$FREE.

99

Remembering Daniel Rezmer

LILLI KUECHLE In a mere week and a half, Daniel Rezmer established a reputation on campus known for his smile, his positivity, his quickness on the soccer pitch, and as the guy who skipped school to go to Burning Man. On Wednesday, September 11th, 2013, Rezmer died in a cliff jumping accident while he was among friends at the Powerhouse behind campus by Mamquam River. In a solemn address the following morning, President Helfand spoke to a silent student body and urged them to stay strong and support each other through such a difficult time so early in the year. Many Cornerstone classes opted to take time to mourn privately or in groups instead of holding class Thursday. Friday nights candlelight vigil and celebration of life drew over 300 participants including Quest students and faculty, Rezmers friends and teachers from Magee High School in North Vancouver, and the Rezmer family and close friends. The celebration of life was a chance for those who knew Rezmer to share their memories of him, as well as an opportunity for the many Quest students who hadnt had the chance to meet or connect with Rezmer to learn more about the person he was. Some stories were inspiring, some were hilarious, and some were heartbreaking; all had a common thread: Daniel Rezmer was an inspiration and a ray of light for everyone whose lives he touched. Despite his short time at Quest, Rezmers legacy will not be forgotten.

THE MARK
Healing for Everyone The morning spent dolling out hugs. Habrich always looming high above us. A new pinnacle of permanence. But now I, we, all, Have another spot out of view, but in mind. A bridge that Passes over the river just like ashes blown through the Wind. It ripples and is Always there. It takes us to that place, that perception

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2013

Students at the candlelight vigil for Daniel Rezmer Friday night. Photo courtesy of Kendrick Dettmers of risk, unstuck, f*cked, smashed out of place. Like most, we probably only know his face. But we know the face of friends who adore this space, and we know, we adore more than their face. We are but a moment in time. Quest University is our place, this, our happy space, and all of us are; beautiful unique, share the loved face. Our concept of safe has once again been shattered. Were our souls really that safe? A comfort rattled, those around us hurt. Hugs and hammocks. Love and smiles. The tears that wet the page today are real They are salty and they are sadness. A sadness shared, as we come together in a community of support, love, and rapport. This place will not be the same. A growing pain, remembered and not in vain. Souls have been touched and hearts unsettled. Go now and hug those you love. Hold them close, and tell them why it is that you love them most. These things that happen. They are permanent. So take it like this ripsy rhythmic rolling rhyme. Let it take away the sad places in your sore, cold, and upset minds. We are in this together and like the roll of the beat were gonna escape the heat and get mellow, get raw, get lost, and get happy. For today is the day that you let it all out. You let it all go. Just be the emotion you are. Hold someones hand. Let it all flow. Because now is the time to make peace with those that are gone and come back to the present. Remember that it feels wrong. And remember that lives lived happy are as good as those lived long. --Keegan Pearson

ACADEMICS

MONEY TROUBLES
ALESSANDRO TERSIGINI Last summer, Quest students who enrolled in field courses abroad while benefiting from financial aid bursaries received significant bursary decreases, making many reconsider their attendance of the university. During a discussion on September 16th addressing these bursary cuts, Quest President David Helfand, Vice President Toran Savjord, and Director of Financial Aid Steven White explained that the principle behind the bursary program is to allow people to come to Quest, not to cover external fees. Unlike scholarships which award merit alone, this bursary program allocates funds to those who cannot afford full tuition, and is based on a variety of factors including student and parent income. Funds for both scholarships and bursaries are derived from the universitys general income which includes donations, tuition, and summer use of the campus. We didnt think anybody on the bursary program would take these classes [field courses], says Savjord on Monday. When we saw the bursary program was being used by students that could afford these courses, we felt that was not what the program was intended for. Helfand proposed an alternative bursary program model for field courses. He suggested that instead of Quest subsidizing a portion of each students field course costs, the course is advertised at full price and the field trip fund is redistributed to allocate bursaries to the students who could not otherwise attend the course. What we dont want to say is that only people whose families make over a certain amount of money can take this course. Thats totally antithetical to everything we stand

