The Waiver: an Article on Complicity

​Dear X, 

​I knew this day would come. My story, my unique StFX experience, that made national headlines would one day feel meaningful to tell. Though my name was hidden I was the student Dr. Robert Strang was talking about, the student CBC was talking about, and the student my campus was talking about. I was the kid that beat meningitis twice. My Xaverian journey begins in 2014. 

 ​Like many of my peers I moved to Antigonish as a first-year student from Ontario. I had never lived away from home before. I was now to fend for myself in this new grown-up world. I adjusted and found a new home in Antigonish. I moved into residence, befriended my roommate, expanded social circles, participated in my classes as well as frequented the intramural sport arena. I was becoming someone, something I was unable to do back in Ontario. I was at peace. The safety and security I felt in my new home was beyond description. Then one night my peace was shattered. I found myself unable to hold down any food, water, or cold medication. I could not sleep, for the pain exploding through my spine was horrific. I felt like I was made of glass. My head was spinning, my eyes so sore I could not see very well and yet that afternoon I was happily sitting in meal hall. The symptoms appeared so quickly that by the time my roommate awoke on November 10, 2014, I was already dying. Once admitted to the regional hospital I began to deteriorate. Spinal fluid, blood samples, and stool samples all returned congruent with a horrifying discovery. I had contracted Bacterial Meningitis Strain-y. Immediately I was rushed to the ICU and the garments of people around me began to change. I was suddenly too sick to touch and or even share the unfettered air. I remember wondering If I would die alone before I was 20 years old. Would anyone even know I was dead? Then I blacked out. I awoke and my mother was beside me in a hazmat suit holding my swollen speckled hands. IV’s dotted my arms pumping me full of heavy medication. I was alive, somehow. I spent the next weeks attached to heart monitors, slow drips, and oxygen masks. I felt like I was rotting. I felt like my life was over. The comfy new home I had grown accustomed to had been ripped away and replaced by something cold and metallic. My new university friends came to see me, my new friends have supported me, my new friends have constantly been their for me, my new friends are everything to me. My new friends turned into my best friends but my best friends could not wait on their Xaverian journey for me. I lost my first semester but I survived the unthinkable. 

​I made the decision to return to my studies in second semester. I felt well enough and though my parents were skeptical I was determined to return to StFX. I agreed to a reduced course load and a different way of life. I was the student that beat the deadly disease that swept through the province. The first time I ever really heard tell of an outbreak was when it was used to describe my illness. I was ostracized despite my friends best efforts to keep my self esteem in check. Any and all conversations resulted in my struggle with the disease. Jokes were made at my expense by strangers who had no understanding of what kind of illness I just defeated. Upon my return to StFX one would think I was present the entire fall. I was not approached by any StFX resource to aid in my transition back to classes. I was not offered any refunds for the class I missed, the meals I did not eat, nor the nights I did not sleep in residence. I was forced to negotiate the exemption of my winter examinations. I felt alone and isolated by the university that made me feel so welcome. The one thing that infuriated me was that the university did not look into the outbreak on my behalf nor did they complete any precautionary measures to ensure something like this wouldn’t happen again. I was expected to just pick up where I left off thinking I was at least protected by my institution. 

​On January 28, 2015, I contracted a different strain of Bacterial Meningitis from the one I had less than two months ago. I almost died at the same University, in the same residence, from the same deadly disease. This time I was the boy who cried wolf. Not a soul on campus believed my cries as I lay crippled in my residence. The residence staff were hesitant to call the ambulance so they didn’t. By the time those around me realized my situation was deteriorating again there was no time to wait. I was put in the back of a taxi cab and rushed to the hospital again. My grip on reality was slipping. My body was failing me again. I found myself in a very familiar position second semester of my first year.  I was alone in a hospital wondering if I was going to die, I watched the scrubs of the medical professionals around me change from colourful shirts to hazmat suits, I watched watching IV’s and needles force their way into my veins and spinal fluid once more. My grip on life slipping away from my swollen hands speckled again, pockmarked by liver failure. I awoke to my family beside me. I awoke to my name being in the mouths of my peers as they circulated campus. I awoke but this time I had lost my will to fight anymore. I medically withdrew from StFX. I was lucky to be alive. 

​Upon my medical withdrawal I was offered barely 1/4 of my tuition, even though I missed 3/4 of the school year. I was not informed of any tests done by the university to understand the causes of the outbreak despite StFX’s name spattered across CBC. There was no attempt at acknowledging any accountability. I was just a number but I didn’t find that out until the end of my second year. 

