Gradzettethe university of manitoba’s graduate student magazineaugust 2013

F r e e l a n c e !The Gradzette is pleased to offer U of M graduate students the opportunity to get involved with their student paper. If you have a passion for writing, journalism, photography, or illustration the Gradzette is looking for individuals to get involved with the production process of the U of M’s grad student paper.

The Gradzette currently offers 10 cents per word for free-lance article assignments (articles can range from 400-900 words) and upwards of seven dollars per photo/graphic used within the paper.

Freelancers will be added to a contact pool and emailed with potential article, photo, or graphic assignments when they be-come available. On average, freelance contributors will be ex-pected to complete assignments within a seven day period, al-though certain assignments may be allotted a longer schedule.

For applications to the freelance writer pool, please send a resume and at least two (2) writing samples to editor@gradzette.com.

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GradzetteTHE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA’S GRADUATE STUDENT MAGAZINE

Gradzettec/o The Manitoban NewspaperPublications Corporation105 University CentreUniversity of ManitobaWinnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2

General inquiries and advertisingPhone: (204) 474.6535Fax: (204) 474.7651Email: editor@gradzette.com

Editor: Ryan HarbyCopy Editor: Bryce HoyeDesigner: Marc LagaceContributors: Sheldon Birnie, Bryce Hoye,Rachel Wood, Bradly WohlgemuthCover: Ryan Harby

The Gradzette is the official student magazine of the University of Manitoba’s graduate student community and is published on the first Monday of each month by the Manitoban Newspaper Publications Corporation.

The Gradzette is a democratic student organization, open to participation from all students. It exists to serve its readers as students and citizens.

The magazine’s primary mandate is to report fairly and objec-tively on issues and events of importance and interest to the graduate students of the University of Manitoba, to provide an open forum for the free expression and exchange of opinions and ideas, and to stimulate meaningful debate on issues that affect or would otherwise be of interest to the student body and/or society in general.

The Gradzette serves as a training ground for students interested in any aspect of journalism. Students and other interested parties are invited to contribute. Please contact the editor listed above for submission guidelines.

The Gradzette reserves the right to edit all submissions and will not publish any material deemed by its editorial board to be discriminatory, racist, sexist, homophobic or libelous. Opinions expressed in letters and articles are solely those of the authors.

The Gradzette is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national student press cooperative with members from St. John’s to Victoria.

All contents are ©2013 and may not be reprinted without the express written permission of the Manitoban Newspaper Publi-cations Corporation.

Yearly subscriptions to the Gradzette are available, please contact publisher@gradzette.com for more information.

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The University of Manitoba Fort Garry campus has be-come greener over the past few years thanks to the

UMSU Campus Garden. A partnership with the Rainbow Community Garden has most recently resulted in Project Picnic, a plan to develop “a space that facilitates knowledge, sharing, community building, and healing” in the existing garden.

The UMSU Campus Garden operates in accordance to their guiding principles, all of which follow the consistent theme of valuing the earth, community, knowledge of fellow gardeners, and sustainable living.

“Our mission is to promote urban food production and community building in and beyond the University of Mani-toba campus. The UMSU Community Garden provides a fo-rum for people to connect and share our cumulative knowl-edge on gardening, soil, plants, medicine, food and more!” reads the garden’s website.

The Rainbow Community Garden, the other key member of Project Picnic, is an undertaking of the Immigrant Inte-

gration & Farming Worker Co-op (IIFC) that was developed by newcomers from Asia and Africa who had knowledge and experience in agriculture. In 2012, the Rainbow Community Garden had 119 families involved.

UMSU campus garden programmer Tammy Junghans explained the benefits of Project Picnic and how the space facilitates the creation and growth of relationships in the community.

“When a single mom new to Winnipeg from a refugee camp comes with her children to the garden she does more than grow her own food to meet their physical needs. By sit-ting and sharing her stories with the listening ear of a fellow gardener, her emotional and relational needs are also being met. We are part of her healing journey.”

Their goal is to raise $4,500 to develop this area. Picnic tables can be sponsored for $250 each, which includes adver-tisement on the table for the sponsoring individual or group. The end result will be 10-15 colour picnic tables that will re-place “a few rows of rusty old chairs on overgrown grass.”

