Quest alumnus
and a prominent proponent of the
pub thus far, says it’s now up to the
students to create momentum for
the project. “...[A]t a certain point it
will be up to the current students
Like Watergate, but sprinklers and not a scandal
People’s Climate March
the pipes.
The heavy rain that falls for
most of the year in Squamish is
always going through this pro-
cess and renewing our source of
naturally filtered water. The only
real risk of water shortage in Squa-
mish is in the summer when too
many weeks go by without rain-
fall. When the aquifer dries out,
Squamish is forced to send river
water into our pipes, requiring a
boil water advisory, but more than
enough water is there if we need it.
Squamish has a fantastic sup-
ply of this commodity that other
places in the world are literally
dying for. One might think that
Squamish could afford to share a
little, but water doesn’t really work
like that. “Water is not a global
commodity. To say that there is a
global water shortage implies that
we’re all drinking out of the same
cup, and we’re not.” Wildman ex-
plained to us that “we don’t have
It was the last week of Sep-
tember block and one of the first
nights of rain this year. Second
year student, Zach Kershman, was
walking home after a late night in
the Academic Building. Upon ar-
riving at the walk-up to Riverside,
Kershman was surprised to find
the sprinklers on. Why, he asked
himself, would the sprinklers be on
when water is falling from the sky?
Does this sprinkler system not
have a moisture sensor that knows
to shut down when it’s raining?
Does Quest not care about the im-
pending global water shortage that
will surely incite the apocalypse?
What about all the people of the
world without access to clean
drinking water?
It seemed counter to Quest’s
implicit commitment to conser-
vation and, in true journalistic
fashion, we decided to get to the
bottom of this juicy scandal. We
started by getting in touch with
Darren Newton, Manager of Hous-
ing and Residence Life, who told us
that the sprinklers run on a timer
system, and that when it starts
raining late in the evening, there is
no one there to turn the system off.
This was not a shocking dis-
covery. But it left us with some
questions about our water re-
sources, so we sat down with en-
vironmental chemist and Quest’s
resident expert on all things water,
Rich Wildman. He immediately set
us straight about our preconceived
notions on water conservation.
According to Wildman, “there
is not a water crisis here. We’ve
got plenty of water.” Squamish
gets its water from an aquifer—an
underground rock formation that
holds groundwater. The aquifer is a
renewable source of water, making
water scarcity in Squamish essen-
tially a non-issue.
When Garibaldi erupted 8000
years ago it created the Ring Creek
lava flow, which flows down the big
hill towards campus. The lava flow
crystalizes in to pumice, a porous
rock which has lots of tiny holes
through which water can be fil-
tered. The pumice sits on top of
impermeable granite, the same
rock that the Chief is made of. Rain
drops fall on the entire lava flow
and percolate through its many
pores. When the water hits the im-
permeable granite below, the water
is forced to flow downhill instead of
going deeper into the ground. It
flows right into the aquifer, which
holds groundwater until we suck it
out with machines.
Since the water in the aquifer
has already been filtered through
the porous rock, all we need to do
is chlorinate it and send it downhill
to town. This chlorination is mostly
to keep the water from picking up
pathogens on its journey through
the pipes built to share it with any-
body but ourselves.” The closest
town to Squamish, Britannia Beach,
is not connected to our water sup-
ply. There has been some talk
about water tankers shipping wa-
ter, similarly to how oil is shipped,
to places that need it. Right now,
it’s just not feasible. Conservation
of water and better infrastructure
in those places in need is more
cost effective than water tankers
going across the ocean.
So, what’s at stake when our
sprinklers are on in the rain? It’s
not perfectly clear. On the one
hand we have lots of water, espe-
cially during the rainy season, and
if we don’t use it no one else will.
On the other hand, the concept of
environmental stewardship has im-
plications beyond Squamish’s wa-
ter situation, and there’s a lot to be
said for standing in solidarity with
people in areas without access to
clean drinking water by not being
frivilous with our good fortune.
