November 7, 2017

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 | VOLUME XCIX | ISSUE XIII TYPHOID DU BOIS SINCE 1918

U

THE UBYSSEY

P / 03

P / 06

P / 10

P / 11

NEWS

CULTURE

OPINIONS

FROM THE BLOG

There’s a Timmies in Glasgow

99 Things: Selfies with Santa

UBC Psych concerns Esther ShalevGerz casts a long overshadow shadow improvements

P / 12 SCIENCE

Listening to the stars in Penticton

SWEEP FOR THE

SEVENTH WOMEN’S FIELD HOCKEY CLAIM SEVENTH STRAIGHT NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP, ON HOME TURF P 13 13

PAGE 2

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS & PEOPLE

EVENTS

OUR CAMPUS

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9

Our Campus: Dr. Henry Yu engages students in untold histories of BC migration

UBC TENNIS SMASH 5 P.M. @ UBC REC We are proud to announce the return of the student tennis tournament, the UBC Tennis Smash!

FREE, BUT REGISTER IN ADVANCE

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10 NALOXONE TRAINING PARTY TWO! 5 P.M. @ HEBB Learn how to respond if someone is overdosing and how to properly administer naloxone.

FREE, SIGN UP ONLINE For Yu, learning untold histories is essential to fighting racism in BC.

Erin Lee Contributor

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10 ROOM TO READ MOVIE NIGHT 5 P.M. @ GLOBAL LOUNGE MEDIA CENTRE Showing of a documentary called Girl Rising $2

ON THE COVER COVER BY Patrick Gillin and Lucy Fox “Kicking ass brings a tear to my eye.”

Want to see more events or see your events listed here? ubyssey.ca/events

U THE UBYSSEY

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 | VOLUME XCIX| ISSUE XII

EDITORIAL

BUSINESS

CONTACT

Coordinating Editor Photo Editor Jack Hauen Partick Gillin coordinating@ubyssey.ca photos@ubyssey.ca

Business Manager Ron Gorodetsky business@ubyssey.ca

Design Editor Natalie Morris printeditor@ubyssey.ca

Senior Web Developer Peter Siemens peter@ubyssey.ca

Editorial Office: SUB 2208 604.283.2023 Business Office: SUB 2209 604.283.2024

News Editors Samantha McCabe & Alex Nguyen news@ubyssey.ca Culture Editor Samuel Du Bois culture@ubyssey.ca Sports + Rec Editor Lucy Fox sports@ubyssey.ca Video Producer Kate Colenbrander video@ubyssey.ca Opinion + Blog Editor Emma Hicks opinion@ubyssey.ca Science Editor Nivretta Thatra science@ubyssey.ca

2

Features Editor Moira Wyton features@ubyssey.ca

Web Developer Atsushi Yamamoto atsushi@ubyssey.ca STAFF

LEGAL

Sophie Sutcliffe, Joshua Azizi, Jack Lamming, Tristan Wheeler, Zubair H i r j i , Z a k Ve s c a r a , Charlotte Beaulieu, Iyanu Owolabi, Clare Skillman, Olamide Olaniyan, Negin Nia, S alomon Micko Benrimoh, Samantha Searle, Kristine Ho, Bill Situ, Divija Madhani, Lawrence Ge, Veronica Ciastko, Danielle Olusanya, Liz Wang, Ryan Neale, Mitchell Ballachay, Shelby Rogers, James Vogl, Aziz Sonawa, Jordan Byrum, Adam McQueen, Lua Presídio, Aiken Lao, Emma Livingstone, Claire Lloyd

The Ubyssey is the official student newspaper of the University of British Columbia. It is published every Tuesday by The Ubyssey Publications Society.

We are an autonomous, democratically run student organization and all students are encouraged to participate.

Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff.

They are the expressed opinion of the staff, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Ubyssey Publications Society or the University of British Columbia. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of The Ubyssey Publications Society.

Stories, opinions, photographs and artwork contained herein cannot be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of The Ubyssey Publications Society.

The New Student Union Building 6133 University Boulevard Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 Online: ubyssey.ca Twitter: @ubyssey Snapchat: theubyssey

President Sebastian Miskovic president@ubyssey.ca The Ubyssey is a founding member of Canadian University Press (CUP) and adheres to CUP’s guiding principles.

The Ubyssey accepts opinion articles on any topic related to the University of British Columbia (UBC) and/or topics relevant to students attending UBC. Submissions must be written by UBC students, professors, alumni, or those in a suitable position (as determined by the opinions editor) to speak on UBC-related matters. Submissions must not contain racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, harassment or discrimination. Authors and/or submissions will not be precluded from publication based solely on association with particular ideologies or subject matter that some may find objectionable. Approval for publication is, however, dependent on the quality of the argument and The

Ubyssey editorial board’s judgment of appropriate content.

Submissions may be sent by email to opinion@ubyssey.ca.

Please include your student number or other proof of identification. Anonymous submissions will be accepted on extremely rare occasions. Requests for anonymity will be granted upon agreement from four fifths of the editorial board. Full opinions policy may be found at ubyssey.ca/ submit-an-opinion It is agreed by all persons placing display or classified advertising that if the Ubyssey Publications Society fails to publish an advertisement or if an error in the ad occurs the liability of the UPS will not be greater than the price paid for the ad. The UPS shall not be responsible for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value or the impact of the ads.

Dr. Henry Yu’s interest in transPacific migration began at the ripe age of three, when he accompanied his grandfather to visit “uncles” in Chinatown.

“I remember once visiting an uncle,” said Yu. “I don’t think he was actually related to me — all people of that generation were uncles.”

Yu, the manager of St. John’s College and an associate professor of history who focuses on Asian-Canadian studies and Asian migration at UBC, recalled being struck by the cockroachinfested conditions in which his grandfather’s peers — known as “oldtimers” — lived. His respect for them grew once he realized who they were.

“Chinatown in the ’70s was the last remnants of that world of male labourers who had helped build the railroad, early industries, agriculture, logging — who worked alongside Indigenous people hidden from the history that I learned in high school.”

As a descendent of migrants from Zhongshan county in southern China, Yu became personally invested in uncovering the stories of the forgotten oldtimers who played a significant role in shaping not only his personal history, but also British Columbia’s. Now, as debates surrounding the future of Chinatown intensify in Vancouver, Yu has taken an activist approach towards maintaining the history and culture of the area.

Yu previously served as the project lead of “Chinese-Canadian Histories: Uncommon Histories from a Common Past” — a $1.17 million project funded by the federal government to shed light on the overlooked histories of Chinese immigrants. Notably, Yu recalled students pioneered innovative creations, such as photo albums

COURTESY HENRY YU

and digital resources for teachers to use to teach students about the historical suffering of Chinese immigrants from discriminatory legislation such as the head tax.

This law made it challenging for oldtimers to bring their families to Canada.

“We did a lot of things in a mobile kiosk that went around Vancouver Public Library, Ottawa Public Library and all around the country,” said Yu. However, he said that the short deadline imposed by the federal government hindered the maximization of the project’s potential, and he felt that their activism wasn’t fully heard.

“I think what left a sour taste in my mouth was that we had to do it in such a short time for no reason,” said Yu of the project. “That was a requirement imposed upon us by people who really weren’t consulting and listening to what we were saying.”

