The Hate Feature

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It’s the last issue of the year. Some of us are graduating, and most of us are leaving the paper. So it’s time to get this off our chest. This is everything we hate about this damned university.

THE U OF R

John Cameron
Editor-in-Chief

Over some end-of-semester beers, a prof of mine asked why I didn’t want to go to grad school here at the U of R. “The atmosphere is,” I said, then paused.

“Like high school,” he said.

Nailed it. Given the advertising and branding of the U of R, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was just a place where UR Guaranteed an ill-defined but very positive-sounding future, as opposed to the academically robust institution disguised beneath the gross marketing veneer.

The schools at which I want to do my postgrad are not marketed as places to go to submit to the economy, but places where you go because you’re a smart person. Which is what university should be

After our beers, that same prof asked me to write a letter to Vianne Timmons, and tell her that I wasn’t taking my postgrad at the U of R.

I’m doing him one better. Vianne: you’ve got great faculty in almost every program who can help students achieve an awful lot. This February, I was the only undergraduate presenter at the Louisville Conference, an annual gathering of arts academics in Kentucky. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the extraordinary people in this school’s English department.

But I want to do my postgrad at a school that respects its faculty when they can do this, and I can tell by the slow attrition of the arts faculty that this isn’t the case here.

Market your faculties’ strengths, Vianne. Make the case for them. It’s your job, not theirs, to do so. Be their champion, so they don’t have to try and market themselves. Make people respect your academic programs outside of their values for corporate sponsorship and grants.

You’ve got a lot of smart people here, and failing to market how goddamn smart they are is failing them.

The U of R doesn’t have to be a commuter college. So stop giving people the impression that it is one.

STUDENTS

Edward Dodd
Op-Ed Editor

If there is anything that irritates me about this university, it is the incredible and mind-bogglingly paradoxical apathy of the students. Issues that directly affect them, funding cuts, being shut out of Board of Governors meetings, students simply don’t care.

Other issues, such as the obvious racism evoke little more than a resigned “meh”. Meanwhile, issues that we have no direct influence over, such as situations in the Middle East, elicit outrage among students to such a ludicrous degree that weighty accusations of “anti-Semite” and “racist” get thrown around like they are meaningless terms commonly used to brand any person we disagree with. Frankly, many of the students here are incredibly self-involved and greedy, caring only about getting their piece of paper so they can get into some mindless job crunching numbers for a  faceless corporation that will allow them to buy shitty cookie-cutter houses in Harbour Landing and raise two 2.5 snotty, self-absorbed children.

THE BUSINESSIFICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF REGINA

John Cameron
Editor-in-Chief

One of the most pervasive ideas on campuses across the country these days is that a university should be a conduit for the economy.

News outlets left and right are questioning the practicality of liberal arts degrees, as if someone with a geography degree couldn’t learn how to work a spreadsheet. An arts graduate’s skills aren’t inherently narrow, so it’s hard to figure out what they can actually accomplish.

Regardless, this shift has led us to a dire place. The recent controversy surrounding the Aboriginal Studies class has only helped to highlight this problem.

A thorough university education that does what it’s supposed to do –teach students to think critically– shouldn’t be capable of giving someone a degree who is ignorant of their home’s colonial imperialist history.

Four years of university classes should have no room for racists to run through. Yet they do. And the liberal arts programs that would remedy this are running close enough to the bone these days that retirees in arts faculties aren’t actually replaced.

Some people might say that corporate funding could fix this. However, we shouldn’t have to court businesses to ensure that our universities can still produce an output of democratic citizens who have learned to think beyond corporate terms.

But the attitude persists. Our school has become a glorified training academy for businesses. I hate how corporations don’t train students to be white-collar workers, now that is the University’s job. I hate how every argument for the benefit of a liberal arts education has to be framed in terms of its value to a business community.

I hate it because the idea that a university should be a business has come into prevalence at the cost of our education.

And I hate that the U of R has become complacent.

THE RIDDELL CENTRE

Edward Dodd
Op-Ed Editor

There are a lot of buildings at the university that vie for the ugliest building on campus, but the sheer irony of having the Fine Arts department located in one of the most hideous buildings on campus makes the Riddell Centre number one on the list.