​My second year was a mistake. Since surviving meningitis I had contracted three new ailments. I was diagnosed with Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and debilitating anxiety. I was not ready for anything close to the cognitive levels required to participate in scholastics. I descended into a chaotic spiral. Nearly one year to the day of my contraction of Meningitis I mentioned my desire to take my own life. I couldn’t cope, I couldn’t keep up with school, I thought I would never be able to operate like I once did. I was visited by my residence  Hall director but nothing was done to help me. I made up my mind and ran from the building towards the highway that ran behind our residence. One of my closest friends followed me to the bathroom and watched me try and run to the highway. He stopped me, hugged me, and told me it was going to be okay. My friends took it upon themselves to sleep on my floor and they are the reason I am here today. If you are reading this, thank you. I decided to move off campus to a safe environment where I was surrounded by close family friends. Despite my feeling of safety I could not cope. I failed most of my classes and failed out. StFX was going to let it happen, no questions asked. I got my doctors to weigh in and fight for me to avoid the hefty academic expulsion. I was reinstated. 

​I am 25 now. I started my Xaverian journey at the age of 19. I am set to graduate this year. I am finally able to call an X-ring mine. I can finally say its over. I have yielded to the whims of time. I am no stranger to highly contagious diseases. I am no stranger to the sharp needles of the regional hospital. I am no stranger to being locked up in an ICU containment room. I am no stranger to Dr. Robert Strang. I am no stranger to StFX. So please hear what I say. Making students sign a waiver is insulting. It is insulting to the wonderful staff at X who make up this university. You have metaphorically cut away the life boats and forced them to go down with the proverbial ship. I cannot emphasize this enough; having to deal with medical complications alone in first year University derailed my life for nearly five years. The completion  of my studies is a testament to the support systems that have surrounded me. I cannot believe StFX is acknowledging the dangers of a return to campus. Your waiver may absolve you from legal trouble but this is direct act of dangerous complicity. Complicit just like back on November 10, 2018, when you sent out an email in regard to another Meningitis outbreak on campus. In the very same residence I nearly died in twice. How dare you demand anyone to sign a waiver and usher a student into a potentially harmful environment? Your lack of awareness to the dangers of highly contagious diseases has nearly resulted in the deaths of two of your students. 

​If I should be able to receive my X-ring in person or it is delivered through the mail I will be hesitant to put it on. The message you are conveying is that student well being can be summed up in a legal document. The message you are conveying is the deficit that the university has incurred is more important than one students life. The message you are conveying is that I am just a number. When I receive my X-ring and Diploma this year I hope that I will be able to look back fondly on the instances where the Xaverian values have made me a better person. I just hope that you will reconsider opening campus if this waiver is your ticket to a fall semester. I worry about the first years who might wind up in an ICU. I worry you won’t have their backs like you didn’t have mine. I worry that this is just a numbers game. I worry I fell in love with a University that practices a different sermon than the one being preached. Hail and… saying Health in this situation would be a bit redundant no? Get better X. 

With warmest regards,

The Former Patient Zero

International Student Speaks Out about Recruitment

An inside perspective into the life of an international student

I want you to use your imagination for a second. Imagine leaving your home, the country you were born and raised in, to gain a higher education and pursue a bright start to your future. Imagine saying goodbye to your family and friends and packing up two bag-loads of your life to take with you as you travel alone to an entirely new continent with which you are not entirely familiar with. Imagine arriving at your destination and failing to see anyone in the distance who remotely looks like you, and then later discovering that this will be the setting of the next four years of your life. 

When I was recruited by Saint Francis Xavier University, I was quite literally sold the Canadian dream. With promises of a diverse, peaceful culture that embraces and celebrates other nationalities, of renewable bursaries and opportunities for work that would “reduce the cost of my tuition tremendously,” there were hopeful stars in my eyes as I pictured my future at this university. I was going to make tons of new friends with whom I would share my culture as I equally experienced theirs, and I would perhaps even return home with a Canadian accent after a few months. 

The reality could not have been any more different. In all of the dreamy tales fed to us in the large assembly hall of our high school, it seems that the university recruitment team simply forgot to mention that the tuition at StFX was going to be hiked by 6% every year for the next three years because the university is in so much debt, and that this would actually translate to a 12% increase for international students, since they pay double the tuition fees compared to Canadian students. 

The lovely recruiters also had a little ‘slip’ of memory and neglected to inform us that the total cost of residence for the year does not include or cover the two/three-week Christmas break during December, and that all students are required to evacuate their rooms and expected to independently find alternative accommodation for themselves over this period. Of course, mentioning these vital factors to potential students was not of great importance at the time. As long as they managed to successfully rope in and recruit a couple of us, the rest would figure itself out. After all, the university is kind enough to perform favors such as providing alternative campus living arrangements for those international students who are unable to go home for Christmas, all at a little charge, of course! What is an extra one or two-hundred dollars to someone who already pays $30 000 to be here?   