Besides conducting his own research and teaching at UBC, Yu also serves as the current director of the Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies (INSTRCC) at UBC. For him, the most rewarding aspect of INSTRCC is the student and community engagement that other disciplines may lack.

“I’ve taken a lot of courses in my life where you study for the exam the night before and you regurgitate or vomit it [back] on the exam,” said Yu. “That is the worst scenario in knowledge-making and knowledge-learning — [it’s] learning that does nothing.

“I’d much rather students tell me something I don’t know. Show me something that is relevant to them that they’re passionate about and that really moves them.”

To encourage student participation, Yu has taken students abroad on six-week summer courses focused on food

as a reflection of cultural change, starting with a course titled “Eating Our Way from Vancouver to LA” in 2005 and expanding to “Eating Our Way Across Southeast Asia” two years later.

His next destination is southern China in the summer of 2018 to provide an opportunity for students to learn how people in those rural villages live and how food and medicine are not separate categories. Yu hopes that his students, who have typically grown up in Vancouver, will learn from the villagers’ philosophy of food and share it with others by interning at community gardens upon their return.

While he sees promise in his students, Yu noted that confronting Canada’s discriminatory history is a huge task — not only in academia but in policy as well.

Despite advancements made in the field of migration studies and reconciliation efforts for Vancouver’s history of discrimination, Yu expressed his doubt about the notion that white supremacy is a thing of the past in Canada.

“White supremacy lives on as long as we don’t acknowledge that and do something about it,” said Yu. “We’ve gotten around to acknowledging it [but] we haven’t gotten around to doing enough about it.”

Yu has been actively involved in public debate on issues of immigration and racism in Canada since he responded to the controversial Maclean’s article “Too Asian?” — now-titled “The enrollment controversy” — which questioned how the demographic makeup of Canadian universities with a large Asian population has an impact on campus life. “[The article didn’t say] ‘white Canadian,’” said Yu. “But every time that article asked who was ‘too Asian’ and who was reacting to that, why was it that every use of ‘Canadian’ was a white Canadian?”

More recently, Yu contributed his two cents to the public controversy over the 105 Keefer project, which would see luxury condominiums built on one of Chinatown’s historic sites. The proposal has drawn considerable criticism for possibly masking gentrification of the area as “revitalization.” Instead, Yu proposed that the land be used to honour Chinatown’s residents and legacy in Canada.

For Yu, learning and acknowledging untold histories is essential to fighting racism and discrimination in British Columbia.

“In another way, racism and discrimination is not just about taking something away — it’s also the taking away of opportunity,” said Yu. “How do you reconcile with that which was lost, including things that never were?” U

NEWS

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

EDITORS SAMANTHA MCCABE + ALEX NGUYEN

PUBLIC ART //

3

MENTAL HEALTH //

UBC Psychiatry waitlist has reportedly decreased, but concerns with the system remain

FILE MAIA BOAKYE

How bad do you need to be doing to get an appointment with UBC Psychiatry?

“People will be able to access and walk around the site when construction takes place.”

UBC

Not funded by tuition, $365,000 art project to move forward with month-long installation period Zak Vescera Senior Staff Writer

In mid-November, UBC is set to install a public art piece called The Shadow in the plaza next to the Nest. Its construction is expected to last just over a month.

Designed by Lithuanian-born artist Esther Shalev-Gerz, The Shadow is a 22 by 100 metre horizontal image of a Douglas Fir, created using a dark type of paving added into the typical pavement blocks seen on campus.

Shalev-Gerz was selected for the project by the University Arts Committee following her 2013 exhibition at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Her pending installation is part of an ongoing effort to bring more public art to campus.

But while UBC’s urban planning team is excited about the prospect of more public art on campus, The Shadow’s rollout has been stymied by negative student responses — many of them rooted in the misconception that the piece’s $365,000 price will be derived from their own tuition funds.

Michael White, associate vice-president of campus and community planning, clarified that that’s not the case.

“It is not being funded with academic funding,” said White.

“The source of funds is split in half. Half is from donors, and the other half is from the public art

matching fund.”

Created in 2011, the Matching Fund for Outdoor Art is a $2.5 million allotment for the creation of public art on campus, with the goal of “improving the interest, engagement and vibrancy of the public realm.”

The fund matches private donations — like those made for The Shadow — to make funding large-scale public art projects more realistic. While the matching fund is technically UBC’s funding, White said it’s funded via a community surcharge on developers, the proceeds of which are already earmarked for community improvement.

“Development cost charges are used for systems in communities — water, sewers, public realm and public art.” said White. “In most municipalities, those charges often go to art infrastructure as well as public art.”

Another critique from many students was that The Shadow would bring more construction to a high-traffic part of campus — one that is quickly tiring of development. In an opinion piece published in The Ubyssey last month, first-year student Alirod Ameri wrote that “adding more detours would just create another headache for students and staff trying to get around.”

Barbara Cole — curator of outdoor art at the Belkin Art

Gallery and one of the key figures in The Shadow’s installation — believes that student frustration is due less to the work itself and more to a general “construction fatigue” around campus.

“Because we love public space … when we have an issue with how it’s used, the incoming artwork becomes the centre of that,” said Cole. “And in fact, it’s actually something else that’s causing that — that concern or that anger.”

White said that during the installation, UBC will work with the AMS to minimize disruption to foot traffic.

“The project services team is meeting with the AMS to make sure that the construction management plan is in place and is going to meet the interests of the campus community,” said White.

“People will be able to access and walk around the site when construction takes place.”

In the future, the University Art Committee also intends to continue seeking out artists interested in pairing with individual faculties and spaces for long-term public art projects, and aims to secure donations and funds to continue it, according to Cole.

“Try to imagine a city or a place where there isn’t art,” she said. “It allows us to see the things that are teetering on the edge of disappearing because they’re so familiar.” U

Sophie Sutcliffe Staff Writer

Dr. Marna Nelson, the director of UBC Student Health Services (SHS), said that UBC Psychiatry’s waitlist has significantly decreased since the summer.

She said in an emailed statement that while the wait time still varies based on the time of the year and the number of urgent referrals, the current approximation for an urgent referral is one to three weeks; for a non-urgent referral, the wait is six to eight weeks.

“This is significantly improved from last year, when the waiting time was three months or often longer,” said Nelson.

The Ubyssey looked at SHS’s psychiatry waitlist over the summer after a student claimed that they spent 10 months on the waitlist before eventually losing their place on the waitlist because they were no longer a student.

“Since [the summer], things have improved in two different areas…. So with the Empower Me [program], students can now have access to counselling off-campus for more visits than were paid for before… [and] we now have more psychiatrists here then we had before,” said Nelson in an interview with The Ubyssey. She also mentioned that the university has invested an additional $2.5 million in mental health resources, such as towards UBC’s Wellness Centre and counselling staff.

While the actual waitlist may be shorter than before, there are still concerns about which students can get onto that waitlist and why.

Susanne Kim, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, said that when she asked her doctor at SHS about getting a referral to a psychiatrist, she was

told that she was doing “too well” for this to happen.

“While I understand there are of course always people who struggle more than me, that are deserving of an imminent spot, I found it disappointing that UBC wasn’t able to provide me with a service I feel I could strongly benefit from,” said Kim. In response, Nelson said, “It’s a case-by-case basis. It may have been that for this particular student, the family physician already knew they wouldn’t get an appointment based on the needs at the time. So then we try and work out other resources.