Students feel bursary reduction is discouraging learning off campus; administration looks to help all students in need
for, says Helfand. But some students now feel their education is unsupported by Quest, and are doubting their financial ability to continue a Quest education. Tanner Batchelor, a student who suffered bursary reduction due to her enrollment in a field course to Antarctica, shared in an email that her $3000 bursary reduction was shocking to her and her parents. My parents are barely contributing to my trip, and I have worked since the day I turned fifteen so these types of trips would be an option,says Batchelor. Nonetheless, Helfand and Savjord maintain that although they do not wish to discredit the hard work of the students, the bursary program has to be functional. They explained at Mondays discussion that the bursary program should distribute funds to all those interested in Quest but in need of support. As far as operating this institution, keeping it alive for everyone, and allowing people from different countries with no funds and no ability to borrow to come to Quest, we are trying to do the best we can with what we can see and what people are providing us, says Savjord. However, some students feel extremely mistrusted. What I understood from emails from Quest was that because my financial statement contradicts my ability to go on this trip, Quest thinks I am lying, says one student who asked to remain anonymous. Fourth year student Sarah Brenne explained via letter that she is also unsettled by the way Quest approached this issue. When Darcy announced that he was taking a class to the Ancient World, I knew I had no option but to go. So I started working throughout the school year off campus so I could pay for this opportunity, says Brenne. I chose Quest because I understood it was a place that encouraged study abroad; instead we were given this disincentive. Both Helfand and Sav-

WANT TO CONTRIBUTE?
We want reporters, photographers, columnists. Email The Mark at themarknewspaper@ gmail.com

jord urge all students to attend a follow up discussion in mid October, and are open to student collaboration on designing a revised bursary program.

INSIDE TODAYS PAPER

Orientation A2

Local Hikes Womens Soccer

A3 B1

A2 || THE MARK
OPINION

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013 NEWS & MONDAY, OPINION

DOWN WITH UNPAID INTERNSHIPS

Hundreds of thousands of Canadian students are being exploited, and it needs to stop.
residence or elsewhere, then they should be paid. BC is one of the few provinces in Canada that actually has any laws that dictate internships, but the provinces definition is so vague that it leaves a loophole for rogue employers to exploit students. Employers either ignore the law outright or students are left to work the most mundane of tasks, often fetching coffee or taking out trash instead of actually building practical skills as they are not allowed to do work without pay. This situation is made worse by the catch-22 of necessary experience for entry-level jobs that prevent first-time job seekers from working in seemingly accessible positions, simply because they have not had the training. Employers rarely train potential workers for long enough to fulfil these requirements, so these job-seekers have to take unpaid internships or get left out of the job market. Though Statistics Canada does not track the number of unpaid internships offered across the country, labour groups estimate that there are 100-300,000 people working them across Canada. Thats up to 300,000 people in this country doing an honest days work for no pay. An example of how warped the system has become is the unpaid bus person internship recently offered at the Fairmont Vancouver. Not only is the very idea of an unpaid internship in clearing tables absurd, but the students who are enrolled arent even allowed to do the job! The consequences of this system can be tragic, as CBCs GO Public showed earlier in September with their report into Alberta student Andy Fergusons death. Ferguson, a 22-year-old studying radio, TV and film, crashed into a gravel truck after working 16 out of 24 hours in a day at one of his two unpaid internships. In a similarly tragic incident, earlier this summer, a Bank of America intern was found dead in the shower after having seizures caused by staying awake for 3 days straight. Beyond horror stories of unscrupulous employers and fatalities lies the question of accessibility most students cannot afford to work for free when they already have TARI AJADI Ah, the unpaid internship. For many students of our generation, it is the first stepping stone to a professional career, particularly in the creative industries. Unpaid internships are a rite of passage, an entrance into a previously untouchable world. But are they worth it? The short answer is no. The long answer is hell no. There are so many problems with the current system of unpaid internships that it can be hard to know where to begin. So lets start at the start with the very definition of what an intern is. In British Columbia, an internship is defined by the Employment Standards Act as: on-the-job training offered by an employer to provide a person with practical experience. It goes on to say that If the duties performed by interns fall within the definition of work contained in the Act, the intern falls within the definition of employee. In other words, if an intern does anything that could be considered the labour or services an employee performs for an employer whether in the employees mountains of student debt. According to a BMO student survey, BC students expect to graduate with $35,000 on average. Whats worse is that many universities, including our own, demand we work in order to complete our degree in essence, were paying the school to work for no money. Granted, we have some safeguards in our experiential learning model, but they are by no means fail-safe. Such a system doesnt benefit employers either. They end up with a group of under-trained students who have not, if they have followed the law, ever done work that directly profits a business. Those students have little idea of what it means to integrate themselves into an organization or strike out on their own in an entrepreneurial role. To put it bluntly, this system is terrible. However, there seems to be change afoot. Interns in the US, including some of those who worked on the movie Black Swan, have been suing their employers for their owed wages. They have realized that they have rights; that they deserve to be paid for the hours of hard work that they put into their internships. Universities are working to amend their practises too. Many of the larger ones across Canada are expanding co-op options in the humanities and arts as well as in the sciences and engineering. Still, not much can be done without a unified effort towards overhauling the status-quo. StatsCan needs to start tracking unpaid internships, and there needs to be a concerted effort by the federal government to create safeguards which deter predatory employers from taking advantage of students. More than anything else, students need to know their rights. We need to be able to call out unsuitable practises as soon as they occur, and be willing to enact every edict of the law if necessary to defend themselves. We cannot wait to be saved by those who are taking advantage of us.