Growing through communityUMSU campus garden good for more than just food by Rachel Wood

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“We have had some faculty sponsors, we’ve actually had students pull out their wallets and [say] ‘I’ll do a table,’ and I was thinking they were going to do a portion of a table, but no. These students at U of M are so generous and have been sponsoring entire tables,” Junghans told Canstar Community News.

Junghans also notes that patients from Victoria Gener-al Hospital may benefit from visiting the nearby garden. She asserts that U of M stu-dents have a unique opportu-nity to learn about food sus-tainability and other cultures through relationship building in the space.

“It’s exciting for us to meet refugee families and allow them to garden alongside us. We are hoping to see relation-ships form as we provide new opportunities for connection. We have, as garden leaders, started to build relationships and look forward to the mutual benefit that will bring. As garden-ers are able to connect with community members we are able to build a stronger community.”

Junghans explained how the partnership with Rainbow Community Garden has affected her and her family directly. She has formed relationships with participants in the gar-den throughout her three years of involvement, which began through a volunteer position.

“Sharing life with people in the garden is exciting

[ . . . ] We all want to be known and the garden is a very natural place to connect [ . . . ] My own children have met children from the new immigrant families and are building friendships. The diversity in relationship gives us a greater awareness of the world around us and how our choices affect

each other.” Even aside from Project

Picnic, the UMSU commu-nity garden is deeply advan-tageous.

“The campus benefits from the garden as students are encouraged to grow and learn to grow their own food. In an age when food security and accessibility are part of the conversation, we get to be one part of the solution. We do not use chemical fertiliz-ers/weed killers/etc. in our

garden and keep it as organic as possible.”Interested participants can look forward to activities of-

fered through the garden, such as: strawberry picking, in-formational workshops on creating compost, canning, using herbs in beauty supplies, and growing garlic, to name a few. Gardening plots are available to rent.

Junghans encouraged U of M grad students to get in-volved by volunteering in the UMSU Campus Garden, which will lead to “[opportunities] to build relationships, grow your own food, meet new people, learn something new, and build a stronger community.”

“In an age when food security and accessibility are part of the conversation, we get to be one part

of the solution” — UMSU campus garden programmer

Tammy Junghans

Approaching prenatal educationResearcher Profile: Suzanne Lennonby Sheldon Birnie

Until recently, students in Manitoba who wished to pur-sue a doctoral degree in nursing had to leave the prov-

ince to do so. But in September of 2012 the University of Manitoba opened the first doctoral program for nursing in Manitoba.

Suzanne Lennon was among the first students to enter the program, fast-tracking after having completed her master’s coursework at the U of M in 2012.

“Myself and a couple of my colleagues who were finished our course work were approached,” Lennon told the Grad-zette.

The faculty was offering this opportunity of “fast-track-ing” for some students who had done well in the program, and though she was hesitant to apply at first, Lennon eventu-ally decided to go for it.

“I’d left my full-time job [to pursue] a two year masters’ degree and then I was going to get right back into the work-force again,” she explained. “But by that point I’d sort of al-ready gotten the research bug a little bit. So I thought, ‘well you can’t succeed if you don’t try!’”

The doctoral programs in the faculty of nursing have been in development for ten years. Their purpose is to develop “scholars who will engage in programs of research that will positively influence” the field of health care and the health of

those who use the health care system.Lennon’s interest in nursing first came about after com-

pleting an arts undergrad from the University of Winnipeg. Her young family needed to move to the United States, and in order to secure employment south of the border, Lennon put herself through a four-year nursing degree at the U of M

in what must be record time.“I got into nursing at the time when the only way to get

into nursing was to take a four-year degree,” she recalled. “But I didn’t have four years. So I took a four-year degree in five semesters. I took eight courses one term. It was crazy. It’s just a blur to me now, and we had a one-and-a-half-year-old. I actually don’t know how it got done.”

Lennon came into her master’s program in 2011 with a clear idea of what she wanted to research, having spent 12 years as a bedside nurse in maternal-child nursing.

“I’d worked both as a high-risk labour delivery nurse and in the intermediate and intensive care nurseries. So I came in knowing that’s where I wanted to stay, and that’s where my passion was.”

Of course, as many grad students can attest passion doesn’t necessarily always line up with the academic side of grad studies. Lennon was lucky in this regard.