 My question is, why, oh why, then, would StFX continue to recruit a large number of international students, if they constitute most of the debt carried by the university? Is their solution to this problem, therefore, to hire a debt-collector masked as an International Student Advisor, who will deceive international students into a trap of sharing their financial struggles, only to add them to her ‘blacklist’ of individuals to monitor and watch out for? The international population is truly better off not having an Office of Internationalization, if it houses individuals who intentionally advocate against them. The very students whom she is purposed to be a support for (at least, according to her job description), are the ones whom the university has mandated her to take a strong position against and, quite frankly, get rid of. 

Moreover, university administration made it very clear that 2018 would be a year of change and uncompromising rule. Whereas the university was previously quite understanding and lenient towards international students, and permitted them to construct plans for payment that would still allow them to register for courses so long as they had been making some steady payments to their accounts during the year, this policy changed overnight. With an ironclad fist, the university denied access to course registration to all international students whose student accounts were anything above the new threshold of $5 000. Lo and behold (and this should certainly not come as a surprise to any of us), this new policy was not transparently communicated to any students, nor was there sufficient notice given prior to implementation of this new practice. 

So, when July came around and it was registration time, many unsuspecting international students received devastating emails from the Accounts Office that informed them that they would not, in fact, be able to register for classes, and they essentially would have about one month to miraculously decrease their balances owing to $5 000 if they wished to continue their enrolment with the university for the upcoming year.

I’ll ask you to again to imagine being an international student on the receiving end of this news; having traveled a long way from your country to this foreign land for an education, which, so abruptly, was snatched away from you. Imagine being halfway through university at this point, and being unable to join your peers as they progress into the year ahead while you remain behind, a balance of $10 000 or worse, $50 000, standing between you and your future, as you work tirelessly to reduce it just so you can catch up. 

Worse off, the concept of government loans or assistance to students is virtually non-existent in many of the countries from which StFX recruits its international population, and most parents are paying 30 thousand dollars straight out of their pockets, in economies that are not half as stable as Canada’s. Yet, international students are being held to the same merciless standards as Canadian students who have these privileges.

This is the unfortunate reality of several international students who attend(ed) St Francis Xavier University. Unexpected, uncommunicable costs are constantly flung in their direction, and they are expected to just bear the increments and tough it out, with no compromise on the part of the university. Just this month (on November 8 2018), StFX residence services sent out an email regarding accommodations over the Christmas break for internationals who are unable to go home, indicating that they would be placed in FX Hall (formerly Coady MacNeil Hall) for the break at a daily rate of almost $30 for a single room, totalling a hefty $600 for a three-week stay. How it could be possible that a student who is probably unable to afford a trip to go home to begin with, be able to afford to pay $600 - for such poor living conditions - is beyond me. This also comes as a huge slap to the international community, who, just last year, fought to be placed in a more livable building because the present condition of Coady MacNeil Hall is dilapidated and unbearable, suitable only for its current use as a storage facility for janitors’ cleaning supplies. Thus, after begrudgingly moving internationals into Power Hall for the December 2017 holiday, the university administration turned around and decided to not only revert back to Coady MacNeil as the building allocation for Christmas this year, but to hike the cost of stay by over $400 without any warning or any explanation for the increased rate. 

Amazingly, one of the universities strategic goals is “Increased enrolment by under-represented students, including international students,” a statement bleeding with irony, contradiction, and deception. What the university really wants is more students to manipulate and deceive as they demand double the tuition for half of the deserved services. 

The message here is clear: we, the international students, are unwanted and useless, and our comfort/sanity while we are halfway across the world from home, is not a priority. While many other universities place their international population at the forefront of every decision, acknowledging the fact that they are so far from their homes and their families, StFX treats their international students as inconveniences whom they are doing a favor by inviting onto this campus. You can count on the fact that we as international students will not make any recommendations to our peers in our home countries for Saint Francis Xavier University as a choice for higher education. 

I wish StFX all the best as they try to achieve their strategic goals in future years, because for as long as they continue to treat international students like the butt of the joke and some good-for-nothing cash cows, the reputation of this university and how it really treats its international students will spread and always stand to reflect the truth which their recruitment team fails to speak.