“We actually have more psychiatry appointments available than we had [this summer]. But nevertheless, no matter how many psychiatrists we hire, there’s always more … referrals than appointments available.”

Kim said that she does receive ongoing support from her doctor, but that she felt she could benefit from seeing a specialist.

“It’s easier to get better when you’re doing better,” said Kim. In her opinion, receiving help sooner rather than later would help her “sustain or get better, as opposed to inevitably, things getting worse later.”

University President Santa Ono has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to mental health resources on campus. He recently commented on the importance of early prevention in an op-ed in The Globe and Mail that he co-wrote with the Chancellor of the University of Toronto, asking, “What if we waited until Stage 4 to treat cancer?”

“Imagine if the standard of treatment was equal for mental and physical health conditions,” he continued in the letter. “Not only would it significantly improve the lives of those living with a mental illness, it would save lives.” U

4 | news | TUESDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2017 CHINESE LANGUAGE PROGRAM //

Does the department of Asian studies have a consultation problem?

Sarah Neubauer Staff Writer

Over the summer, The Ubyssey reported that the department of Asian studies cancelled intensive Chinese courses for non-heritage students without consultation.

This turned out to not be the first time a fundamental change was made in the department with no consultation.

On September 10, 2016, all instructors in the Chinese language program received a vague email from Department Head Dr. Ross King about a new curriculum, according to former instructor Xia Wei. “None of [them] had any clue about what this policy was and how this policy was formed,” she said.

It was not revealed until a November 17, 2016 broadcast message from King to all students enrolled in CHIN courses that the new policy “provide[s] students with the option of using computerized output for their midterms, finals, and other major quizzes and/or unit tests in addition to the existing handwriting option.”

Previously, the curriculum put significant emphasis on handwriting and being able to write each character — stroke by stroke. Now, while not mandated in policy, handwriting is worth a very small percentage of a student’s grade in practice.

This sudden change was a complete shock for Chinese educational staff, according to Wei and Joan Yang, who have both been teaching at UBC for over 15 years before their termination in August 2017.

Dress like your favourite Ubyssey writer.

“In the end, I felt like our voice was ignored.”

“None of us had any clue about what this policy was [or] how this policy [had been] formed,” Yang wrote in an email. “We voiced our concerns and our difference of opinions. But in the end, I felt like our voice was ignored.”

Wei and Yang also argued that it was unfair for students’ learning outcomes and that more discussion — such as how to avoid cheating — was needed before implementing such a drastic curriculum change.

“For such a fundamental change, it should have been [a] more well-planned and thought [out] process,” Wei wrote. “For the new curriculum, they said for all tests, including final exams,

FILE PATRICK GILLIN

they can use their personal computers. They didn’t even consider that [the computer] will help you generate [vocabulary].

It wasn’t a well thought out [change] for students.”

DOES HANDWRITING MATTER? Wei and Yang’s primary concern revolved around the change’s impact on students’ writing skills, particularly those who want to major or minor in Chinese.

“I think that 99 per cent of people think that character writing is a fundamental for Chinese language learning,” Yang said. “We see character writing as not just a benefit itself, but also [to] recognize

Drink like your favourite Ubyssey editor.

future characters … it is very hard for a student from a noncharacter writing language to come and learn the differences.

It’s very easy to overlook, so it’s fundamental [practice] for the learner and the teacher.”

Dr. Liang Tian, the special Chinese language advisor for the education services office with the Government of Alberta, agrees.

While he acknowledged that technology could help with learning skills like reading and writing, Liang stated in an email that this new method “cannot replace the importance of handwriting practice” when learning Chinese.

“Some studies also found that learners that constantly write Chinese characters with their hands have higher level proficiency, better durability in learning and more confidence in their Chinese skills compared to those who practice Chinese typing on computer devices,” he wrote.

Furthermore, Wei also expressed concerns about transferrable skills, since UBC is currently the only school to incorporate this change into its curriculum.

“I told my students that [they had] to realize that in the future, you will study with students from other institutions and they will know how to write and you will have to rely on the computer,” she said. “It will not be [their] mistake, it will be our mistake.

We didn’t teach you … I would feel very sorry for my students if they ended up in that kind of situation.”

WHAT DO STUDENTS THINK?

ubyssey.ca/store

From the student’s perspective, there have been mixed reviews on the change.

While some view typing as helpful in terms of reducing the amount of time and energy it takes to learn to write new characters — especially given students’ busy schedules — others remain committed to learning characters through handwriting.

“We had a couple of students who were okay with the change ... they thought, ‘You know what I’m really busy, I don’t

necessarily have the time to do the handwriting,’” said Monique Chiu, a recent Asian Studies graduate who took CHIN 331 and 333 with Wei during the curriculum change.

“But there were definitely some kids in that class who said they would like to do the handwriting, or at least have the option to be tested on it. Why should we be forced to take it online when we could do both?”

Chiu also recalled a vote that Wei conducted about the learning method that students preferred — it was a halfway split between typing and handwriting. “[Wei] said that she didn’t want to impact her students’ learning [so] we kind of did it in secret for a while, where some people had the option to type,” Chiu said.

“Unfortunately we got kind of punished for that, and afterwards [Wei] got let go so we felt really bad for her because … she wasn’t forcing it on us. We chose from our own opinion to have a written and [a] computer option available.”

Other students in CHIN classes shared the opinion that the change made things easier but not necessarily better for learning. “[Typing] did make the class easier because we had to remember fewer characters and only needed to remember the pinyin — [the Romanization of the characters as derived from their pronounciation] — for the new vocabulary, which was then converted into characters on our computers, but I could tell that I was learning less in comparison to before the change,” Aridin Jones, a third-year arts student, said in an emailed response.

“Even though students and teachers were putting in the same amount of time [as before], the students were getting less out of it.”

Jones and other students were also very unhappy with the handling of Wei’s employment.

“I don’t think [the change] is fair,” Jones said. “We had an amazing and very experienced teacher who didn’t agree with the change for good reason. I understand that some students would enjoy taking an easier class for the same amount of credits, but for the students who are serious about their skills, it isn’t fair ... I think UBC made a mistake and lost an amazing educator.”

Though he declined The Ubyssey’s interview request, Acting Asian studies Department Head Dr. Joshua Mostow has issued an emailed statement in response to these concerns.

“Asian Studies, and all departments across the university, works continuously to improve the methods and practices of teaching. That work has helped the department grow to be the largest Chinese language program in North America,” reads the statement.

“The decision to use computers in some courses was made in order to further enhance the student learning experience by strengthening skill sets required in today’s technological world.” U

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY | news | 5 LANGUAGE //

ENVIRONMENT //

‘It was frustrating’: UBC students maintain ongoing Structural barriers effort to support First Nations’ hinder student’s access anti-Kinder Morgan court cases to sign languages COURT CASES

“ASL” in American Sign Language.

Zak Vescera Senior Staff Writer

After her mother became deaf, third-year international relations (IR) major Tyesa Kruz started learning American Sign Language (ASL) and planned to take it to satisfy her IR language requirement.