By ERIKA SERODIO and
ZACH KERSHMAN
Afer putting aside the re-
alization that I had emitted 1.5
tonnes of carbon dioxide in trav-
eling to and from New York to
attend a march against climate
change, I realized something else:
size matters. And the People’s Cli-
mate March was massive.
On September 21, two days
before the U.N. hosted a climate
summit for state and business
leaders from around the world,
400 000 people marched through
New York City calling for the cli-
mate summit to produce plans
that would actually mitigate cli-
mate change. Te march was
more than twice the size that any-
one had predicted; it shut down
Manhattan, it blocked trafc, and
it spanned farther than the eye
could see. Te day of the march,
there were three tweets every sec-
ond regarding the People’s Cli-
mate March. Te Times Square
Jumbotron projected video from
2500 other marches around the
world. Like I said, it was huge.
At the same time, the march
was very small. It was a demon-
stration full of single-moment-re-
minders that we all have a reason
to care about climate change. It
was riding the Subway at 6 am,
surrounded by pumped-up vol-
unteers. It was Bill McKibben
dancing to a drum line. It was the
miles of marching that lef people
tired but inspired. It was watching
my mom get swept away by the
crowd. It was old friends play-
ing music, new friends starting
chants, shouts, whispers, smiles,
and determined faces. It was di-
verse but unifed—challenging
the stereotype that environmen-
talists are elite, old, and white. Te
small moments were a testament
to the multifarious motives that
drive a wide variety of people to
fght climate change.
Tese motives, however, are
not new. I think people have al-
ways cared about the issue, but
have felt powerless in showing
it. People rightfully fear that
their Prius and local diet are not
enough to fght such a global
problem, and in the past, this fear
has led to discouragement and
inaction. Te march demonstrat-
ed that the climate movement
is widespread—big enough to
address the problem. Being con-
nected to a larger movement re-
places fear and inaction with hope
and action.
Tat is why size, in this case,
matters. Size confrms to us that
change really is possible, this
hope motivates us to act, and our
action empowers the movement.
On the fip side, the fossil fuel
industry is empowered by a dif-
ferent type of size—a seemingly
endless cash fow. Teir money is
long, but their people-power (and
science) is lacking. Te battle of
size comes down to the big mon-
ey of a few versus the actions of
many; whichever side can apply
more pressure on policy makers
will win.
Te climate movement is
fghting the size battle with peo-
ple-power and science. Teir
devices are argument, passion,
symbols, images, analogies, and
alternatives. Tese strategies apply
pressure in many ways, including
simply unveiling the injustices of
the current state of afairs. Tis
pressure will not be released until
the system changes, starting with
our leaders listening to econo-
mists and putting a price on car-
bon. Politicians will try to relieve
pressure with pseudo-change, but
until results are seen, the climate
movement will continue to grow
until the pressure cannot be dis-
pelled or ignored with anything
but legitimate change.
to get the ball rolling,” he says. “If I
were a student, I would lockdown
interest in the student body and
approach the SRC about brokering
some deal with the University at
large.”
Allen says this will be a larger
topic of discussion for the SRC in
the near future. “One more afford-
able option could be facilitating a
space that can be turned into a
licensed, beer-garden-esque area.
However, funding such an endeav-
or doesn’t look feasible at present.”
alt-J — This is All Yours
alt-J’s second album, This is
All Yours, is a dark indie master-
piece. It combines the sharp treble
filled rhythms and vocal style of
in their previous album An Awe-
some Wave with its icy alt-elec-
tronic influences meet indie folk
and atmospheric rock on its new-
est album This is All Yours. Each
song is like a coat, warming you
with its soothing sound. “Warm
Foothills” is one of the most alluring
songs on the album, it starts slow
and then builds into a crescendo of
whistling, piano and acoustic gui-
tar. “Left Hand Free” starts with a
jangly, slightly distorted guitar start
then brings in snare heavy drums
and bright vocals, a step away from
the main theme of the album. This
whole album is best listened to
on a dark and dreary day with a
warm cup of tea in your hands. My
Pick: “Pusher”
Hozier — Hozier
Bluesy ballads accented by
sharp guitar and the soulful voice
of Andrew Hozier-Bryne consti-
tute his eponymous debut album.