Dear StFX

A final goodbye

It seems such a crime to not fill such a beautiful journal with beautiful words.  But here I am with a beautiful journal, a long bus ride ahead of me, and filled with some negative emotions.  I guess I should start with StFX, the university that broke my heart.  I wouldn’t say I was necessarily excited to go back, having been sexually assaulted the previous year, but I was certainly hopeful.  I had reported to the school and my assaulter was suspended for the year.  This was my fresh start, my chance to make my home there.  There was still a voice in my head saying, ‘you only have a year of safety there.’  I pushed the voice away, determined to make the best of this year.  I’d switched myself into Mackinnon Hall from Riley for a more social experience.  I was in contact with a student involved with the weightlifting club so that I could join.  I was taking medication to help with my mental health.  I set up appointments at the hospital and Women’s Resource Centre.  I really thought I’d put everything in place to have a kick ass second year.  I may have had to avoid a certain fast food restaurant because my assaulter was living in town and working there but that was okay.  I always had the campus as my safe place.  This campus, this community, this family, I chose it.  I chose to return despite my assault last year, I chose to move forward and heal.

I wish the school had given me that chance as I’d fallen in love with the town, StFX, and the community.  Through a friend of mine I had heard the accused was seen at the radio station greeting new students.  I was livid and terrified.  How could that not be monitored?  It was the first day of classes, for the first time since landing in Nova Scotia I’d felt excited.  I had packed my bag for class and headed over to the RLC office to let them know about the accused.  Someone brought me over to talk to the director of student life, Jacqueline De Leebeeck.  I started to recount what I’d heard and for some reason the look on her face made my stomach drop.  She started off, “there’s been a miscommunication, I’m sorry.”  I felt my heartbeat start to speed up.  “His lawyers got in contact with our legal counsel and he’s been permitted to take classes this year.”  I still don’t think I have the words to describe how that felt but I’ll try.  All at once it hit me and I was scared, angry, broken hearted and most of all I felt betrayed.  This school that was supposed to protect me treated me and my assault like a joke.  I got up to run outside as I felt the panic attack coming on.  She threw out, “he’s only allowed on campus for classes,” as if that’s fucking consolation.  I bolted out of the office and called my mom mid-panic attack.  I was crying, shaking, yelling.  She could barely make out what I was saying, I could barely breathe.  I was utterly devastated knowing StFX cared about my safety so little.  My mom told me she’d book me a flight for the next morning.  She would never leave me somewhere I could never feel safe again.  Before I went to pack my things I stopped in the RLC office one last time.  I let Jacqueline know she could share all information with my mother and that, “no I will not be staying to handle my academics, you guys will be doing that as well as reimbursing us, I’m going home.”

It broke my heart, but I left StFX. 

I left Antigonish.

I left Nova Scotia.

The Reality of Being Gay at StFX

Sexual harassment is sexual violence

Picture this... It’s fifty years ago on a small country farm,

Homophobia is ramped…it’s a thing of the time…JUST KIDDING…welcome to StFX’s homophobic culture that targets you even when you want to have a good time. 

This is an encounter from one night going out at StFX. 

Sadly, our society has developed ridiculous norms that make people using the men’s washroom feel they have to choose a specific urinal in order to avoid the assumption that they are gay. Yes, GAY, try speaking it out loud, it is something you should get used to saying. I am gay and even I feel the need to follow these absurd heterosexual norms. Tonight, I went to The Pub hoping to have a great time with my friends. I wandered off to the bathroom and knew I should choose the urinal furthest away from the other guy who was in there at the same time. I hope you’re reading this whoever you were. I hope you know what you’ve done. He turned to me and said, “I know you’re gay and want to suck my cock.” First of all, no I do not want to do this in the bathroom with someone I do not know. Secondly, I recognize you are straight, and I do not want to be with you. Please mind your own business and let me use the washroom. The fact that you need to mention this shows your insecurities are greater than mine.

Wow! I am gay and was already targeted once this evening, it surely should not happen again. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I was walking home from the pub with two of my best friends. They were both female and one was visibly upset due to unfortunate circumstances she found herself involved with earlier in the night. I had my arm around her to provide comfort. We passed a group of immature students who sarcastically muttered homophobic slurs. 

One of my friends decided to call them out for this act of cruelty. They began to laugh hysterically as if being homophobic was a joke. 

Photo: mystfx.ca/visible-at-x

Let me tell you, it is not a joke! You are attacking someone for who they are. You are making fun of and belittling someone’s identity.

I love StFX and feel I belong here. Many faculty, staff, and students do a lot of hard work to ensure students like myself are treated as equals; it does not go unnoticed. Before this night, I had never been a direct victim of homophobic gestures. I almost tricked myself into believing this was something that did not exist on our campus. What I experienced taught me that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before people recognize that love is love. 

If you have taken the time to read this article and are homophobic, please know that your actions hurt others and are never forgotten. If you have taken the time to read this article and are one of the people who thought it was funny to insult me, I want you to know that your words hurt, they left me feeling sad and angry.

I hope you will think twice before you consider saying something homophobic again in the future.