While sign languages have over 70 million speakers worldwide, UBC doesn’t offer a single undergraduate sign language class — and some departments don’t even recognize ASL and its variants as a language.

When Kruz brought her request to Arts Advising, she was told the only way she could take ASL as an undergraduate student was via a bridge program with Vancouver Community College (VCC). However, since VCC classes run on a different schedule than UBC’s, taking sign classes would risk overlap in UBC’s final season — meaning the program might even face cancellation.

“When I was talking to advising, they recommended against taking it because your exams could conflict,” said Kruz.

“They said that they might even flat out cancel the program entirely — so you can do this, but you might start and not be able to finish.

“It was frustrating.”

In an email to The Ubyssey, Vice-Provost Dr. Pamela Ratner explained that the school “does its best to accommodate students requesting a challenge exam in American Sign Language” for students who claim a degree of fluency in the language.

An additional barrier comes from the fact that even if a student completes the bridge program, the credits they receive might not count towards language requirements, such as that of the IR major.

In an emailed statement to The Ubyssey, IR Department Chair Dr. Steven Lee said that the IR program is happy to accept sign language “as long as the sign language was in a language other than English.”

PATRICK GILLIN

“This policy is consistent with university policy about learning ‘foreign’ languages while also accommodating sign language,” Lee wrote.

However, sign language speakers believe that characterizing American or British Sign Language as “English” is fundamentally incorrect.

President of UBC Signs — the campus sign language association — Jacqueline Wax said that American Sign Language, and all sign variations, are grammatically completely separate from their spoken counterparts.

“American Sign Language uses a completely different word order, and it doesn’t use what we would even consider in English to be words,” said Wax. “It’s no more similar to English than Spanish is.”

Wax, whose club has been advocating for introducing undergraduate-level sign classes for years, added that failing to recognize sign languages contributes to a misconception that they aren’t “real” languages.

“Historically, there has been challenge to the idea that sign languages can be syntactically correct languages — which they are,” said Wax. In a statement to The Ubyssey, Ratner stated that the linguistics department “is currently considering how to expand ASL content” — but only in select classes and programs.

Both Wax and Kruz agree that it’s a wasted opportunity.

“It’s crazy there’s such a large speech language pathology and special education program here and that American sign language is not taught, even though it’s a core skill in those industries,” said Wax. “We’re actively blocking people from learning essential skills for certain industries and the general community.”

“Sign language enabled me to connect with so many people who were not a part of the world we get to live in,” said Kruz.

“Not offering it is neglecting a large portion of the population.” U

FILE CHERIHAN HASSUN

“All the groups coming together to support one cause is really important to all of us.”

Clare Skillman Staff Writer

After their prominent role in the September 10 protest against the $7.4 billion Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, UBC students are now taking part in various ongoing efforts to support First Nations’ court cases against the project.

If the Kinder Morgan expansion project proceeds, the pipeline’s capacity would triple to 890,000 barrels a day, and the number of tankers would increase from 60 to over 400 a day.

In response, UBCC350 — a student-run sustainability group — co-hosted a live-music fundraising event for Pull Together, a campaign that is helping First Nations’ court cases against the project’s approval by the federal government. With admission being by donation, the event raised over $500.

“As a group, we felt that that was the most important priority for us — to support and stand in solidarity with those groups because the legal battles were so costly,” said Anna Howard, events

coordinator for UBCC350 and head of the Pull Together fundraiser.

Other groups in collaboration were Students for the Salish Sea, UBC Social Justice Center, Common Energy, AMS Sustainability, The Environmental Policies Association, The Environmental Law Group and Sprouts.

Beside the fundraiser and protest, UBCC350’s other efforts include canvassing, talking about bank divestment and speaking at the Stop Kinder Morgan Flotilla in Cates Park, North Vancouver on October 28.

Future efforts seem more directed towards collaboration, like the fundraising event, especially with the creation of the UBC Sustainability Collective.

“All the groups coming together to support one cause is really important to all of us,” Howard said.

“There’s a new thing happening on campus called the UBC sustainability collective, so a representative from each group will get together each Thursday to discuss events that are happening and other sustainability goals on campus as a collective.”

“There’s a lot of hope, but [a lot] still needs to be done...”

In total, there are 19 court cases with the majority from First Nations groups. Previous use of court cases led to the cancellation of the $7.9 billion Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Currently, only the Coldwater Nation has won their case in the Federal Court of Appeal.

According to Pull Together, the expanded pipeline would impact two creeks that are not only of “high cultural and spiritual significance,” but also the reserve’s main source of water.

“The court found that the minister of Indigenous Affairs failed to scrutinize a court document from 1952 that explained what’s acceptable policy around First Nations reservations,” said Gabby Doebeli, communications co-ordinator for UBCC350.

“There’s a lot of hope, but [a lot] still needs to be done because they’re already starting construction in the Burrard Inlet.”

For the remaining 18, there is a six-to-eight-month waiting period before the results.

Notably, while the BC NDP government is supporting most court cases against the federal government’s approval of the expansion project via its intervener status, it is defending the other side in the case brought by the Squamish Nations.

This is due to the fact that the new BC government can’t retroactively change the approval made by the previous Liberal administration without losing its influence on the outcome.

Regarding this discrepancy, Doebeli acknowledged the difficult position of the NDP government. Instead, she criticized the federal government for its approval of the project despite advocating for environmentalism and signing international treaties.

“It’s very frustrating when the government that you elected to represent you doesn’t take into account your voice and goes back on its promises,” said Doebeli. U

FILE ZACH KOURGIALIS

CULTURE

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

EDITOR SAMUEL DU BOIS

PUBLIC ART //

6

HARUKI MURAKAMI //

Esther Shalev-Gerz: Accepting the inevitability The artist behind of change: What I Talk About The Shadow When I Talk About Running Ashley Cruickshank Contributor

It was the morning after receiving

Construction would unfold across the majority of the plaza.

Zak Vescera Senior Staff Writer

Most artists believe their job is to create art. But for Esther ShalevGerz, her job is to highlight the art that’s already there.

Born in Lithuania, Shalev-Gerz is a Paris-based artist whose public art pieces have been installed in France, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and numerous other countries across the globe. Her newest project is The Shadow, which will be installed in front of the Nest this month.

The Shadow is a daunting design: it consists of the darkened image of a Douglas Fir tree imprinted over 24,000 bricks, which will be laid down for a total size of 22 by 100 metres.

Shalev-Gerz, who has been regularly visiting BC for 35 years, said the piece is inspired largely by the region’s natural beauty.

“As I [was] born in Lithuania, there is something of the nature there that kept me coming,” emphasized Shalev-Gerz. “Coming once or twice is one thing, but persistently having it being part of my life is something that is absolutely — I cannot live without it.”

Shalev-Gerz’s previous works often examine relationships within spaces, tying the areas that they’re installed in with political, regional or cultural dialogues. Her Monument Against Fascism in Hamburg deals with the region’s authoritarian past, while First Generation in Botkyrka, Sweden addresses the complexity of immigrant diasporas.

With The Shadow, Shalev-Gerz hopes to highlight the profound history hidden within BC’s wilderness — a story that is at once ancient and unheard to her.

“As an artist, you are trying to broaden the field of expression by including new things,” she said. “The new things are of course the things that are here, but never named.