The album has obvious delta and
British blues influences, yet mixes
in modern melodies of indie folk,
such as in the top track on the
album “Take Me to Church”. This
JONAH GOLDEN
ARTS & CULTURE
D1
By MARIA JOSE ARAUJO
Pollinating Around
By ARLETTE AKINGENEYE
and VALERIA VERGANI
Where Are You From?
By LEENA DUPUIS
November Briefs
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014
The Mark
Advice, challenges, and opportunities
for international students at Quest
Some arts and culture-y events
that you should check out
Quest welcomes all those willing to pollinate
for the beneft of our insect neighbours
Halloween at the Gondola
October 25 from 1 - 4 pm at
Sea to Sky Gondola. Admis-
sions are free with Gondola
lift tickets or summer season/
annual passes.
The Sea to Sky Gondola welcomes
costumed individuals of all ages
to participate in a multitude of ac-
tivities, including trick-or-treating
on the Panorama trail. Don’t miss
this amazing opportunity to enjoy
a beautiful view with a Halloween
twist.
The Paperboys
October 26 at the Brackendale
Art Gallery. Tickets are $20
each and are available for pur-
chase at Xocolatl or the BAG.
The Paperboys, a JUNO award
winning band, have been delight-
ing fans for 20 years with their
unique blend of Irish, Mexican and
Roots Folk music, and it’s now your
chance to see them live at the BAG.
The band is composed of writer/
singer Tom Landa, flutist Geoffrey,
bassist Brad Gillard, Kalissa Her-
nandez on fiddle, drummer Sam
Esecson and tromboniste Nick La
Riviere. If you can’t make it to their
concert, be sure to listen to their al-
bum Molinos, which received four
stars out of five by AllMusic.

We Scare Hunger!
October 10 through 31. Food
deposit in Atrium.
In the spirit of giving, open up
your cupboards and bring your
non-perishable food items to the
atrium for the Squamish Helping
Hands. Any kind of food that is
sealed and will not spoil will be
accepted.To commemorate this
event, there will be trick-or-treat-
ing, but, instead of collecting can-
Have you noticed something
different on campus? The keen eye
may have spotted that we have
new flowers at Quest, and not just
any flowers, pollinator- friendly
ones. Fourth year student Micha-
lina Hunter, best known as Michi,
organized the Quest Pollinator En-
hancement Project, which was also
her Keystone project. The event,
ran on Saturday, October 5, and
aimed to raise awareness on how
honeybees and native pollinators
share an ecosystem. Educating the
community about honeybees is
vital because they are not a native
species and their presence may af-
fect the resources available to other
types of native pollinators like bum-
blebees—making them compete to
survive. Ensuring there is plenty of
food available for every pollinator, is
ensuring they have a fair chance of
surviving the winter. The pollinator
enhancement event demonstrated
how a community can assume re-
sponsibility for maintaining balance
in an ecosystem.
At the event, I found myself
constantly surrounded by different
activities and stations that looked
interesting. I came home with a
collection of things including a
beeswax candle that I rolled myself,
a bee home, and a flower bomb.
I learned that flower bombs are
seeds and soil wrapped in clay. The
idea, which originated in New York,
is to throw the bombs where you
want flowers to eventually bloom.
Each station had a volunteer that
educated the attendants. On the
bee home building station, they fo-
cused on how it was important to
make spaces available for individual
pollinators in the winter. Especially
As the Quest student body has
grown to over five hundred stu-
dents this year, the number of
international students has grown
with it. According to the univer-
sity’s website, the Quest student
population currently includes 14%
of students from countries other
than Canada or the USA. A num-
ber of questions remain, howev-
er, about what it means to be an
international student at Quest. A
growing international population
does not always mean more mutu-
al support, integration, or diversity.
