Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
McMaster University has quite a few services designed to help students navigate their school, career options, and career paths. Distinguished among them is Student Accessibility Services, now celebrating its 25th year in action.
The program has dedicated itself to providing students with the tools they need to navigate their school environment. For some students, that encompasses physical disabilities; for other students it is a service that offers them support with mental illnesses or learning disabilities.
These programs first appeared on the McMaster University campus 25 years ago, and have since transformed under names such as the Office of Ability and Access. In May of 2011, the title changed to become Student Accessibility Services.
Much of SAS’s earlier campus work targeted how to make the campus accessible to the physically disabled. That included adding ramps or elevators to buildings, ensuring doors were automated, and making washrooms available. Now, although SAS still handles such issues as they arise, they are also focusing their efforts on other projects.
“Probably the most dramatic changes that will take place now [is with] technology, the use of technology in classes to help teach students – the use of video displays, and other technologies that are useful to help gather and create things,” Tim Nolan, the director of SAS said.
Nolan explained that they cater to the needs of the students, but also attempt to comply with what the individual wants. For example, if a student with a writing or sight disability wanted to “write” their work themselves, they could speak to a digitized system that would then transfer their words onto a digital platform. Likewise, if the student felt uncomfortable with such technology, they could have their work scribed by someone else.
“Or if they are prepared to learn [to use the technology],” Nolan said, “then we will train them on it. We will work with them [to better their academic experience].”
Nolan and the rest of SAS have worked towards fulfilling the needs of students for 25 years now, and shall continue to do so for many yet. “We’ve hopefully touched a lot of students, and helped make a difference to them,” Nolan said. SAS will continue to operate to achieve its goals and help fundamentally increase the livelihoods and academic experiences of those who wish to take advantage of SAS’s services.
Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
McMaster University will soon be exploring the method of conservation corridors in its own backyard.
Conservation corridors are plots of land conserved or restored that acts as a bridge to connect multiple plots of larger land. This connection promotes animal movement and migration, potentially bettering living conditions for wildlife.
McMaster professors Susan Dudley and Chad Harvey have organized a group of student volunteers who are working to help create a conservation corridor. The corridor is situated between the Dundas Valley Conservation Area and Cootes Paradise, off Lower Lions Club Road near Wilson Street.
“McMaster has the good fortune, and it looks like kind of by accident almost, of holding a really nice piece of property that has tremendous ecological diversity on it,” said Dudley, referring to the plot, which was purchased by the university in the 1960s for $1.
However, the plan for the land does not end at transforming it into a conservation corridor –the project will also transform the land into the McMaster Conservation Corridor Teaching and Research Facility. The 48 hectares of land will serve primarily as a research facility for science students, but the space will not be closed off to the public.
Dudley and Harvey hope to be able to employ the Smithsonian Dynamic Forest Plot Technique, in which land is divided into 20 by 20 metre gridlocks. All flora and fauna within each grid will be tagged and placed. As records are updated, it presents an opportunity to show what prospers where, and how to better use the space.
The two professors are able to go forward with their plan after receiving a grant of $5,000 from President Patrick Deane’s Forward with Integrity movement in December 2012, and having the grant matched by the Faculty of Science. Most recently, they received a $140,000 grant from the W. Garfield Weston Foundation.
Dudley explained that with the grant money, the group would be able to build the gridlock, resettle the trail on the property, manage the space, and provide maintenance for it. They hope to be able to hold long-term experiments on the property in the future, such as scrutinizing the flow of fauna through the plot, and conducting other observatory experiments involving insects and bees.
“What we’re thinking about is we may start to put in native plants, we may ask schools to grow some special plants that you would have to plant in rather than sow as seeds,” said Dudley.
The group of McMaster students and professors have high hopes for the project, and fully intend to realize those goals.
“We have a chance to learn a lot from this site,” said Dudley.
In using their grants and dedicated volunteers, Harvey and Dudley plan to take full advantage of that chance to have the project move forward and to become a leading resource in forestry.
Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
A vibrant green and blue six-person tent secured in the awnings of McMaster University’s Student Centre is host to the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Student Union’s newest event.
The event, which began on Nov. 11, 2013, and shall continue until Nov. 14, 2013, has been organized to raise awareness and funds for Syrian refugees, explained Ashor Sworesho, one of the participants.