“I wanted to make this new history. The history of the trees.”

Unlike many of her previous works, The Shadow is completely horizontal. Shalev-Gerz said this, along with the plaza’s positioning near the Nest and the nearby mound, makes the proposed piece

PATRICK GILLIN

a powerful exercise in contrast.

“It’s horizontal while we are vertical — we are walking on it,” she explained. “Because it’s physically available to you, you can choose to sit on a certain branch.”

Shalev-Gerz said viewers will be able to see the entirety of The Shadow from the vantage point of the nearby Knoll.

“People who studied at UBC always told me ‘oh, I was always spending time on the mound.’ They were really touched by this,” she said.

Shalev-Gerz also enjoys the piece’s proximity to the newlycompleted Nest, saying the building’s modern nature — juxtaposed against the imprint of a tree — inspires reflection and thought.

“It’s so beautiful, it’s so new and it’s so contemporary,” said ShalevGerz. “I hope that The Shadow will do the same thing — that it will enlarge this space and the history on how we use materials, how the materials enhance that space.

“I was really lucky that they assigned this place for me.”

Shalev-Gerz was originally selected for the project following her 2013 exhibition at the Berkin Art Gallery on UBC campus. While The Shadow is being constructed using earmarked private funds, two widespread misconceptions are that the piece will be funded by student tuition and that it will only be visible from the vantage point of the Nest’s roof. They have fuelled negative backlash to the project from students.

On her scheduled artist visit on November 14, Shalev-Gerz hopes to engage those students directly.

“I would love to talk with the students and really to have a good discussion about that,” she said. “I do a lot of art in public space and every time, we have a discussion.”

Ultimately, that’s what ShalevGerz aims to create. For her, public art is a way to evoke conversation — whether it be with the artist, the architect, the community, the students or the space itself.

“If we all want to talk together, this is the only thing that matters,” she said. “This is what influenced me as an artist and what I hope will influence them.” U

final grades for all my courses in May that I decided to scour the bookshelves of the local Indigo in search of a miraculous guide that would teach me how to become the student every admissions officer and parent dreams of.

Instead, as is to be expected of someone with a short attention span, I became sidetracked thumbing through novels, falling in love with the cover of a short little book by Haruki Murakami.

Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is a deeply introspective memoir juxtaposing the acts of writing and long distance running. Each hobby not only nurtures and sustains the other, but also teaches Murakami lessons about himself as he logs his journey towards racing the New York City marathon.

Murakami is a prolific Japanese author whose work is ethereal and dreamlike in nature, incomparably defying all rules of space and time, as he takes his readers on journeys only the most imaginative of minds can comprehend. Through all of that, it’s easy to assume that Murakami must have been writing since his first utterances, because most successful people have to be engaged in the sleepless and effortful pursuit towards their dream their whole life… right?

Wrong.

Murakami was not always a writer. In fact, in this memoir, he recounts a time in his early twenties when he ran a jazz club after college — a coffee shop by day and a bar by night. The club saw decent success at the cost of working from dawn to dusk most days of the week, causing Murakami what he describes as “a great exhaustion.” Then, after several years of running the club, Murakami decided on a whim that he would write a novel. Just like that.

The issue with college is it perpetuates the belief that we shouldn’t change our minds and if we do, we must inevitably be lost and indecisive. If you entered into university with intentions of being an engineer, then find a couple years later that your sole heart’s desire is to run head first into global issues and become a journalist, you have undoubtedly wasted every second of every hour leading up to that moment.

When thinking about all of the books that advised me to focus on one goal and never deviate from it while building 10-year plans — because I can obviously see that far ahead — I realized that none of them were able to teach me the lesson that it’s okay to change your mind and that such change might be inevitable.

This unsuspecting memoir did.

Murakami recognized within himself that prior to this “eureka!” moment, he never intended to be a novelist, but had always wanted to write a book.

He simply could have convinced himself that he couldn’t do it and accepted the words of his unbelievers. Instead, in the spring of 1978, he bought a fountain pen and a pack of loose-leaf paper from a convenience store and wrote a two-hundred-page novel.

As most people experience growing up, I went through constant changes about where and who I wanted to be 5, 10 and even 20 years down the road. At nine, I wanted to be a veterinarian; at 13, I was convinced I would be the world’s next superstar plastic surgeon; and by 16, I had set my mind and efforts on law. At 18, I unpacked my bags and tacked my class schedule right next to a sheet detailing every single Canadian law school’s admission standards on the cork-board in my room at Dene House in Totem Park.

All through first year, I would take the long route to and from class to go by Allard Hall, but in the meantime, while I procrastinated

on my assignments, I daydreamed story ideas, wrote feverishly and buried my head in books not found in any syllabus I was assigned. Yet still, I alienated myself from the pressing desire I had to write and woke up everyday for my 8 a.m. class on the notion that I was going to become a lawyer.

Murakami knew that he couldn’t run towards anything he desired halfheartedly, but with everything he had. He told himself, if he were to fail, he would have to accept that — but not giving all he had to his true desire would leave him regretful.

He told himself that if things didn’t work out, it would be alright and that he was young and could always start over.

As university students, this concept seems difficult to grasp.

The valuable lesson of being accepting and kind to oneself often goes unlearned until we meet with some sort of tragic circumstances where we have no choice but to treat ourselves gently. And as long as we continue to live, we will learn something new about ourselves.

The inability to be accepting of change is a waste of time and life can fall unfortunately short.

In my final two years as a UBC undergraduate student, I learned this lesson.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running has carried me from alienating myself from my heart’s desires to running full speed towards the things I only dreamed of doing.

And as I continue running, sometimes walking or stopping to check out the scenery, I plan to carry this lesson of acceptance and nurturing change with me until I throw my cap in the air, alongside the thousands of caps of my fellow dream-chasers and graduates who also decided that it was never too late to turn things around and become the student that they wanted to be. U

Murakami knew that he couldn’t run towards anything he desired halfheartedly, but with everything he had.

FILE MAIA BOAKYE

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY | CULTURE | 7 FREE SPEECH CLUB //

Jordan Peterson’s UBC talk exemplifies his centre- to far-right appeal Jack Hauen Coordinating Editor

THE RADICAL LEFT RUINS EVERYTHING

“Good to see you, man,” said a slight young man in a toobig dress shirt and tie. He was beaming. “You’re a normie, but I respect you.”

He spoke to his friend who had chosen a seat toward the back of the Chan Centre’s Telus Theatre to hear Dr. Jordan Peterson speak.

“What?” his friend said.

“This is the normie section.”

“Okay.”

The young man in the tie walked back to his seat in the front row, a smile still glued to his face.

Tonight was going to be great. ...

Peterson, the University of Toronto psychology professor who has turned an online lecture series into a goldmine that nets him at least $800,000 a year, came to UBC Friday night to talk about the perils of postmodernism and “neo-Marxism” — the ideologies that, he puts forth, have turned our universities into “walking corpses” and our children into mindless, despot-worshipping sociopaths.

Now, he says, it’s coming for the rest of us.

Peterson rose to prominence protesting bill C-16, which adds gender expression and identity as protected grounds under the Canadian Human Rights Act and Criminal Code. More specifically, it’s now illegal to deny services, employment, accommodation, etc. to individuals based on their gender identity, or to promote genocide against them.