The new academic year has seen
an increase in the number of ini-
tiatives meant to help international
students feel supported and wel-
comed into the Quest community.
Besides the traditional interna-
tional students orientation, which
gives international students an ex-
tra two days to get to know their
surroundings before classes start,
the current Minister of Internation-
alization, Aida Ndiaye, has been
organizing International Affairs
Dinners. The International Affairs
Dinners is a series of discussions
on foreign countries’ histories and
current issues that aim to chal-
lenge cultural stereotypes perpet-
uated by Western media. The In-
ternational Discussion Group, run
by Student Services Officer Will
Prescott, invites international stu-
dents to come together and share
their unique experiences in order
to support each other through the
year-long process of integration.
In spite of these initiatives, adjust-
ing to Quest takes international
students more than just a few
weeks. Common difficulties that
international students grapple
with are the limited range of food
options in the cafeteria, the rainy
Squamish weather, and the lack of
common cultural references with
North American students. Espe-
cially in light of the ever-changing
character of the Quest community,
each student finds a different way
to overcome these difficulties and
get adjusted to life at Quest. Tas-
mia Nower, a fourth year student
from Bangladesh, remembers that
the small size of the Quest student
body made her feel welcome and
involved in the community during
her first year. On the other hand,
Ndiaye, a third year student from
Senegal, says that during her first
year she relied mostly on Quest
students that she had previous-
ly known from her high school in
South Africa as a support system.
Vic Wang, a third year student
from China, explains that making
connections with the Squamish
community through his host fam-
ily helped him feel more at home
at Quest during his first months in
Canada.
A common strategy that seems
to have helped their process of
integration is the willingness to
be proactive in learning about
North American culture and
sharing their own traditions
with roommates, friends,
and classmates. According
to Ndiaye, “It is important
for international students to
be proactive, to raise their
voices, and to share their
different perspective. People
at Quest usually value the
different perspectives and
points of view of internation-
al students.”
While international stu-
dents need to take the ini-
tiative to make their voices
heard by the rest of the
student body, it is import-
ant that all Quest students
become aware of the diver-
sity of cultures, backgrounds
and languages present on
campus. All Quest students
should make an active effort
to cherish perspectives and
stories that are different than
their own.
in areas where the forest has been
logged and buildings have replaced
the natural habitat.
Surrounded by live music and
a good dose of sunshine, I also got
the opportunity to get a tour of
the beehive. Once up close to the
hive and its humming and buzz-
ing, I couldn’t help but stare and
wonder about all the life inside of
it. If you missed out on the event,
you can still get involved by join-
ing the bee club, something that I
would definitely recommend. Michi
mentioned she would be happy to
train students, especially first and
second years, on how to take care
of the bees, so that when she grad-
uates, they can continue to lead
the project. It is the little things like
our friendly pollinators that are so
crucial to nature’s harmony. Taking
care of their home is the least we
can do.
dy for yourself, canned goods will
be distributed. Come with your
trick-or-treat bag and do some
good for your community!

Masquerade Ball
Event starts at 6 pm November
8 and ends November 9 at 1
pm at the West Coast Railway
Heritage Park Roundhouse.
Squamish firefighters, in partner-
ship Sea to Sky Community Ser-
vice, are hosting a Masquerade
Ball, and every one is welcome.
Food will be served all through-
out the night,with different entries:
canapés, buffet dinner, dessert,
and late night snacks. Of course,
the evening will be full of dancing
with live entertainment courtesy of
Faith & Desire. Put on a mask and
dancing shoes and join in on this
good cause. More details about
ticket prices at Squamish official
website.

The Legend of Joan of Arc
Preseted by the Arts Club, play
runs every Sunday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
and Saturday from October 23
to November 23 at the Stanley
Alliance Industrial Stage in
Van.