“On the news all you hear is that this one side is doing this to the other side. You don’t hear the story of the civilians,” he said.
ACSSU began planning the event during the first week of school, and brought together a group of fifteen to twenty students, six of whom agreed to sleep outside in Canada’s less-than-desirable November weather as a small-scale student demonstration.
The group, along with affiliates from Brock, Ryerson, York universities, as well as groups in Germany, created a partnership with independent Assyrian Aid Society charity. The AAS is a charity based primarily out of Iraq that provides basic services to Syrian refugees, such as health care, education, and independence support opportunities.
Three years ago, ACSSU held a similar activity during which they raised $5,000 for Iraqi refugees, and they are challenging themselves to achieve that same goal within a year. In pursuit of their goal, students have been visiting classrooms, speaking to peers, and even receiving extra student helpers who are volunteering their time to visit Hamilton homes.
“We started going door to door, first giving flyers out, letting people know [about our cause], and if people wanted to donate, they’d leave the flyer out the next day, or two days after that. Then we’d go door to door to [collect the donations]. As soon as [people] hear about our cause, they’re very open to it; they want to help,” Sworesho said.
Even with these standby methods, the McMaster students sought to go a step beyond other schools by camping outside. The six people sharing the tent established basic guidelines for re-enacting a day in the life of a Syrian refugee: they can go to class, but they would not visit their homes for the duration of the stay; they would go without showers; they would not eat unless the food was donated to them/their cause; and they would have only blankets and simple mattresses.
After the students’ first night outdoors, Sworesho noted that it was not an easy experience.
“It was pretty bad, it was really cold,” he said. “But honestly, when you put it in perspective, we’re volunteering to do this, and as bad as this is…I’m pretty sure we’re doing better than online indian pharmacy out there. At least we don’t have fear. It’s just uncomfortable, but it’s not like we’re scared for our lives.”
He also reiterated the importance of the organization’s mission.
“When there’s turmoil, it’s the minorities that suffer the most. So we’re looking at the Assyrians, which are not only an ethnic minority, but they’re also the religious minorities in Syria to funnel or focus on.”
Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
If I say the word “orienteering” what do you think of first? Adventurous exploration? Courageous expeditions? Getting lost? The sport? If you thought of the sport, congrats – pass go and collect $200. Because that is what orienteering is – a sport.
It’s a sport that requires participants to cross checkpoints scattered across rough countryside with nothing but an old-fashioned paper landmark map, a compass, a whistle, a finger chip (that keeps track of time) and a sheet of paper with archaic symbols mostly comparable to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Useful… if you know what they read as.
It’s one of the toughest sports out there. It’s physical prowess, a whole lot of tactics and a starting strategy — Plus a whole lot of knowing what you’re doing. On Oct. 11-13, this year’s National Orienteering Championships were held here in Hamilton. It was one race a day – the first race, the sprint, was here at McMaster; the other two (the middle- and long-distance race) were out in Ancaster. Races were anywhere from one kilometre for the younger people to ten and up for elites.
Now, why is orienteering such a formidable sport? Because it takes brains. Not that other sports don’t. It’s only that, you can often have someone else do the strategic thinking for you, if not the last-minute, on-the-fly tactics. In the words of a fellow orienteer, “You can’t run faster than your brain.”
The first thing that happens when you flip your map over is you orient yourself. North equals north, the black lines equal north, check your compass – you’re oriented. You’re at the start triangle. Checkpoint 1 is at one towards the east. GO.
Are you still following the thought process? If so, congrats again. You now know where you’re going. But not how you’re going to get there.
Check out the terrain between the start triangle and the first checkpoint. If you know you’ll get lost going in a straight line – like me – it’s simple: don’t go straight. Look at the terrain – can you follow trails, or streams, or that convenient ledge of earth? Follow your trail to where it turns sharply and meets up with a bridge. Before crossing the bridge, you turn right and go straight. Checkpoint seen. Now, you book it to that checkpoint. And guess what? It’s not yours! Don’t pass go, and don’t collect your gold [medal].
Now you’ve got some perspective on the sport. It can be mentally taxing – the stress of getting lost, wandering off the map, arriving late, being last, the frustration of being totally unable to find a checkpoint. When running these races, you don’t see other people, as they happen mostly around large objects – trees, or buildings.