CULTURE

NEW BEGINNINGS
A fast growing community leads to changes in Orientation and Cornerstone
CALEAH DEAN & VALERIA VERGANI In September, 2013 Quest University Canada saw the arrival of its biggest incoming class yet. At a larger university, 230 incoming students would have melded into the student body with ease, but at Quest their induction meant rethinking their integration process into the community and block system. The first important change to the Orientation experience in 2013 was the introduction of summer webinars that would substitute some of the on-campus workshops from previous years. This gave students and parents a chance to ask questions and feel more prepared before their arrival in September. One of the other objectives here was to have students see our faces, Melanie Koenderman, Dean of Students, told me. They would hear me and Krista talking about international affairs and Steve talking about financial aid and they would start to put faces to names [...]. We wanted people to feel like this was home. Cornerstone changed drastically too this year, with a brand new theme: What is knowledge? replacing the previous theme of Humans and Nature. According to Chief Academic Officer Ryan Derby-Talbot, Designing and teaching the Cornerstone course is one of the healthiest things we do as tutors. The course forces us out of our particular corners of academic expertise, and returns us to the simple foundations of learning and inquiry that lie at the roots of our passions in the first place. A special committee worked on redesigning Cornerstone for the past two years. A new theme was voted on, and faculty from diverse disciplines came together to design the new syllabus. One of the biggest changes to the class is the inclusion of Field Exercises, an activity that requires students in different Cornerstone classes to team up and answer questions given to them by a tutor other than their own. This exercise helped students connect with the forest surrounding the campus and gave them the opportunity to practice presentations by reporting their findings to their classes. Poema Kazaki and Martina Ziza, two international students said, We like Cornerstone a lot, especially all of the readings because they really fit together to make us think about knowledge. Nonetheless, according to Derby-Talbot, It may take a few years to get a solid feel for what works best for the course and the topic. Humanities tutor Darcy Otto, newly deemed Cornerstone Coordinator, agreed that, Everyone understands that the new theme is something of an experiment. Adventure Pursuits was also partially changed this year. Instead of spending two whole days with Toran Savjord, Vice President and Director of Recreation and Athletics, all Cornerstone classes participated in the same day of activities on campus during the first week of class and a second off campus day later on. The first days activities were coordinated by Savjord, Student Affairs, and Q-reps. According to Eva Schipper, a Student Affairs employee and second year student, this new setup limited the time during which the students in each Cornerstone class could bond with Savjord and among themselves.