Peterson believes this will result in “compelled speech” — that if a person refuses to use someone else’s preferred gender pronouns, they’ll be charged with a hate crime.

The panic is misplaced, accordint to the Canadian Bar Association and most other legal experts. But Peterson’s refusal to give up the fight has only endeared him further to the right, including UBC’s own Free Speech Club, which organized the event.

Peterson began his talk by defining postmodernism as a “very dark view” — a “Hobbesian nightmare” where everyone is at everyone else’s throat. This is the ideology of the people who are teaching our children and dictating what we should think, Peterson said.

And they’re not misguided — they’re evil. Their morals are bad and their hearts are in the wrong place.

Peterson worked for the New Democratic Party (NDP) when he was younger, he said. He thought the leaders were honourable people, but he didn’t like the low-level activists — they seemed “peevish and resentful.”

Instead, he found himself enjoying the company of the Alberta capital-C Conservatives on his school’s board of directors.

Young Peterson was conflicted.

Why had he come to respect those who he ideologically disagreed with, when he struggled to do the same for his NDP colleagues?

But then it clicked: “They don’t like the poor, they just hate the rich.”

Peterson’s easy demonization of the “radical left” will be familiar to anyone who has watched his clips on YouTube. The talk was a selection of crowd favourites, down to the “play behaviour in rats” anecdote and the talk of 350-million-year-old dominance hierarchies.

It’s Peterson’s reverence for natural hierarchies — a “stable solution” to the chaos of society — that is so appealing to his fanbase of young men who feed on the idea that white males are unfairly portrayed as the root of all evil, and who feel personally attacked by feminism.

In the West, Peterson said, hierarchies are based on competence — not power or privilege. If a hierarchy becomes too corrupted, it crumbles. We can see this because “everything around us works all the time.”

For instance, Peterson cited Harvey Weinstein as evidence of the hierarchical system running smoothly. He worked hard, achieved a position of power, started to act like a “tyrant” and was removed from his position of power.

“That’s the definition of a functioning state,” Peterson said.

He skipped over the multiple accounts that Weinstein had serially abused women for decades, employed underlings to run interference, planted scandalous stories in the press on those who refused his advances, ruined the reputations and careers of those who displeased him, and was caught out because a tiny fraction of his victims were convinced by the media to speak publicly about this widely-known but unspoken abuse.

But his dismissal of uncomfortable bits of Western society doesn’t bother those who paid to see him. They came for the greatest hits, and Peterson delivered.

He speaks with the passion and conviction of a preacher, and the authority of a tenured professor who has it all figured out.

His hands literally draw out his thoughts in real time as he places ideas on front of him and then ties them all together. It’s just as easy to picture Peterson on a mount as a stage, and it’s difficult not to become enraptured.

It’s this zeal, combined with a black-and-white, good-and-evil stance against “radical leftism” and preference for Western civilization’s status quo, that appeals to such a broad swath of the self-identified right and centre — classical liberals, neoconservative reactionaries, the alt-right, the anti-politically correct and, yes, some Nazis all love Peterson.

He is revered by the anti“social justice warrior” crowd because he’s able to perfectly encapsulate what they’ve been feeling so viscerally in the language of academia, while simultaneously discrediting the rest of academia.

You don’t have to engage with postmodernists, socialists or Marxists because they are wrong, Peterson tells his followers.

When you’re arguing with a socialist, you’re arguing with

U OF T / FLICKR

Marxists aren’t just wrong, University of Toronto prof Dr. Jordan Peterson said. They’re bad people.

someone who is “murderous and genocidal,” and who would be more than happy to fill our streets with blood if it meant winning the ideological war — “the precise antithesis of good.”

“Postmodernists don’t believe in facts,” he said. They are motivated by hatred, not compassion, and they see truth as an obstacle to overcome before implementing their sick agenda.

Peterson’s teachings excuse his followers not only from the burden of argument, but from reflection — for instance, on the societal structures that put white men at the top of nearly every systemic hierarchy.

Structural racism is brushed aside — people prefer “the familiar to the novel”; disparate hiring rates for men and women come down to biology; and any oppression you might feel should be outweighed by thankfulness that you live in a wealthy nation.

“Postmodernists have zero, zero, zero gratitude,” Peterson said. “It’s all, ‘Oh my god, I’m oppressed.’ Of course you’re oppressed, but you’re not oppressed by the patriarchy, my god.”

Peterson finishes his lectures with a bow on top, in case you had any doubts: “and that’s that.”

LET’S TALK ABOUT WHITE PRIVILEGE Toward the end of the night, Peterson announced that he’d like to talk about white privilege, which elicited a “yesss” from a solid portion of the crowd. Some applauded.

There was a woo.

The thing about white privilege, Peterson said, is that it doesn’t exist.

Well, it does, but there are many types of privilege — the privilege of being young, old, male, female, black, white — and who’s to say which ones are more important than others?

There’s no evidence that being a man grants you more privileges than being a woman, he said.

“Women live about eight years longer. They’re multi-orgasmic.”

(In North America, women only live about four years longer. They’re also far more likely to be paid less, married off as children, and raped.)

Further, it’s racist to point out white privilege because racism, as Peterson sees it, is painting one racial group with the same brush.

“That’s what racism is — there’s no other way of defining it!” he said.

Peterson didn’t address the definition of racism most academics agree on, that being a set of systemic and institutional functions which promote the continued dominance of a particular race.

This is Peterson’s favourite rhetorical play. Once you define the “other” as evil, bloodthirsty tyrants, you leave no room for any definitions they propose. Anything your opponent says becomes an extension of Pol Pot’s ideology, and we all know how that turned out, don’t we?

It paints your opponents into a corner: they can accept the wisdom you are willing to dispense, or they can live a savage life, untethered by morality.

It makes you a hero, and it makes them easy to dismiss.

BEWARE THE NEO-MARXISTS On the bus ride home, I overheard a young man speaking to his partner with increasing agitation about the “leftists” on campus.

He echoed Peterson’s assertion that neo-Marxists are actuated solely by contempt for the rich, not love for the working class.

They’re all the same, he said.

He squared up against an imagined foe.

“You’re against individuality,” he spat. “You’re against business owners employing people, which is the basis of Western civilization.”

His partner listened politely.

“I don’t want any young person to grow up to be a leftist. They’re degenerates to society.” U

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WE’RE TURNING 100 NEXT YEAR. LET’S TAKE A LOOK BACK.

Saturday, November 6, 1946 — How times have changed!

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

8

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY | from the archives | 9 Tuesday, November 19, 1946

OPINIONS

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

EDITOR EMMA HICKS

STUDY ABROAD //

10

ADVICE //

Mind your mind: Midterm season — a time when students’ tears fall as hard as the rain

GLASGOW UNIVERSITY OF ART / FLICKR

“You know we just got Tim Horton’s in Glasgow… it’s the greatest.”

Their Campus: Finding friends in Glasgow Jusneel Mahal Contributor

Before arriving at the University of Glasgow for my semester abroad, I talked to many former exchange students — I was curious if they befriended locals, traveled or made lifelong friends while living in a foreign city.

Most students I talked to were going on exchange with friends, or found students from UBC who were also attending the same school.

