Smudge stress away De-stress Fest will feature Indigenous ceremony this year By PERRIN GRAUVER articipating in a smudge ceremony is an opportuni- ty to relax and also to learn, said Rick Ouellet, Langara College’s director of Aboriginal education and services. “It's a ritual to cleanse, clear your thoughts, put yourself in a good space. A lot of students like doing it, for example, before you write Ntle’kepmx (Interior Salish) Na- tion. ‘The ritual involves burning sacred plants such as cedar, sweetgrass, to- bacco and sage in a shell, and waft- ing the smoke towards participants with an eagle feather. Joe said that as a teacher she had always given her classes the oppor- tunity to participate in a smudge, as a way to both educate and rejuve- nate. “It was some- “l hd an exam, or if It was something thing to be in- you're having * volved in that is a busy week,” to be involved part of our Ab- Ouellet said, 7 7 original — tradi- adding that m that 1S part of tions, knowledge maintaining our Aboriginal and culture,” Joe an open dia- soe ” said. “It's part of logue with the traditions... reconciliation as Musqueam, on whose territory Langara is built, was key given that smudging is not part of Coast Salish culture. “The strategy is to have a really good relationship with the Mus- queam so they understand that, here, we want Indigenous students to succeed, and for some, that's smudging,” Ouellet said. “So they're fine with it. But it's not a part of their traditions, they have different traditions.” Smudging will be a part of Lan- garas De-Stress Fest for the first time this year, and will be led by Elder Mary Jane Joe, former Lan- gara instructor and member of the — MARY JANE JOE, NTLE'KEPMX NATION well, and heal- ing. > Jimmy Aitken, Aboriginal studies department as- sistant at Langara, said the talking circle, held after the smudge cere- mony, had been particularly power- ful for past participants. “The people that have participat- ed are very thankful,” Aitken said. “It helps to give a voice to what they're processing and to their gratefulness for having that oppor- tunity. To just be human with other people.” Interested students are asked to meet at Langara’s Aboriginal Gathering Space at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 28. All are welcome. Elder Mary Jane Joe, member of the Ntle’kepmx Nation and former Aboriginal studies instructor at Langara College, will lead a smudge ceremony at the Gathering Space (A167) at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 28. PERRIN GRAUER PHOTO PASTA DI SEMOLA di grano duro da agricoltura biologica 16x 500g e FUSILLI Students who are struggling to cover their food needs can apply for the Community Cupboard and receive a bag of groceries at Building T. wyr4 DIONNE PHOTO Giving Tuesday feeds students Foundation, LSU and college come together to donate food By MYRA DIONNE S ome students at Langara College are having to choose between a healthy meal or enough money to pay rent. Langara College Foundation, the Langara Students’ Union and the college have partnered up to stock the Langara Community Cup- board with non-perishable items in response to a growing need for food security. The project launched last Febru- ary to help students that may be struggling to take care of basic re- sources like food. Moira Gookstetter, the founda- tion's executive director, said raising funds for Community Cupboard was a good way to participate in Giving Tuesday, a global movement for giving after door buster retail events like Black Friday and Cy- ber Monday. “Tf we look at the heart of the issue of the finan- cial piece with students, we're located in Vancou- ver," Gookstetter said. "Rents are extremely high, we're finding stu- dents are living further away from campus. There’s costs and students are making choices.” Some of those choices involve forgoing a meal. According to a 2016 study by Meal Exchange, a Movement to transform meals on SUBMITTED PHOTO campuses, two in five students in Canada experience some form of food insecurity. Stephan Maras, first-year engi- neering student, said he thinks the initiative is good, but he has con- cern for non-perishable items as they tend to provide an unbalanced meal. “I feel like it might need some refinement and execution,” he said. “People tend to donate the things that [students] don't want to eat, the things that are usually cheap.” Reba Noel, coordinator for stu- dent engagement programs, said non-perishables are chosen because it’s difficult to have a space to store food effectively. She said the proj- ect is only in its beginning “I feel like it “a, ; e€ community cup- might need some board is not a long-term i solution,” she said. “It’s refinement and an immediate response . " for someone who may execution. be needing some food ~ STEPHAN MARAS resource, but also gives FIRST-YEAR ENGINEERING them an opportunity to come in and speak to, if they want, to some of the financial advisors.” ‘The college plans to match do- nations up to $5000 and the LSU will donate one dollar for every like, share and comment on any Lan- gara College social media post, up to $2000. Science fair preps students Research papers are important for later studies By LISA TANH angara psychology students are gaining experience in what graduate scientific research may look like for future studies with the first ever science fair focused on cognitive psychol- ogy. Some of the research projects showcased are giving students the opportunity to write research pa- pers and to begin understanding the scientific methods used for scholarly articles. Valerie Lloyd, a psychology in- structor at Langara, said this is the first time the college has put stu- dents’ work in the field of cognitive psychology. “Cognitive processes involve at- tention, language, memory, prob- lem solving, decision making,” Lloyd said. “How people think and perceive events and the emotions they feel towards their events are often related to how they perceive the event to begin with.” Lloyd said it’s important for stu- dents early on in their academic careers to be able to participate in science fairs. “They become familiar with the scientific process when they con- tinue with their studies and possi- bly go to graduate school [and] will be able to become more productive scientists,” she said. ‘The presentations are research projects that the cognitive psychol- ogy students conducted for course requirements. Students like Karley Strang, who participated, did not conduct the research themselves, but based their papers on an online psychology database. ‘Ihe experience has been invalu- able, said Strang, in understanding how to write and research a scien- tific paper. “Psychology isn't really acknowl- edged that much as a science. So it's using the scientific method,” she said. Another project on display cov- ered how meditation helps to in- crease substance addiction recovery and one presentation examined the negative effects of childhood sexual abuse on short-term memory. Psychopathic tendencies can be found in children as young as 11. Deep processing results in greater levels of free recall (re- membering) compared to shallow processing. SOURCE: SCIENCE FAIR DISPLAY