THE MARK

Cornerstone students at adventure pursuits Photo courtesy of Kendrick Dettmers

Quests Community Newspaper Fourth Edition

Editors-in-Chief Tari Ajadi Production manager Lilli Kuechle

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

RECREATION

THE MARK || A3 NEWS

HIKES AROUND CAMPUS

Need to get away from campus? Try one of these hikes.
ANDERS HORNOR Hikes: Alice Lake Loop Difficulty: Easy Distance: 3-15km depending Description/directions: This gentle hike can be approached from many directions making it a good one to know for adventurers of all skill level. For those looking for an easy stroll or jog around a beautiful and swimmable forest lake, take Highway 99 northbound for roughly 5 minutes and take a right onto the Alice Lake Road. If you want a longer cross country stroll, leave from the Quest parking lot and take a right at the roundabout just after the bridge. Park at the end of Perth Dr. and begin hiking along the forest trail and continue on the logging road. This will add another 10-15km to your hike/run. Cliff Hike Difficulty: Neutral Distance: 6km Description/Directions: With a few more ups and downs then the Alice lake trail, the Cliff hike will add some excitement and leg and lung workout to your repertoire. Leaving from the Atrium head towards the multipurpose room below the caf. Take a right through the gate adjacent the MPR. Follow the gravel road for about a minute until a small unmarked trail presents itself in the alders to the left. Take this trail, being careful of loose dirt, across the bike bridge at the bottom. Continue up the hill past the first fork, taking a right at the second fork, continuing further up the hill. The road elevates for another kilometer or so as fledgling alders fight for space, filling up the road. Follow the path until it enters the woods where it will get remarkably cooler and the adventure will begin. The trail will follow a dryish creek bed for a while, as it winds further up the hill. Eventually the trail will turn westwards back into the creek valley. For a brief moment, after a couple biking ladders and serene forest pond, the trail will emerge in a clearing. Follow the trail up the slope where it will fork again. Stick to the right following the bike reflectors nailed to the trees as the trail snakes into the squamish valley. Take a break and enjoy the majestic view above a 60 ft cliff, marked by a very distinct Cliff! sign. Follow the trail back towards campus and take your first right as you emerge onto a road, recross the bike bridge and take in your last few breaths of forest freedom. Waterfall Hike Difficulty: More strenuous Distance:11km Directions: Taking highway 99 take a left onto the Squamish Valley road. Follow the valley road for about 30 minutes until you pass the outflow pipe for the Daisy lake ROR power plant. Continue for another minute or so until you cross another bridge and park wherever space is available. The trail head is within view of the far side of the bridge on the right. From here the hike is relatively straight-forward. The trail will work its way via some chain and rope climbs up onto a lumpy ridge. On one side will be gorgeous views of the Squamish Valley and the other a gradually elevating drop starting at about 80 ft. The trail will follow the ridge for another kilometer or two with various view points along the way until it reaches a larger viewing area that overlooks a spindling waterfall with a massive boulder wedged in the canyon above it. From here continue on the trail until it skims a clear cut. Here you can either continue on the trail for another 5-6 km up the hill or cross the clearing to a logging road. The trail will meet with the same logging road further up the trail. Take the logging road back down into the valley, letting the awe inspiring view of the valley, river and breathtaking Tantalus Mountain Range guide you home. Stick to the left, either scrambling down a large rock field or taking a left at an intersection in the road, until you meet back up with the Squamish Valley Road.

ADVICE

GETTING OFF
MABEL VAUTRAVERS & CALEAH DEAN Sex is pretty cool. It can be a lot of different things to different people and this is something that the authors of the Marks sex column: Getting Off are pretty interested in. Sex is something that is obsessed over in our culture, but is at the same time, highly tabooed. We have come to find that the things we learned in public school health classes did not prepare us for our own sexual experiences. Sex from a textbook may work in a classroom but rarely seems to work in the bedroom. So how do we get educated? For one thing, we start talking about it. Sex doesnt have to be something shrouded in mystery. Although it tends to be a fairly private experience for most people, its also something that a whole lot of people engage in. This column is not meant to be an authoritative guide to getting laid or some end-all-beall to educating yourself. We simply are looking to start more open dialogues with our peers about something that happens a lot and is spoken of less often. So heres how it works: You send us your questions, concerns, dilemmas, hopes, fears, and feelings and we will give you facts, stories, ideas, experiences, and commiseration. In the same vein as an advice column, yes, but we arent going to pretend to be the all-wise yoda masters of sex. Were just thinkin that some of you may have some things youd like to get off your chest about getting off. Play Safe Mabel & Caleah

ACADEMICS

YOU SHOULD TALK TO...