Yet some told me that they never socialized with locals or saw their flatmates, and the only friends they had for the semester were Netflix and a cheap bottle of wine.

I had no friends from UBC studying abroad at Glasgow and I didn’t meet one person at the orientation who was even going to the same university as me. I accepted the fact that I may be spending a lot of alone time during my stay in Scotland. But that was fine, because I’d travel and roam around the UK by myself. It was time for me to become more independent, plus friends can be so overrated at times — who needs to be around people when you can be alone in your room in Scotland chowing down on some haggis?

Finally, September 3 rolled around and I arrived at my flat in Glasgow. There I was, alone in my room unpacking my suitcase, ready to start my independent adventures in Scotland when I suddenly heard a knock on my door. The next thing I know I’m at dinner with 15 other exchange students planning our weekend trips.

Who knew that only a few weeks later I’d be traveling to Dublin and all over Scotland with friends from different parts of the world? I was astonished at how friendly everyone was — it felt like

we were all in first year again, on our best behaviour because we just wanted people to hang out with.

Our accommodation building was filled with freshman and locals who were fascinated by the exchange students — many hadn’t met a non-British student before.

Meeting people of different nationalities, hearing about their home countries and their perceptions of Canadians is so fascinating to me. Everyone assumes I am American at first, but when they hear that I am Canadian their eyes light up.

“Oh no way, that’s amazing, I always wanted to go to Canada!

You know we just got Tim Horton’s in Glasgow… it’s the greatest,” is what 98 per cent of local Scottish people say to me — or something along those lines.

Studying abroad can be a strange experience — you quickly build a tight bond with the people you just met in September, you see them every day and are stuck in a foreign city with them for four months. Your past is irrelevant. Nobody knew that you existed before they met you and in a way, you can be anybody you want to be.

But once the semester is over, everyone moves back to their home countries and their local friends and family to continue on living their normal lives. We all know there may be a strong chance that we will never see one another again, but that’s what makes this experience so special — for a short time a group of strangers from different parts of the world experience epic adventures and create memories that will last a lifetime. U Jusneel Mahal is a fourth-year student studying sociology.

“If you do something different, chances are that you will see something different.”

Peggy Liu Contributor

It’s hard to keep your chin up when it feels like there’s no end to the studying, the paper-writing and the project-making. It’s even harder when you’re also working, volunteering, organizing extracurricular activities and maintaining some semblance of a social life on the side. You’re over-worked and overwhelmed… maybe to the point that you’re past caring about deadlines and grades.

Maybe you’re so exhausted you’ve stopped caring about anything in general — even yourself.

Something that has worked for me when I find myself slipping into that grey, apathetic place is doing the opposite of what I usually do. I know, it sounds entirely counter-productive to just stop focusing on school during this time — I’m aware it also requires more energy than you have — but let me explain.

When you are keeping to the same schedule every week, or even every day, it becomes a habit. When something becomes a habit, you wind up mechanically going through motions. You stop thinking actively because you know more or less what to expect throughout your day. Let me guess, it’s probably along the lines of go to class, go to work, go home, study — in other words, survive the day — then sleep and repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

Break that pattern.

This is one way that depression finds its way into your head. When you let your time and energy be dictated by your schedule, by things outside of your control, you stop being an active participant in your life. This is how you become disenchanted with your surroundings, because you’re so focused on going through the motions to finish each task and get through each day. Before you fall into that hole, force yourself to do something different.

Surprise yourself. Even if you need to muster every last drop of energy, go for a jog by the beach at the end of the day. Even if it takes you longer before you can hit your bed, take a different or new route home. Even if you don’t have that much time before your next class, have your coffee to stay at a café and people-watch for a few minutes.

If you do something different, chances are that you will see something different, maybe even something new. It might not be world-altering, but a change of pace and environment will stimulate your mind just enough to wake up from the monotony of your day-today schedule. It might not make you feel wholly better, especially since doing these things won’t change the fact that you still have a million tasks to finish, but it might keep you from descending too deeply into apathy.

FILE STEPHANIE WU

If you find that you are able to then do something bigger. Have a night out with your friends — or have a night in instead, if you’re used to going out all the time. Find a new recipe and cook it, check out a new restaurant, plan a short day-trip for the weekend, take up a dance class, go to a concert — do something you don’t usually do.

It will shake you out of your rigid day-to-day pattern and perhaps rejuvenate you enough for when you return to your studies.

It’s hard to break established habits and routines, especially during a time when your brainpower is already depleted. Just remember that how you feel won’t change, much less get better, if you don’t put in the effort. So if you feel like you are struggling to find the good things during this time of high stress, be brave enough to put yourself before that exam or paper you need to write. Make something good happen for yourself — just for long enough remind yourself that there are other things, better things, waiting for you outside the classroom, your workplace or even the confines of your own bedroom. Even if you can’t see or remember them, they’re there. U The authors of this column are not mental health professionals. If you need additional support, please contact Student Health Services, Sexual Assault Support Centre and/or the Wellness Centre. In an emergency, call 911.

FROM THE BLOG

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

EDITOR EMMA HICKS

11

HUMOUR //

99 things to do at UBC: Stealing Santa’s bowtie is no easy feat Tristan Wheeler Senior Staff Writer

#85 – Meet Santa Ono As you may know, Santa Ono is the president of our university. Setting up the meeting was disconcerting: his people kept using terms like “request an audience” and referred to him solely as “He Who Wears the Bowtie.” When we finally got the confirmation email about our meeting, the email ended with a sentence in what our linguistic experts think is ancient Sumerian.

The day of the meeting was strange from the moment I woke up. Walking out of my house that morning, an auto-cannibalising fox whispered, “chaos reigns” to me from the shadows. On a similar note, the bus was at least 15 minutes late.

About 10 minutes before Ono was to arrive, the entire sky clouded over, and it started to rain. First it was just a light drizzle — but it soon turned torrential. The rain almost looked red from inside the Nest, which is kind of weird, but it was probably just my eyes messing with me.

I remember feeling a sharp shiver up my spine, and then moments later Ono was at the door of the Ubyssey office.

“Hi, I’m Santa!” he said.

IYANU OWOLABI

I had to reign Ono in from taking his own photos of the office.

#86 – Take a Selfie with Santa Ono Now I only had a certain amount of time with Ono, but he seemed to just sort of go off the rails.

He was obviously very excited to be here, but maybe too excited.

Within one minute of being in the office he had lapped the place about four times and had spoken to all twelve people present;

covering each one’s childhood, university experience and plans after graduating. I was able to wrangle him and take this quick photo. #87 – Try to steal his bowtie This was the most important thing about this meeting; we had constructed a large plan

that involved a trapdoor, a fake chef and a burlap sack, but this was apparently the only time in history that Ono decided to not wear a bowtie. I had to improvise.

I had to pull off the impossible: I had to steal a bowtie from a man that’s not even wearing a bowtie.

My mind was racing. Maybe I could do this as a philosophical exercise? Sort of a, “he’s not

wearing one therefore I already stole it.” No, that’s a lame excuse.

Maybe because the objective is to only “try” to steal his bowtie I’ve already done it! I mean I tried by setting up this meeting, so that likely counts, right! Right?