Are you a fan of history, Joan of Arc,
or plays in general? Well, you’re in
luck! George Bernard Shaw’s play
explores the legend of Joan of Arc
and her remarkable rise and fall.
How did an illiterate teenage girl in-
spire an army of men to rid France
of its English occupiers, and place
a dauphin on the throne? Was she
a witch? A madwoman? A genius?
These questions are explored in
what The Guardian calls an “Intel-
lectually vigorous, visually excit-
ing” play. For more information and
tickets, visit http://artsclub.com/
ballad starts with a piano and at
the apex of the song, a slightly dis-
torted guitar comes in, making it
even darker. All of the songs on the
album have complex, story-telling
lyrics that address struggle, exer-
tion, and love. This album would
be best enjoyed during a tough
breakup, but no need to go looking
for one of those. My Pick: “Angel
of Small Death and The Codeine
Scene”
The Blank Tapes — Vacation
If you want to take a mental
trip to Hawaii, this album is for you.
This modern surf rock is upbeat,
catchy, and perfect for relaxing on
a beach (or in your bed). “Coast
to Coast” tells the story of road
tripping from coast to coast, and
the clean sharp guitar and Beach
Boys-esque vocals make it the per-
fect song to listen to while south
of tropical climates. This is the sonic
equivalent of spending a day on the
coast, this album lets you get away
from life, something we all need to
do sometimes. My Pick: “Holy Roll-
er”
Tallest Man on Earth — The Wild
Hunt
The Tallest Man on Earth can’t
be compared to anybody else. His
unique guitar style and his crack-
ly, melodramatic voice make him
one of a kind. His album The Wild
Hunt contains everything you
could ask for; it is his best album. In
the song “The Wild Hunt” smooth
rhythmic strumming and a lulling
voice pull you in. The lyrics also
hint that the song feels as if winter
is around the corner. Kristian Mats-
son taps rhythms out using his feet,
making it seem like he is playing
right in front of you. His songs are
lyrically rich and filled with descrip-
tion frozen landscapes and falling
leaves. His fingerpicked melodies
on guitar communicate so much
emotion, especially in the song
“Love Is All”. This song is a master-
ful arrangement -- its use of high,
fingerpicking gives the illusion that
he is playing an bass and guitar. He
is truly a unique master of his own
genre. This would best be enjoyed
as we prepare for the fog and the
rain roll in. My Pick: “King of Spain”
Album Reviews
cont.
ALESSANDRO TERSIGNI
By JACK LAMBERT
HEALTH & WELLNESS
E1
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2014
The Mark
By JORDAN ROSS
Don’t Let S.A.D. Get You Down
By MILA MASON
Gratitude & Happiness
Many people in the Northern
hemisphere report feeling the blues
during the fall and winter months,
and Quest is no exception. These
blues are formally called Seasonal
Affective Disorder, or SAD, and are
classified by the American Psychi-
atric Association as a type of re-
current major depressive disorder
associated with a seasonal pattern.
Luckily, there are some ways
you can help prevent SAD. The
following tips have been adapted
from The Depression Cure, a book
by Stephen S. Ilardi, a researcher in
clinical psychology who has been
treating depression for many years.
These tips may be helpful for mild
seasonal depression, as well as
more major depressive disorders.
However, the following information
is not a substitute for medical ad-
vice; please talk to a medical pro-
fessional if you think you may be
depressed
Supplements
There are a few key supple-
ments that can help alleviate de-
pressive systems. The first are
omega-3 oils, which are crucial
to healthy brain function. Taking
1000 mg a day may keep you from
feeling down during the next few
months. Unfortunately, vegetarian
options are a lot more limited. It’s
possible to get omega-3s that have
been created by algae, but they are
much harder to find and significant-
ly more expensive.