ANDREW WOOD Whether by preference, curiosity or pre-disposed genetics, it is difficult to find food alternatives (especially those of a delicious nature) within the cafeterias compound. Luckily for Quest, there is a new chef in town and she is a building another reputation for being the best. Priscilla Levac is Quests new gluten-free/ vegan/raw food chef. You have probably only seen her back turned to you as she works to refill the food bar in the atrium which usually sells out halfway through lunch. Before Priscilla honed her passion and skill sets through her current craft of avocado chocolate cake expression, she was pioneering what was considered possible within the realm of professional female snowboarding. Priscillas bag of tricks is as deep as her accomplishments within the industry: In 2004 she won the US Open and was named female snowboarder of the year. In 2008 she was the first female to get a cover shot with Snowboard Canada, entered the industry as an entrepreneur: designing and running her own brand of female base layers called Cillia. By the end of her career shed filmed full parts with Kingpin Productions, Mischief and Standard Films, had a signature line with Ride outerwear and was the first female to ever have a pro model binding. At the age of 14 Priscilla visited Whistler for the first time, a year later she had convinced her mom to sell their house in Quebec and she officially moved home for the first time. Finishing school through correspondence at the age of 16, she met the Godfather of Snowboarding Martin Gallant who apprenticed her in the lifestyle. Snowboarding, similar to many adrenaline based sports is truly a personal pursuit. The feeling of finding your flow is addictive, it is similar to the one shot in golf that keeps you coming back; it is unfiltered satisfaction, it is experiencing the heightened version of yourself, but it is also a rarely sustainable addiction. After over a decade in the industry Priscilla had done more than [she] ever dreamed, but it wasnt enough. During an injury rehabilitation Priscilla came across a book called 12 Steps to Raw Food and started filling a hunger that snowboarding couldnt. The principle behind raw food diets is that enzymes and vitamins are lost through the cooking process (especially high temperatures). Priscilla recalls the first three weeks of her first raw food diet as a transformation, seeing new color in her skin and iris, while creating a mental and spiritual health through awareness. Emphasizing the difference between mind and heart instincts, Priscilla knew she had found an unselfish and proactive avenue to focus her energies through with aims to benefit others in a positive way. Priscilla is realistic about meat and dairy addictions, pointing out that trying to save the world is often fruitless, preferring to plant her optimism locally while remaining aware of the power consumers can have on food systems.

Priscilla plans to include vegan/gluten free soups and stews to the Fall menu admitting that in Squamish, sometimes you need hot food. The hot-menu additions will be made with a thick cashew cream base. The dessert repertoire will continue to be made of mostly nuts (cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans) and natural sugars found in dates, shredded coconut, honey and agave. Priscilla wants to continue expanding her passion from behind the count-

er into the Quest community through potential workshops and the complimenting flavor she has added to palates across campus.

Vegan avocado chocolate cake, photo courtesy of Joy the Baker

B1 || THE MARK
ACADEMICS

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

CONLAN MANSFIELD

WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?

that an imaginary number was the negative of a root, it was like, well why would you ever do anything like that, and what value does it have? Thats what really started me on my journey. ple trained in math is that we all learn how to do math: the activities, how to carry them out, to solve problems, and to conduct research, but not to examine what it is. If I were to say what is math: math is a set of articulations that C: On that note, Ryan, could you comment on the relationship between math and creativity? R: Its so funny math gives the illusion of being somewhat robotic because it is a set of rules, the same way that you would equip a robot with a set of rules. Most people think that math is the application of rules Algebra is an accounting structure, for instance. Im not an accountant, thats not what I like to do. What I am is a pattern hunter Algebra gives me an effective notation and an accounting system to keep a very clear track of the path that I make as I go hunting through the jungle, so to speak. But that hunting the direction that I take while in the jungle, whether I go left or right that comes down to a kind of intuitive, gut feeling. Its fascinating watching mathematicians work, because they are different as a person can get in their mathematical process. In the end, people often think of math as constricting as though theres one way to solve a problem, and thats the way that the teacher has shown you to solve the quadratic formula or whichever. Really, if you have a good problem, there is plenty of mess in there, and playing in this mess is what develops the intuition that allows more of those ideas to stick together inside that thought chamber. C: Ryan, what would your Question be, and why you would choose that Question? R: I think that if I really get to the bottom of what motivates me, its a yearning for a sense of beauty - a way of seeing how ideas rest together. Its that kind of beauty when I can see how things relate to one another that motivates me. The Question I articulated for myself was, what is the relationship between beauty and pattern? - beauty being the aesthetic drive, and pattern being how things fit together. After being at Quest for a year, I added something to that, because I recognized that what I was really interested in was the human interface between beauty and pattern; so, what is the relationship between beauty and pattern, and how do we articulate such things?. Thats my Question.

