VIU students may have noticed a new mural to the side of the VIU Library entrance on their way to study…or get Starbucks. What they may not have realized is that it’s a collective, worldwide project that has been years in the making.
The We Are VIU mural was officially unveiled as part of the WorldVIU Days celebration on November 1st. VIU Visual Arts graduate and ceramics artist Joe Lyons has been working on the piece over the last several years.
The project started in a fall 2019 world geography class. Lyons’ professor, Don Alexander, told his class they could write a paper for ...
I love Halloween. I get to dress up, decorate my house, watch scary movies, and sneak from the candy bowl that I'm supposed to give the trick or treat-ers. But my favourite part of Halloween is making the snacks, which comes—in large part—from my mom.
She is the most extra of Halloween moms. Our front yard becomes a graveyard with zombie arms sticking out and a machine that creeps fog down our front steps, our living room is a mad surgeon's bloody operating table, and the bathroom always has a Freddie Krueger head stuck on the door.
My mom didn’t stop at the decorations though. ...
Halloween is coming up and everywhere you look is decisively spooky. If you’re literarily inclined, one way to indulge this seasonal atmosphere is to curl up with a good horror book.
Creative Writing students Kenzie Clarke and Erika Parsons are both huge horror buffs, and are happy to share their favourites.
Clarke has a broad taste in horror, from classic literature and 1920s silent films to modern-day Netflix series.
“I'm a big fan of atmosphere in horror, so some of my favourites are gothic horror, like [Bram Stoker’s] Dracula and The Turn of the Screw [by Henry James],” ...
What’s the best way to celebrate Halloween? Dressing up? Watching a scary movie?
How about a ghost tour?
I went on my first Haunted Nanaimo Lantern Tour several weeks ago. The tour is put on by the Nanaimo Museum and snakes through downtown Nanaimo, stopping at some of the city's oldest and most haunted buildings. There were probably 20 people, including myself and two staff members. Our tour guide carried a real lantern with her throughout the tour.
We began at 6:30 in the museum itself, at a set of footprints in front of the Mine Shaft. That’s right: there’s a ghost at the ...
VIU’s Malaspina Theatre recently put on its first play with a live audience since March 2020 with A Drama Class’s Dream. The performance, which ran from October 13-16, is Theatre professor Ross Desprez’s adaption of the play-within-a-play from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The play was a fun, fantastic, and whimsy return to live theatre—for both the performers and audience.
The play opened with the house lighting remaining on and backstage equipment staying visible as the drama students playing drama students took to the stage. Some entered from the audience. The ...
The polls are open again! For VIU Students’ Union (VIUSU) elections, that is.
From Tuesday, October 19, to Thursday, October 21, students can choose who they want to represent them at VIUSU. The voting will take place electronically via a unique link emailed to every VIU student. Votes can be cast at all hours until the deadline of 9pm on Thursday.
This year’s candidates are:
Arts & Humanities Faculty Representative – Siddhanth Arikari
International Education Faculty Representative – Saadhvi Thakur
Management Faculty Representative – Joshua Cartagena
Powell River ...
Have you ever been walking in a forest near Nanaimo when, out of the corner of your eye, you see an orange-black blur dart through the trees? If so, you may have spotted quite an elusive bird. The Varied Thrush, or Ixoreus Naevius, comes out of hiding on Vancouver Island in October.
The males are well-known for their distinctively coloured plumage. The bird itself has a black or blue-black body with bright burnt orange colours on their belly, above their eyes, below their beak, and in stripes along their wings. These black and orange colours help to give them their very fitting ...
The Great BC ShakeOut returns to Nanaimo at 10:20 a.m. on Thursday, October 21, with the annual ShakeOut drill. This event is part of International ShakeOut Day (the third Thursday of October) dedicated to spreading earthquake and emergency awareness.
The City of Nanaimo October 14 press release states: “[The Great BC ShakeOut is] more than just practising the drop, cover and hold on response. It’s about awareness, knowing the implications an earthquake may have, and knowing how to keep yourself and your family safe.”
During the drill, residents and businesses will go over what to ...
VIU students, staff, and faculty, along with community members, are calling on the university to take more action against climate change.
In an open letter addressed to VIU president and vice-chancellor Dr. Deborah Saucier, the signers asked the university to declare a climate emergency. This is something that the Nanaimo City Council, and other universities and colleges like UBC, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, and Selkirk College have already done.
The letter applauds VIU’s current actions, including the implementation of a geo-exchange system. However, it encourages the ...
Students have a lot on their plate this year: school, finances, COVID-19 restrictions, and as of September 13, vaccine cards.
Proof of vaccination is required to access non-essential services such as restaurants, theatres, and fitness centers. Customers could use their paper vaccine cards (stamped after each dose) until September 26; now, they must show the digital version of the card with a scannable QR code.
How has VIU been implementing the mandate?
The university regularly sends COVID-19 updates to students. There are immunization clinics available on campus, and the ...
You couldn’t see them so much as you could hear them. The bees buzzed quickly past my head, busy collecting pollen for their colonies. It was spring of 2021, and I had gone to Jinglepot Apiaries to pick up some honey. I grew up with fresh, locally sourced honey where I lived in Alberta, spoiled by the efforts of the bees and beekeepers from my great grandfather's apiary. Store-bought just wouldn’t cut it for me.