The university should have learned something from the failed architectural experiments of College West and Adhum. The outside is a bland, brown-coloured rectangular prism, with dark blue reflective glass tacked on in some sort of monstrous hybrid of modern architecture with recently quarried blocks of sandstone.

Inside, the design of the building is reminiscent of a small-town hockey rink, complete with gross rubber stairs that are never quite clean and rink-quality food. The building feels temporary and utilitarian, and does not reflect that level of quality that the Fine Arts department at this university produces.

THE FUCKING WI-FI

Paul Bogdan
A&C Writer

“Sorry, the page could not load because you are not connected to the Internet”.

Strange, in an institution designed to further one’s education, the wifi connection is garbage in every nook and cranny of this university. I know that there is a difference in difficulty, and costs, between setting up a decent wifi network at home compared to a university campus. With that said, a decent Internet connection should be necessary at a post-secondary institution where students often do research and need the Internet for their classes.

Why not turn down the thermostat a bit —I’m in a t-shirt and sweating as I’m writing this— and use the money for improving the atrocious wireless internet connection at this campus.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

Nathan Bruce
Contributor

I hate how many students get away with cheating on this campus. This is supposed to be a place of higher learning. These aren't motherfucking third grade spelling tests here, these are legitimate exams in a sophisticated institution.

I have heard of people were blatantly talking and sharing papers in final exams. What is worse, is that nothing seemed to be done about it.

This needs to change. There are students failing exams in spite of all their hard work, and it is completely dishonorable for people to cheat their way to a passing grade.

I've actually had to call people out during exams for talking. I tried telling a professor about it when I handed in my exam, but I doubt that anything was done about it.

BEING AN EDUCATION STUDENT

Sophie Long
News Writer

The prestige of the University of Regina’s faculty of education attracts students from across the country. However, there are more than a few problems within our system.

First, the faculty accepts a huge number of new students each year, under the pretense that everyone will get a job. This is curious, because UR Guaranteed won’t take a risk on Education students.

Then, after two years of classes and paid tuition, the faculty begins to phase out the students who they think won’t make it. Why not do that before they throw you two years of cash?

Aside from that, the classes we are forced to take could be considered a farce. Professors have laughed at their students responses, and told them they can’t voice their opinions about the system, calling it “unethical” to do so.

Finally, education students don’t get any help from the University or it’s federated colleges, making Teacher Ed even more inaccessible.

GADGETS IN THE LAB CAFE

Julia Dima
Graphics Editor

There are a lot of fees students pay in addition to tuition every semester, and quite frankly, paying fees for stuff we’ll never use sucks.

However, a lot of these fees are seriously beneficial to other groups on campus, so if you want to complain about that you should probably suck it up and remember that you’re not the only one trying to get an education here.

But here is something thing that you should be pissed about discovering: the Lab Cafe renovations. Sure, it looks a lot prettier there than it did before, but televisions and Nintendo Wiis? What in all fucks is that for? I have never seen them used, ever.

People don’t pay two-thousand dollars a semester to play Mario Kart. If the university wants to facilitate people enjoying themselves, give them reasonable spaces to gather together, give them functioning internet, give them cheaper tuition. Don’t give them fucking Wiis and new TVs.

A PARKADE

Jonathan Petrychyn
A&C Editor

Parking is an issue on this campus. And students, in their typical slacktivist fashion, only want to fix this issue with the bare amount of effort.

How do you fix parking? You tell the administration you want a parkade. Never mind that the parkade will probably have a high fee, or that it just contributes to an unsustainable growth model where the university will monopolize all of its land for cars, and not have any room left for students. We can’t just pave our problems away.

If you want to make an investment, invest in solutions that make transportation to campus more sustainable and accessible. Plans for better bike routes, a better transit system, or a campus carpool system. Anything but more parking lots.

Put your own personal comfort on hold for one second. Understand that if you want students to come to this campus, you’re going to need to figure out a way for those students who can’t afford to drive their car everyday to get here.

BAGEL SERVICE

Autumn McDowell
Sports Editor

If there is one thing that boggles my mind it is the apparent fact that Tim Horton’s stops selling bagels at 2:30 in the afternoon. Seriously, do they think we just suddenly stop craving bagels at 2:30? We don’t! We still want our Goddamn bagel and not getting one is one of the most irritating parts of my day.