“My advisor is just amazing,” Lennon admitted. “She’s an internally known researcher in maternal-child health. Dr. Maureen Heaman was very influential in guiding me to-wards what I was interested in.”

Lennon’s research is focused on gestational diabetes, which she explained is “a huge problem in Manitoba.”

“Gestational diabetes is a condition of varying severity

so there is little in the way of actual tracking of all cases. In Manitoba, during the 20 year period from 1985-2004, the rate of gestational diabetes rose from 2.9 per cent to 3.7 per cent, with First Nations women having a three to five times increased risk.”

Lennon explained that gestational diabetes is a somewhat normal part of pregnancy. As babies begin to require more

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“We need to define whether men and women view the disease differently. And if they do, then why?”

— Suzanne Lennon

and more glucose to grow, the mother’s body ends up divert-ing more and more of her glucose to the womb.

“We want that to happen,” she said. “Gestational diabetes becomes a pathology when it extends to the point that the woman’s blood sugars are now adversely affected by that in-sulin resistance.”

The problems associated with gestational diabetes can in-clude difficult births, problems with feeding after birth, and can also lead to Type 2 diabetes during childhood. As Mani-toba has the highest rate of childhood Type 2 diabetes, Len-non believes strongly that this is a problem that needs to be addressed in the province, and hopes her research can help do just that.

Mothers who experience gestational diabetes can also de-velop Type 2 diabetes, though the link between the two has been difficult to establish.

“It’s sort of a chicken and egg thing,” Lennon explained. Although the literature suggests a strong correlation between mothers who have gestational diabetes and the onset of Type 2 diabetes, it is possible that many of those women were ei-ther already at risk of Type 2 diabetes, or were previously diabetic, but had not been diagnosed.

While gestational diabetes itself is a rich topic for re-search, Lennon’s work with Heaman is more specific.

“Dr. Heaman’s program is largely centered on risk percep-tion and understanding how people think about health risk,” she told the Gradzette. “My interest came in how different genders perceive health risk.”

According to Lennon, there is very little research into how different genders perceive the health risks associated with gestational diabetes, and how those risks are communi-cated effectively to both partners during a pregnancy.

“We tend to ignore men in maternal-child health,” she ex-plained. “We don’t really consider that maybe men approach things differently, that fathers have an important role to play.”

“My impetus for this research came from working in the intensive care nursery,” Lennon recalled, “and you’d see these babies with gestational diabetes, and they were not well [ . . . ] That got me thinking about whether men and women look at things differently. We need to define whether men and wom-en view the disease differently. And if they do, then why?”

Lennon’s research will use a mixed methodology, draw-ing from both quantitative and qualitative research methods. While she is now completing her coursework, and will begin research in the fall, she has yet to determine exactly how she will proceed with her studies. Once she has established her sample size and identified participants, they will be asked to complete a series of qualitative and quantitative surveys in attempt to gauge comprehension and response to the health information they receive throughout their pregnancies. Both partners will be questioned and their responses analyzed.

Once her research is complete, Lennon hopes that the findings can be used to better address how men and women receive information during pregnancy and how policy might be developed to support both partners.

“I’d hope to develop an understanding among health care professionals that women didn’t get pregnant by themselves, and they aren’t in this pregnancy alone,” she explained. “It’s really unfair to put all of the burden on that one person, about change. Maybe men and women need different things out of prenatal education.”

Lennon is clearly passionate about health care, and en-courages prospective students here in the Keystone province to explore the possibilities that the University of Manitoba’s faculty of nursing holds.

“I’d like people to get a better sense of all the really im-portant things that are happening in the faculty of nursing,” she told the Gradzette.

“I sometimes think we don’t promote ourselves as well in nursing as we should. Take a look at the nursing website, and check out the amazing things that are happening there.”

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Are you a graduate student eager to promote your research and provide exposure for your work in the master’s or doctoral program? The Gradzette is looking for individuals interested in participating in our ongoing “Researcher Profile” column, which seeks to showcase important and exciting U of M research for a larger audience.

Subjects of a “Researcher Profile” will be interviewed by a Gradzette staff member regarding their ongoing research project. Once the column has been put together, the information will be published online both on the Gradzette website and within the PDF version of the monthly Gradzette magazine. Both versions are free to share with coworkers, acquaintances, professors, etc.