Each month, Conlan Mansfield will speak with a Quest tutor regarding their interests, the start of their journey, and what drives them to keep going. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. For the extended version, please email email The Mark at themarknewspaper@gmail. com. Conlan: Ryan, how did you first become interested in math? How did you get started on this journey? R: I didnt have any particular preference for math until I was about 14. I took an Algebra 2 class in high school and I performed well in the class. Something about Algebra made a lot of sense to me. But when the teacher wrote on the board, on the very first day of class, the words complex numbers with two branches off of it; one leading to real numbers, and the other to imaginary numbers...when he wrote the latter, for the life of me I couldnt understand it. When it came out

Ryan Derby-Talbot, photo courtesy of questu.ca C: Of course, this raises the question: just what exactly is mathematics? R: I have been wrestling with that question on a pretty deep level, and especially since coming to Quest. Whats interesting about my previous experience and what I notice about a lot of peohuman beings have created to organize and account for observations of patterns involving number and shape; an interface of the activity of human beings articulating ideas against patterns that are lurking in shape and number. The way that one can look and see how those patterns all relate consistently is what math is.

Girl Power
JOSE COLORADO Battered and bruised, drained and exhausted, the Quest Kermodes womens varsity soccer team still managed to kick their way to two hard fought victories in the opening games of Pacific Western Athletic Association (PACWEST) league play. Saturdays match-up (Sept. 7) pitted the Kermodes against the Douglas College Royals while Sunday (Sept. 8) saw the Kermodes take on the Kwantlen Eagles. In Saturdays afternoon affair, lead striker Mari Tarleton, scored what would be the game-winning goal late in the second half for a 2-1 victory over the Royals. Tanner Batchelor, second year outside mid-fielder, scored the teams other goal earlier in the match. It wasnt all good news for the Kermodes though as Batchelor, a key contributor to the teams

SPORTS

Womens soccer team starts strong in opening weekend of league play despite wave of injuries.
strong mid-field play would succumb to a nasty ankle injury early in Saturdays game; sidelining her have a number of injured players sitting out. Fourth year veteran Gellie AnLuckily for the Kermodes, former reserves are now confidently stepping into these starring roles. Never was this more on display than during Saturdays contest in which Daniella Smiththe replacement for Batchelorcame on to score a timely equalizer for the ladies. It was an emotionally charged moment that energized, revitalized, and propelled the wounded squad to its eventual 3-2 victory after another Tarleton goal early in the second half. It is unsung heroes like Smith that have become the norm early on in the season for this Kermode team. Goalkeeper Tiana GilChrist remarks that Kyle Kirkegaard and Kelly McQuadein particular have stepped up and provided a solid defensive back-line for the squad. Its great knowing that we can call on any of the girls on our roster and theyll be ready to contribute and compete. Thats all you can ask for. Ultimately, the depth of this Kermode squad might be what separates them from the rest of the PACWEST competition. We honestly believe we can win with anyone on our roster playing, not just the (original) starters. We have depth, Gilchrist continued. After capturing the first medal in Quest history last season with a third place finish at the provincial championships, the Kermodes are hoping to take the next step and capture its first PACWEST title. With this tough minded group, that might just become a reality come October when the provincial championships roll around. has developed, that might just become a reality come October when the provincial championships roll around.

Daniella Smith, scores a symbolic goal for the Kermodes squad in Saturdays match against the Kwantlen Eagles. Photo by Cassidy Osterling for the rest of the weekends action. Batchelors injury served as a rallying cry for the already depleted Kermodes, who currently nabelle admits that the injuries have been frustrating but have also united the team. Previously unheralded players are now being given opportunities to shine.

Comics by Anna Piper Bradley