It’s also super annoying when you are in a rush and you have to run to Tim’s, and then discover that the line is roughly one mile long. Even when you make it to the line before 2:30, by the time you get to the front, it is probably well after the cut off mark for bagels.

This leaves you empty handed, annoyed, hungry, and knowing full well that those tasty bagels are just sitting there waiting to be eaten, and you can’t have one.

Seriously, whoever came up with this “No bagels past 2:30” rule deserves to be punched square in the face with no repercussions for the hungry customer that delivered the shot.

SLACKTIVISM

Jonathan Petrychyn
A&C Editor

Students on this campus are apathetic. I don’t think I’ll be the first (or the last) one to say this in this feature. And I think, to a large part, a good majority of students are starting to recognize this. As a result, students are now starting to care about campus issues, but they’re caring about them in entirely the wrong manner. There are petitions, causes, and rallies happening all over. While some might claim that this is a sign of an active campus, it’s really just a sign of a campus trying to cover up that they don’t give a shit, but don’t want anyone to know. You all know that most of the students who participate in this kind of activism go home at night and don’t give the matter a second thought. You want to affect change? Go out there and teach students about the issues and give them the forum to talk about it; don’t just rally them behind your talking points.

DISRUPTIVE ASSHOLES IN THE RIC

Julia Dima
Graphics Editor

I have a message to people who hang out in the Research and Innovation Centre: shut up.

The RIC building used to have tons of great study space, and those of us who needed a quiet study space could have one. Now, somehow, masses of people on their coffee breaks, and tons of study groups —who simply text and laugh constantly—, have worked their way into the RIC and ruined what used to be a great place to study.

You know why all of the remaining good study locations have signs reading “Staff only. Grad Students only?” Because, thanks to your disruptive behaviour, the Grad and Research studies people hate you, and I do too. Assholes.

THE CLASSROOM BUILDING STAIRS

Britton Gray
Contributor

Like many students on this campus, I could bitch about something like BYOB, but there is something else out there that has caught my attention; the stairs leading to the forth floor of the classroom building.

If I could say one thing to those stairs it would be “fuck you!”

Walking those stairs makes me feel like I've run a marathon and I dont know why. I'm always out of breath, but I'm not out of shape. I play sports, and I’m very active, but yet climbing that stairwell makes me feel like all I do is watch TV and eat Cheetos. I can’t explain why —slightly too much incline?— but every time I go to  English class, I have to pretend that I’m not out of breath so people don’t think that I’m out of shape. Fuck those stairs.

THE UNIVERSITY ISN'T GREEN

Sebastian Prost
Contributor

The U of R’s green projects are far from satisfactory. With vauge carbon-capture programs, a poorly organized recycling program, and massive amounts of water and energy waste, we are a long way from being a “green” university.

If the university wants a truly green and sustainable campus, it needs to do more than just talk-the-talk. Recycling and composting programs could be expanded and organized so that they are efficient and comprehensive. No more overflowing recycling bins, cut power use on campus at night, install low-flush toilets, and utilize motion sensor switches in residence areas such as the laundry rooms. Quit dragging your feet, killing the environment, and wasting our money to pay power and water bills that are much larger than they need to be.

PROFS' POOR PLANNING

Autumn McDowell
Sports Editor

It really grinds my gears when profs not only plan terribly, but assume that their class is the only class that you have and that you have no life outside of their class.

For instance, this includes scheduling assignments and midterms to be due the first day back after a break. That’s just cruel and unusual punishment and is surely illegal somewhere. Do they really think that we want to spend the whole time working on some stupid assignment or studying for some midterm during the break? No, we want to be getting belligerently drunk every minute of every day and they are making that nearly impossible.

It also really annoys me when the prof says, “Just work on it a week ahead and then you won’t have to do it over the break.” Yeah, because I don’t procrastinate horribly or have any other classes to worry about never mind a job and a social life, you idiot.

CREATING A THEATRE DEPARTMENT STUDENT FEE

Jonathan Petrychyn
A&C Editor

You think it’s bullshit that the theatre department is going to start charging for shows? “Well, gosh, I’m going to sign your petition to have a fee instated.”