If you would like to be featured in an upcoming “Researcher Profile,” please contact editor@gradzette.com with details regarding your field of study, a short blurb about your current research, and any pertinent contact information for interview purposes.

GradzetteGet your research featured in the

Inbox upgradeNew student mail system to kick off soonby RYAN HARBY

Soon all U of M student emails will include an “@myu-manitoba.ca” suffix. Starting on Sept. 1 the U of M will officially begin send-

ing out all student-related news and notices through the new myumanitoba email system. This change in message delivery also includes emails from professors, departments, advisors and administrative offices.

The system is designed for all students, including those with pre-existing U of M email accounts, and can be activated following reg-istration for the upcoming Fall/Winter terms.

Powered by Microsoft’s Office 365, the new myu-manitoba system boasts a larger mailbox capacity (25GB), improved mobile accessibility, and an in-creased variety of features, such as integrated calendar, tasks and contacts.

Students with an existing CC mail account can activate their new email address at iridium.umanitoba.ca, or follow the step-by-step instructions at umanitoba.ca/computing/ist/accounts/enabling-accounts.html.

Students new to the U of M can find instructions on how to claim a UMnetID at umanitoba.ca/computing/ist/ac-counts/claimid.html.

After registration of a myumanitoba account all new messages will be sent to that email address, though if students wish to retain any of their previous mail messag-es they will have to forward those to the new address. Pre-existing CC accounts will continue to receive emails if no myumanitoba address is registered, though this service will end in the not-too-distant-future.

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SAIA no longer?Students Against Israeli Apartheid banned from U of M Campusby Bryce Hoye, the manitoban

UMSU council has voted to remove official student group status from Students Against Israeli Apartheid.

This past April 11, Josh Morry, Commerce Students’ As-sociation representative and member of the University of Manitoba Students’ Union (UMSU) council, tabled a motion to “remove [SAIA’s] student group status, and ban it from op-erating in UMSU spaces,” on the grounds that the group and events like Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) make self-identi-fied Zionist students “fear for their safety” on campus. The motion passed 19-16 and resulted in the de-rec-ognition of SAIA’s student group status.

IAW is held annually, on and off campuses across the country. SAIA and local affiliate groups host debates and information sessions, as well as dissemi-nate materials and screen films critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. SAIA advocates for the im-position of boycotts, divest-ment, and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel by university campuses, on the grounds that Israeli dom-inance over Palestinian people and lands amounts to apartheid..

To successfully ban the group, Morry and others appealed to UMSU Poli-cy 2009, which states: “UMSU does not condone behaviour that is likely to undermine the dignity, self-esteem or productivity of any of its members or employees and pro-hibits any form of discrimination or harassment whether it occurs on UMSU property or in conjunction with UM-SU-related activities.”

Policy 2009 is “very vague in its terms,” said Morry in an interview with the Manitoban, adding, “but it’s vague for a reason, because UMSU goes beyond the call of duty to pro-tect minorities, to protect students at risk, to protect people who feel threatened.”

Morry argued that the nature of the policy assumes that a student group (like SAIA) need only be guilty of creating “the conditions where dignity or self-respect [of students] could be undermined” in order to be banned. The policy was invoked effectively and managed to persuade a majority of

council members to ban the group. “We’re differentiating between Zionists and Jews [. . .] but

I’m saying this is a point about Zionists, where calling some-one a racist on campus violates the policies. It’s incitement to hatred.”

Morry later added that “[Zionism] is not a ‘political view.’” “I’m not a supporter of the Israeli government [for the

sake of this motion], I’m a supporter of the concept of a Jewish homeland for the Jewish people. To call that a rac-

ist doctrine is not allowed.”Ultimately, Morry has “national goals” for what might become of this ban but

cites securing the safety of all stu-dents on campus as his first priority.

“We’re lucky that it hasn’t been as volatile here as other places. [The U of M is] where [York] was a few years ago. Will it get to that point, I’m unsure – but I say, ‘why risk it?’”Motion’s language contentious to

someOne critique of the structure

and rhetoric of the motion is that it fails to differentiate between the Jew-

ish religious or cultural identity and the perceived political ideology and national-

ism of Zionism. “I think it is dangerously false to assert that ‘most Jew-

ish and Israeli UMSU members are Zionists,’ as the motion does,” said former UMSU vice-president advocacy (2012-2013) Jennifer Black in an interview with the Manitoban.