If you deal with that, you’ve still got the physical tax: running in circles, climbing hills, cliffs, losing shoes to boggy mud, fighting burrs and thistles and blackberry bushes. Plunging through icy water. There are all sorts of trials. Some races can be five kilometers and take two hours.
Orienteering is most definitely among the toughest sports out there, so if you’re up to the challenge… GO. Win yourself some medals, and enjoy the races.
Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
During the summer break, I visited Japan on my own. But this is not another travel story. It’s actually about what happens after the adventure, when the adrenaline and the jet lag bring you straight back to a jarring reality of obstacles, stress and responsibility.
But let me finish my introduction. I visited Japan. Going there, I had a suitcase inside a suitcase, pre-emptively solving the problem of how to bring back an extra ton of souvenirs.
Among these souvenirs was a particularly treasured little item for myself. That item is a Daruma doll. Darumas are symbols of perseverance and good luck. Given as gifts, they are signs of encouragement.
However, there’s a certain trick to working the magic of a Daruma doll: you must paint an eye.
Yes, only one eye. Daruma dolls are typically given with blank eyes – entirely white. It is supposed to be that you make a wish, and when wishing on the Daruma doll, you paint one eye. When you fulfill that wish, you paint the second eye. And here’s a neat little tidbit: if you knock a Daruma doll over, it springs right back up. This is supposed to suggest that no matter where you’re going in life, you are somehow still on track in fulfilling your dream. You fall in life’s lows, but you always stand right back up.
A lot of people will probably scoff at that; label it unrealistic, a romantic notion.
And I sort of agree.
But the romanticism is what makes painting the eye so attractive: fulfilling a dream.
Most of you know by this point that it isn’t always the downs of life that drain the most – it’s recovering from those downs. Most of you out there don’t own your own little Daruma dolls; you don’t have a constant reminder that you’re on track with your dream - that you’re going to stand back up again.
Well, you’re probably most definitely scoffing now, am I right? But how about I share a little secret? I have a dream too, just like most of you. That doesn’t mean it’s a clear dream. It is by no means “I want two and half kids, a happy marriage, and a white picket fence.”
Firstly: heck no.
Secondly: there is so much more to my dream than clear-cut words. Mine’s a hazy little outline. Maybe to someday be not a paying guest at comic-cons and music festivals, but to someday be a guest, to be invited because someone somewhere happened to recognize talent among hard work and effort.
Which seems to me to be a near-impossible dream. But then again, if I don’t give it a shot, and if I don’t recover from the downs, I’ll never know.
So when you step out to pursue your dream, give it your best shot, and remember: always spring back up.
Aurora Coltman
Silhouette Intern
On my second day of co-op, myself, my fellow co-op student and a couple of my staff peers settled down in the office for a run-down on some of the rules surrounding the office. Eventually the first question came: “Do you have a Twitter account?” Followed quickly by the second dreaded question “Do you have a Facebook account?” I was forced to give that same honest answer as for the first: nope. At which point, those gathered got the gist of things.
I proceeded to explain that all I lay claim to in terms of normal teen social media mumbo jumbo is a Gmail account. I don’t even own a cellphone. This was all greeted with gasps, whoops of delight, fist bumps and high-fives all around. Now, I am not new to this experience. It can be a feat explaining time and time again that I’m off the grid, but it’s rewarding to see that many people still appreciate my being... old-fashioned.
Still, it is a little exasperating for me when people at my school make comments like, “That is so weird; why aren’t you on Facebook?” or “Oh, have your parents not let you make an account?” as if it’s not a personal choice and as if I wouldn’t just make one anyways. Even odder are the people who say things like, “How admirable! I wish I could just let go of everything too!”
I tend to gape at this exclamation. It is comments like that one there – a very common one may I add – that reveal to me just how deeply our society has burrowed into the social media scene. I often have issues determining whether social media is a parasite on our society, or if we’re the parasite on social media.
I’m sure you’ve all had the experience of shaking your hands in front of the face of someone too sucked into a screen. And it makes you wonder, what has us so utterly dependent on social media? Is it a craving for human interaction somehow not gained with the action of being in the same room? Because, last time I checked, I isolate myself whenever I want a bit of me time on my laptop. It’s an interesting philosophical, if not the biggest question out there.
What can be said though, is that social media is a large part of what defines our society now, and… is that an issue? Again: who knows.
However, I can honestly say that it might be. I consider it one.