I walked into the yard, and out of a little side building I saw Sol Nowitz, a man in his seventies with black circle glasses, a South African accent, and a sun hat on his ...
Remarkable would be the simplest way to describe the last two months for Ay Lelum.
Snuneymuxw sisters Aunalee Boyd-Good and Sophia Seward-Good went from figuring out what to do next after a fire destroyed nearly all their clothing stock, to walking down a runway at their own show in New York—all in the span of two weeks.
Ay Lelum – The Good House of Design describes themselves as “wearable art garments that embrace diversity, and [are] committed to sharing Traditional Coast Salish art and culture for all people to enjoy.” The garments can range from dresses to rain jackets to ...
I check my inbox outside my English classroom and see a new email from The Malahat Review. They’ve decided not to accept the short story I’d sent for their consideration. They say one of the characters was unrealized. I had cut a significant section building his character at the suggestion of one of my Creative Writing and Journalism (CREW) professors. Getting my writing published seems impossible.
There are currently eleven “Declined” submissions in my Submittable account, three “Received,” and two “In-Progress.”
Zero “Accepted.”
I made it my goal to have my writing published ...
VIU's October 14 Engaged Citizens Speaker Series will address a crucial topic: housing.
Housing was already an issue before the pandemic, but with job losses and economic uncertainty due to COVID-19, it’s become a struggle for many Canadians.
The Engaged Citizens Speaker for the webinar, Leilani Farha, believes access to safe and affordable housing is more important than ever thanks to the pandemic. During her talk she will discuss the nature of the current housing crisis with a focus on COVID-19, and how governments and cities can appropriately respond. The session will end with a ...
I think we can all agree that last year was a difficult one. It became so overwhelming that I had to drop some classes. Online learning and my disorganized lifestyle did not pair well together. I skipped classes or simply didn't watch the online lectures, and before I knew it I had a backlog of late assignments, lectures to watch, and too many upcoming exams with material I hadn't learned yet.
'This year will be different,' I thought to myself. 'I'm in my fifth year of university, dammit, I should have this figured out by now.' I promised myself that I would be on top of things this ...
There is a timely new art exhibit on display in VIU’s Malaspina Theatre lobby. Stz’uminus First Nation artist Daniel Elliott’s Winds of Change was unveiled last Wednesday evening, the night before Canada’s first Truth and Reconciliation Day, and runs until October 8, then again from October 12-13.
The exhibit turns a deliberate eye to themes such as reconciliation and residential schools in Canada.
“I want to temper this work, all the pain…with hope and love and culture and direction so that I could have it go in a way that is healing,” Elliott said. “This is more than just ...
Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre might be a rite of passage for first-year English students at VIU. I’ve seen the university edition being read on the number 40 bus and in the hallways of building 345 before classes start. There are upwards of five copies sitting on the bookswap shelves in the Student Union building—it’s hard for to avoid that nineteenth century governess.
I read all the Brontë sisters’ novels as a pretentious preteen. Flash-forward a few years and I felt like I knew what I was getting into when Jane Eyre was assigned in my ENGL 135 class. I was wrong in the most ...
Fall has finally arrived.
The transition from summer to autumn can be a shock, especially for out-of-town students from sunny and warm climates. Below are reasons why you should embrace it, and a few suggestions on how:
The Sights
The official markings of fall is when leaves start turning red, yellow, or brown. It comes gradually, but within a few weeks, the entire tree is bursting with colour. It looks absolutely gorgeous. Plus, who doesn’t like raking leaves and jumping in the piles?
To Do: Your eyes are tired, you’re stressed with school, or you’re just antsy. You need to ...
VIU Creative Writing and Journalism professor Robert Hilles has a book launch coming up this Sunday, October 3rd. The event will be for not one, but two new books: a novel called Don’t Hang Your Soul on That and From God’s Angle, a poetry collection. The launch will take place virtually, via a Zoom webinar available through the Vancouver Island Regional Library website.
Set in Thailand, Hilles says Don’t Hang Your Soul on That examines “the unique way that Thais look at life and love," as well as a few Buddhist tales he's heard from his wife. He adds that From God’s Angle, made up of ...
The provincial government has taken another step to protect postsecondary students from illicit and potentially lethal drugs.
The BC government announced that it was extending its Toxic Drugs Are Circulating campaign on Thursday, September 9. The campaign ran provincewide in August, but it will now specifically target students on university and college campuses across BC. The campaign seeks to provide a barrier between students and the drug supply that is ever-increasingly cut with lethal drugs such as fentanyl and carfentanil.
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila ...
The Vancouver Island University Library has become a home away from home for generations of students throughout their educational journey. It is the go-to place for researching topics ranging from ancient history to modern medicine, using the library’s printer to shoot out dozens of essays, or to lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling to unwind after a midterm.
After spending the past year and a half tucked away inside dark bedrooms taking online classes, students will finally be able to continue with these traditions, though they may notice something new in the otherwise familiar ...
While all departments suffered from online and distanced learning during the academic year of 2020-21, VIU’s Theatre Department was struck a unique blow when the university was closed in March 2020. Students performing to live audiences from Malaspina Theatre’s stage could not be easily replicated over a Zoom call.
Despite the circumstances, the department rose to the challenge in characteristic style. It’s impossible to talk to one of VIU’s theatre professors for more than five minutes without being struck by how innovative they’ve been in the face of the pandemic and how much they ...