“Those who put forward and spoke in favour of the mo-tion successfully conflated the religious identity (Jewish) and the national identity (Israeli) with the political ideology (Zi-onism), and that conflation did a good deal of work to sway our council.” 

Though Black has no formal affiliation to SAIA, she questioned whether there was “a lack of critical analysis in the room when the motion was passed.”

“Those who spoke in favour of the motion spoke with emotion, and I believe that this emotional testimony carried the weight.”

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Banning SAIA violation of free speech?Critics have claimed banning the group is an infringement

on SAIA’s freedom of speech and amounts to an attempt to silence dissenting viewpoints.

“Ironically, it’s [SAIA] which is being discriminated against by this motion,” said Brian Latour, current member of the WCAIA and the Canada-Palestine Support Network, as well as one of SAIA’s founding members.

“This motion discriminates against [SAIA] based on [their] political beliefs and activities, and those are protected under the Manitoba Human Rights Code. Our group hasn’t engaged in any discrimination or harassment. We have in our constitution, which is submitted to UMSU as part of the stu-dent group approval process every year, that we’re opposed to all forms of racism – including anti-Semitism.”

Morry asserts that there are generally obvious limits to freedom of speech; respectful workplace policies dictate what opinions may or may not be considered appropriate depend-ing on the context and space in which they are expressed.

“The courts have found that a university campus is ac-tually similar to a workplace because we’re in an enclosed space. It’s not a public [place as a park is] because I’m forced to come here everyday: it’s my job, I’m a student,” said Morry.

“So if this space is made unsafe for me, then it becomes a hotbed for me and I am forced here everyday. It’s the same reasoning behind respectful workplace policies, which is why the UMSU policies exist. And we use the policies all the time; we protect the LGBTT community, we protect international students, we protect women that feel threatened.”

According to Latour, SAIA members began all meetings taking place during IAW with a statement denouncing dis-crimination, anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia. Latour added that every year leading up to IAW, members of SAIA speak with the University of Manitoba human rights and advisory services office.

“They’ve never had any problems with anything we’ve done. There’s no evidence that that the group is engaged in any discrimination or harassment, yet we’re being accused of that.” Legality of the injunction

The banning of SAIA was heralded as a “precedent-set-ting move” by Frank Dimant, executive vice president of B’nai Brith Canada, one “that should be emulated by students on every campus where IAW events take place.”

This is not, however, the first case of any student group per se being banned from a Canadian university campus. The University of British Columbia Students’ Union de-recog-nized the anti-abortion Students for Life (SFL) group based on complaints levelled against them. Although SFL appealed the ruling, the Supreme Court of British Columbia later up-held the original decision.

Whether any legal action will be taken against UMSU in this case is something that remains to be seen, though it was a point of concern for then-UMSU president and SAIA group member, Bilan Arte. According to Arte, in the weeks leading up to the delisting of the student group, members of UMSU sought legal advice on the motion to determine whether the union would potentially be left exposed to litigation by SAIA in the future were they to go through with the ban.

“The [legal] opinion said that the [SAIA] hadn’t violated

any of the existing rules and regulations that govern student groups,” noted Arte. “The opinions of student groups don’t necessarily reflect or represent the opinion of [UMSU].”

Arte said the tolerance of and diversity in student groups on campus with differing viewpoints further attests to this fact, pointing to the continued coexistence of ideologically polarized pro-life and pro-choice groups as examples.

Arte went on to explain that “there wasn’t any material evidence, physical evidence, documented evidence of there being instances that would undermine [. . .] the Universi-ty’s respectful workplace environment policies [. . .] That was something that our legal counsel wanted to have access to.”

“It would be nice if we had more documented incidenc-es of harassment or discrimination, inciting hate, so that we could, as an organization, protect ourselves from legal liabil-ity in the future should this student group decide to take us to court over it.”

Regardless, according to Arte, the resolution expired at the end of the 2012-2013 council’s term on April 30 and is no longer in effect, meaning that SAIA can technically reapply for its student group status along with all other groups this fall.

Graphic by bradly Wohlgemuth, courtesy of the manitoban

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“There wasn’t any material evidence of there being

instances that would undermine the University’s

respectful workplace environment policies”

– former UMSU president, Bilan Arte