Students aren’t getting involved; they’re putting their name down, and then going about their day. Signing a petition doesn’t make you “active” and “affecting real change,” hell, even doing the petition doesn’t do that. You want the theatre department to have proper funding? Talk to the powers that be and get them to change it. Don’t just give into their structures by instituting another student fee for something that we should be paying for already.

Instituting a 25 cent fee is a band-aid fix. Look at the numbers: if department budgets keep decreasing at the rate they are, they’ll be gone in the next 10 years. If you want productions to stay free and the quality of education to increase, you have to do a whole lot more than just institute another fee structure.

 

14 comments

  1. Hypocrites-Be-Damned 10 April, 2012 at 23:15

    For the love of God – if you are all truly graduating this year, you'd better all learn how to write. 
    "It really grinds my gears when profs not only plan terribly, but assume that their class is the only class that you have and that you have no life outside of their class."
     
     
     
    "I have heard of people were blatantly talking and sharing papers in final exams."
     
     
    And you don't think you piss people off one way or another? Maybe your pseudo intellectualism grinds THEIR gears. 

    "Oh, the line at TIM'S is too long. They don't sell bagels after 2:30. People talk in public areas. People sign too many petitions. People don't sign enough petitions. People don't care about what I care about."
    And please, I hope your employers read this when you hit the number crunching portion of your careers. What you think is edgy, prolific writing is nothing more than rich-kid, entitled whining from a group of goobers that has never been exposed to reality.  You're lack of self awareness is frightening. You are EXACTLY what you claim to hate.
    Oh, and enjoy your two 2.5 snot nosed children. I'm sure your offspring will be the utmost respectable humans just as you are.

  2. An Active Person on Campus 11 April, 2012 at 16:17

    For the last year, I've been the president of a student group on campus and I've been very involved with putting on and participating in various student activities, fundraising for student conferences and projects, Arts Student Association meetings, and Department meetings.  This year, I made an effort to change the university that I'll be graduating from, again, in the next year or so.  I made my voice and the voices of the other students I represented heard, without 1) obscentiy; 2) insults; or 3) empty threats.  I am extremely disappointed with the Carillon's Hate issue for a number of reasons and the only reason I did not contribute to the issue was because I don't agree with what the issue was trying to do.  Almost all of the contributors/editors are graduating within the next year, and, instead of looking back on their time here and talking about the changes they've attempted to implement or the contributions they've made to a university they CHOSE to attend, they are leaving the university with hateful messages.  While I agree with some of the criticisms in some of the articles and found a few of the articles funny, I believe that the issue was handled poorly–tagging the article with "FUCK U UofR" and "all the stupid bullshit the university does" and "fuck you assholes" is entirely inappropriate and insulting to the good students and professors who attend and work here.  I took particular issue with this quote: "Frankly, many of the students here are incredibly self-involved and greedy, caring only about getting their piece of paper so they can get into some mindless job crunching numbers for a  faceless corporation that will allow them to buy shitty cookie-cutter houses in Harbour Landing and raise two 2.5 snotty, self-absorbed children."  Quite frankly, there is an economic crisis going on right now–students will be LUCKY if they can graduate from university and get a job that will pay them enough so that they can buy a house and start a family.  There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with wanting a job, a house, and a family.  To insinuate that people who want these things are automatically apathetic, selfish, greedy robots is wrong and insulting.  I wish that the Carillon had chosen to elevate its standards for its Hate issue–obscenity and insults have no place in a newspaper that claims to be writing enlightened criticism.  I would have liked to see the contributors focus on what they and others have done to change their university, rather than insulting it. 

  3. Anonymous 12 April, 2012 at 11:26

    You need to relax my friend. I loved the hate feature! Everyone who is taking it too seriously needs to take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves what they are doing with their life. It's a joke people, if you can't find the humour in it, you are in for a long and sad life. That is all. 

  4. justin 15 April, 2012 at 21:00

    No one can ruin your day without your permission. Plain and simple.
     
    Welcome to Grade 2.