The second to consider is vita-
min D. It’s easy to become vitamin
D deficient when we don’t spend as
much time outdoors and our sun
exposure is limited because of the
weather. 2000 international units of
vitamin D3 has been shown to help
regulate your mood.
In addition to oils and vitamin
D, a daily multivitamin will provide
the antioxidants needed for your
body to use omega-3s more effec-
tively. Vitamin C also provides addi-
tional antioxidants; 500 mg per day
is recommended by Stephen Ilardi.
Finally, evening primrose oil
provides an essential fat for your
brain called gamma-linolenic acid,
or GLA. High doses of omega-3s
can deplete GLA in your brain,
which can lead to depression, and
the primrose oil has been shown
to help combat this. 500 mg of
primrose oil per week should be
ideal. You should be able to get all
of these essential supplements at
most grocery or drugstores, but, if
you are not in a rush, check online
as the prices tend to be cheaper.
Pay Attention to Your Thoughts
The first thing to watch out for
is rumination -- the process of your
mind wandering, lingering, and
repeating negative thoughts and
emotions. The best way to avoid
rumination is finding activities that
distract yourself. These could be as
casual as reading a book or watch-
ing something on Netflix, but you
might find activities like painting,
drawing, or socializing will also do
the trick.
Get Moving
Exercise is another tool in fight-
ing depression. Our ancient ances-
tors spent a lot of time running and
walking and this, among other fac-
tors, meant they had far lower rates
of depression. Start by scheduling
three, hour-long windows of time
per week, even if you will only ex-
ercise for thirty minutes of each of
those windows. This can be tough
on the block plan when work is
crushing you, but if you are feeling
stressed or depressed, your time
spent exercising will pay off. Try to
get your heartrate up and keep it
there for thirty minutes; brisk walk-
ing, running, biking, rock climbing,
or intramural sports are all great op-
tions. The important thing is to find
something you enjoy enough to do
multiples times a week and long
enough to get your blood pumping.
Social Activity
Finally, social activity can help
prevent depression. It can be easy
to feel isolated at Quest, but there
are a variety of ways to be so-
cial: strike up a conversation with
someone while you’re waiting for
your food, have a chat with one of
the cashiers, or ask a few of your
classmates if they want to review
the readings together. Group na-
ture walks, in particular, have also
been correlated to to lower rates
of depression, so find a few of your
friends and head out to the woods!
Additionally, the Quest counselors
shouldn’t be seen as resources only
for people who are in dire need;
they are for anyone to talk to, even
if you think your problems are too
small (or too big).
Hopefully with these tips in
your toolbox, you can help yourself
feel as bright as possible through-
out the dreary upcoming months.
Why everyone should thank each other more often
The Mark
CALEAH DEAN, Editor-in-Chief
JONATHAN VON OFENHEIM, Editor-in-Chief
ALESSANDRO TERSIGNI, News Editor
ZACHARY KERSHMAN, Opinion Editor
KENDRA PERRIN, Arts & Culture Editor
KEVIN BERNA, Sports Editor
R. MARIS WINTERS, Production Manager
MORGAN HILLIS, Production Assistant
JORDAN ROSS, Media Guru
TARI AJADI, Editor-at-Large
JEANNIE RAKAMNUAYKIT, Copy Editor
NEDER GATMON-SEGAL, Copy Editor
As the weather changes and depression-like symptoms loom,
these tips can help keep your mood up through to the spring
Women’s team close, despite injuries.
SPORTS
Men’s Soccer Team Makes Provincials!
By BEN IRONSIDE GOLDSTEIN &
EMMA TAYLOR
On the weekend of October 25,
Quest will host the Pacific North-
west (Pacwest) Soccer Provincials.
Both Quest teams had a chance of
competing in provincials, depend-
ing on the results of last weekend’s
games.
In the Pacwest league, the top
four teams from each division of
six advance to provincials. Last
weekend, the Kermodes played
against the Kwantlen University
Eagles on Saturday, and against
the Langara Falcons on Sunday.