  5. Cec N. Desist 17 April, 2012 at 14:11

    You all think you're pretty damn important don't you? There is a difference between apathy and using one's energy wisely. Silence does not equal complacency. What's the point of arguing with a bunch of emotional children anyway? I paid my money, did my time, and now, thank god, I don't have to listen to the whining anymore. The Carillon is a diversion which I have always read from back to front…and the D Class is really the only thing I cared about. Now, to move on and get a "real" job or a life or something. I highly suggest everyone does the same.

  6. Jesse 21 April, 2012 at 13:44

    I was on campus on Friday and read The Hate Feature. I thought that it was pretty comical because some of the complaints are very true.

    I think that the problem can be distilled to a few words. “Like high school,” as mentioned early in the article. Personally I think that the UofR should be more like the boarding schools that you see in movies like School Ties and Dutch. Nonsense like profanity in the hallways is monitored and not tolerated. I also like the use of school uniforms. It is a constant reminder that the university is a school, not a social club. Socialization is fine but get to The Owl, one of the many student lounges or off campus to do it. I wonder what the upper administration of the university (such as Dr. Timmons) would have to say in response to this.

  7. Anonymous 25 April, 2012 at 13:39

    The fucking wi-fi… oh my god, it took me three attempts to connect to even load this page to bitch about it! Every time I need it, it seems to fail me horribly. It's so basic, you'd think they'd be able to at least get that figured out but no, not at the University of Regina!
    McDonald's across the street probably has better wi-fi connectivity than this university… pathetic.

  8. Toby Celery 28 April, 2012 at 20:51

    This feature reminds me of a poem two wise men once wrote:
    No tyme, no tyme
    No tyme, to rush;
    No tyme, no tyme
    No tyme, to flush.
    They're in your face
    They're everywhere;
    I hate this place,
    This corporate lair.
    While I enjoy this feature immensely, I do worry about the people it may alienate – There are people here just trying to get an education and some fun while they're at it it. They're not hugely connected and they may not have a lot of friends or much of a voice. They're here because they think it's the right thing to do, no matter what they're studying. They may actually like the place, despite its foibles. They may work hard to pay tuition and probably have families that are making sacrifices so that they may attend. There are some to whom this feature may make them feel like they're doing the wrong thing here, and that would be unfortunate. You don't want to breed cynicism into otherwise nicely-intentioned people to make them feel like they're supposed to be edgy about attending the U of R. All in all, I think what the U of R and its people need to do is help create a more friendly and inclusive place where not-necessarily outspoken or brash, party-hard, material-success-thriving students can learn some things, be happy, get enlightened, and find a direction in life at. Not every person walking down the hallway has material hedonism in mind, and not every person walking down the hallway should be targeted as 'just another boring drone'. There are nice people around this place. And they don't necessarily stand out. There's a place for dissonance, but it shouldn't necessarily ignore these sensitivities.There's sort of an art to pointing how shitty some things can be while infusing them with a different kind of character, re-writing them in subversive hopeful way rather than, for lack of a better word, stigmatizing them. That said, I enjoyed the feature tremendously, I see the humour, but ya gotta re-define.

  9. Sentinel 30 April, 2012 at 08:46

     
    Its amazing how URSU under Kent Peterson and the writers at the carillon want all these fancy things and then bitch when tuition goes up. Well, I guess they're right.  maybe if the government drew more money from the environment ruining, baby smashing, woman hating, third world mongering, gender normative world system perpetuting, hegemonic corporations, they hate, then we could all live in a magical utopia where karl marx wipes your ass with his beard every morning and uncorns that shit emissions of rainbows from their ass take you to work where you rubber stamp welfare cheques for our marginalized and oppressed citizens. Onwards proletarians! History has lead to this moment! Fight for shorter lines at Tim Hortons and to remove all Nintendo Wiis from College Campuses worldwide!

  10. A business student 20 October, 2012 at 13:55

    What I hate about the U of R is the concentration of elitist man-children that dismiss people with different opinions as racist greedy yuppies, and write articles like this. The food in the Riddell center is fine, if the stairs make you tired take the elevator, and for fuck sakes study in the Library if you want somewhere quiet.  Some students are not subsidized by their government, interest group, or parents.  I'm not paying four grand a semester to be an activist, but to get the skills needed to advance in my chosen career. 
    If you want to change something, volunteer at a soup kitchen you pretentious fucks. 

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