For the Men’s team, who lost to
Capilano and Douglas on October
11 and 12, winning their games last
weekend was crucial for making
provincials.
Last season the women’s
team placed second in provincials,
and head coach Craig Smith pre-
dicted they would have a shot at
nationals this year. In past seasons,
however, they had far fewer inju-
ries. Losing six starting players to
injuries and indefinite suspensions
over the course of this season left
them in a tough position, but by
winning two games against Capila-
no and Douglas on the second-to-
last weekend of the season, they
reached the same position as the
Men’s team: both teams needed to
win the last two games of the sea-
son to make provincials.
The Men’s team won against
Kwantlen on Saturday October 18,
with a score of 1-0, keeping their
chances alive, but the Women’s
team tied, and did not get a spot
at provincials. Then, on Sunday
October 19, the Men’s team beat
Langara 3-0 to earn a spot in the
2014 provincials.
The men’s team has had
their best season in years, and
the women’s team has performed
admirably and stayed motivated
through a series of unfortunate
injuries - their coaches are very
proud. This year’s Men’s senior
class has never made provincials
since they came to Quest as fresh-
faced first years, so this victory
was especially sweet for those six
student-athletes.
Players attributed this turn-
around to hard work, luck, and
their new head coach, Alexander
Elliott, who has previously coached
at universities in Germany and BC.
Several players gave favorable re-
ports about the new boss, and said
Even in the fog, Squamish is
one of the most beautiful places
on Earth, but the sun makes us
happy in a chemical way that no
lamp can quite reproduce. That is
why, in this coming foggy season,
we hard-working, often-stressed-
out university students may find
we need some way to cope with
the loss of endorphins
What makes someone hap-
py differs depending on who that
person is. That being said, there
are a few things (e.g. hugs, food,
and exercise) that are scientifically
proven to have an endorphin-fed
happy impact on everyone. One of
these universal happiness-induc-
ers that feels particularly appropri-
ate for the season is gratitude.
Martin E. P. Seligman of the
University of Pennsylvania con-
ducted a short study on the effects
of gratitude on human happiness.
First, the participants were giv-
en a baseline test to assess how
happy they were. They were then
asked to think of someone who
had been a monumental mentor
in their lives. After choosing some-
body, the participants were asked
to write a letter to this person sin-
cerely thanking them. Then, the
participants were given a different
version of the test that was con-
ducted at the beginning and the
results were compared. Every par-
ticipant in the study experienced a
boost between 2% and 19% in their
happiness levels after thanking
someone who had been an influ-
ential mentor to them in their lives.
Even if the fog isn’t pulling you
down, everyone has rainy days. So
if you feel yourself stuck in one, or
just want to give it a go because it
is awesome, try sincerely thanking
as many people as you can every
day, or for one day—whatever floats
your boat.
Keep in mind that thanking
others will not just make you hap-
py—it also makes the person you
are thanking feel good. In addition,
when someone is thanked, they
tend to then reflect on what they
did to deserve that thanking. Re-
flecting on good things ultimately
leads to more good things, and
that’s some good stuff.
If you are going to take any-
thing from this, take this: thank the
people who you feel need thank-
ing, do positive things that make
you feel better and also make
the world a better place. Some-
one may thank you for these nice
things and, if they do, give them a
big hug, a piece of chocolate, and
imagine—in the words of Atmo-
sphere—the fine sunshine on your
skin and warming up your mind
and maybe, just maybe, you’ll feel
happy.
that he brought a new profession-
alism to the team.
These victories mean a lot
to the players, especially some of
the third and fourth years who are
experiencing their first wins here
at Quest. Sunday’s game was the
last regular season game for many
graduating Quest students. Colton
Cook, a first year on the Men’s
team said about winning: “it was
so cool to be part of something so
special not just for us personally
but for the school even, and the
seniors.”
R. MARIS WINTERS
KENDRICK RUDY DETTMERS