By the time I had reached a conclusion, everyone, including Ono, was gone, and it was 11 at night. U

FOR ALL YOU FOODIES //

Club Profiles: The most delicious clubs on campus Centre on Fridays and help decrease food waste by filling up on a nutritious, by-donation meal made with excess produce.

ROOTS ON THE ROOF Head up to the roof of the Nest and check out the community garden where Roots on the Roof grows its sustainable produce. Get dirty and volunteer in the garden, or attend a workshop to learn more about sustainable food systems. The club also hosts a community event at the end of the harvest season, Lights on the Roof, to celebrate how food brings us together.

UBC FOOD SCIENCE CLUB

“It can be difficult to find energy to make something more complicated than cereal for dinner.”

Emma Livingstone Staff Writer

week, there’s a club here to meet your food needs.

As a student balancing school, work and other responsibilities, it can be difficult to find energy to make something more complicated than cereal for dinner. As we all know too well, the food scene on campus gets old fast. Fortunately, there are plenty of student clubs to let you expand your palate or eat healthier. Whether you live off ramen or meal prep five days a

UBC FOOD SOCIETY Let out your inner foodie with the UBC Food Society. They organize food crawls that allow you to try the best restaurants in Vancouver.

They also hold cooking classes and events where food is brought for you to try, including their annual dessert tasting night. Never get stumped on which restaurant to go

FILE ROHINA DASS

to again — with Food Society, you’ll have the inside knowledge on all the best places.

budget. So, unleash your inner chef and never settle for packaged ramen again.

UBC COOKING CLUB

SPROUTS

If you think it’s time to become a “real adult” and learn how to cook something outside of the microwave, then the UBC Cooking Club is here for you. Their events will teach you basic cooking techniques as well as healthy, tasty recipes to make on a student

Sprouts may be temporarily closed for renovations. But, don’t worry because the student-run club is still around to promote affordable, sustainably-produced food with their café, Seedlings, as well as their Community Eats program.

Stop by the Engineering Students

Play with your food for science at the UBC Food Science Club. This club lets you explore the science behind your food and the chemicals that make it delicious. It hosts tours of processing plants and food experiments where you can learn how to scientifically pair wine and cheese, how to brew beer and how to make your favourite baked goods.

UBC BREWING CLUB Forgo the Budweiser and become a craft beer enthusiast with the UBC Brewing Club. They have all the tools and expertise available to help you brew your own moonshine during their Sunday brewing sessions. The club also organizes tours of local breweries and beer tastings so you can connect with the hip, local micro-brewing community. Cheers to that! U

SCIENCE

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

EDITOR NIVRETTA THATRA

THE GREAT UNKNOWN //

MEDIA //

Ubyssey Science’s guide to reputable science media

Science reporting should be accurate and evidence-based.

The radio telescope CHIME consists of four semi-cylinders, one of which is shown in the illustration.

LUA PRESÍDIO

Massive new radio telescope in Penticton has a 20-year mission Patrick Hatch Contributor

In the summer of 2017, after nine years of planning and building, scientists in Penticton stared out at their newly completed massive radio telescope. They saw what looked like four snowboarding pipes stacked side-by-side — not the long-armed light-reflecting telescope we’re used to seeing — resting next to BC’s rolling mountains.

What would you do after building the largest radio telescope in Canada?

“Celebrate,” agreed Dr. Mark Halpern, UBC physics and astronomy professor, and Iain Stewart, the president of the National Research Council of Canada.

Invite the Minister of Science to celebrate with you.

On September 7, the 8,000 square metre Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) was launched with the help of the Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan putting the last antennas into place. The University of Toronto, McGill, the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory and of course UBC teamed up to make CHIME into what UBC postdoc Dr. Kiyo Masui considers to be “by some measures … the most sensitive radio telescope ever built.”

Its aims are manyfold.

Throughout its lifetime, CHIME will be investigating questions in cosmology — the study of the universe’s evolution — as well as looking at dense rapidly rotating stars called pulsars, and a strange, more recently observed phenomena called fast radio bursts.

Within its chosen observational frequency range — the range that TVs and cellphones operate on — CHIME has significant advantages compared to other telescopes.

Between when the universe was a few hundred thousand years old and

12

the last four billion years, there exists a blank spot in our understanding of the growth of the universe that CHIME will be able to fill in.

“It’s as though you [only] have birth pictures of a kid and ... their history from when they were 20 to 45,” said Halpern, who has been with CHIME since its conception.

Within this missing childhood and adolescence is when, according to Halpern, the mysterious component of the universe known as dark energy started having a significant impact on the universe’s expansion.

Mapping that expansion with CHIME can tell us a lot.

“I can tell you about the physiology of [a] person based in their growth record,” said Halpern, continuing his analogy. “So I can tell you what the universe is made out of from its expansion history.”

In other aspects of astrophysics such as pulsars, CHIME will be playing a less leading, though important role.

Pulsars are dense remnants of massive stars. What makes them “pulse” is the fact that they emit beams of intense radiation from their magnetic poles as well as rotate with periods as low as a millisecond.

For these reasons, astronomers see pulsars as blips of high-intensity radiation when their magnetic poles point toward us, followed by lowintensity radiation when they’re not.

This pattern of high and low signals is so consistent that pulsars make for excellent clocks with enough precision to detect phenomena such as gravitational waves.

CHIME is able to detect how these waves affect the observed period of pulsars, giving astronomers a different way to study this phenomena compared to the Nobel Prize winning LIGO experiment.

Lastly, CHIME hopes to bring some light to the bizarre fast radio bursts. These bursts are very inconsistent millisecond spurts of high-intensity radio signals from

an unknown origin. They can come from as far as halfway across the visible universe.

Not much is known about fast radio bursts, since only a few dozen have been reported. CHIME hopes to raise that number significantly.

The CHIME fast radio burst detection rate is estimated to be between two and 50 bursts per day, giving researchers plenty more data to figure out the mysteries behind these events.

It’s important to note that the CHIME experiment is on a somewhat tight timeframe.

In approximately 20 years, the frequency range required to make its cosmological measurements will be filled with the signals from digital TV. Even after CHIME’s heydays are gone, the experiment will still have an impact.

Aspects of CHIME will be “a model for how to build [radio telescopes] going forward,” said Masui. He considers the experiment as part of a long history of Canadian physics experiments “that are the best at doing the thing they’re designed to do and cost much, much less than their competitors.”

With the last antenna being installed and the first set of data being taken only roughly two months ago, the CHIME collaboration has a lot of challenges ahead.

For those hurdles and for anyone else doing a large experiment that seemingly takes forever to work, PhD student and CHIME affiliated scientist Deborah Good has some advice: “I recommend hobbies with short turnaround times to success.”

Good’s hobbies of sewing and swing dancing have gotten her through a masters and part of a PhD on CHIME. The collective morale of the CHIME team will keep them going as the telescope collects data that will further cement our narrative and understanding of the universe. U

FILE JERRY YIN

Isabel Jankowski Contributor

HOW FAR IS THE INFORMATION FROM ITS PRIMARY SOURCE?

Science is a field based on truth and objectivity, and we would hope that the information we’re fed through journals and news sites is evidencebased, rather than ideologically biased. The sad fact is that lots of popular science reporting is either over-hyped, filled with technical jargon or just plain wrong.

With so many ideologically driven news platforms just a click away, how do we know if what we are reading is true? Here are some thoughts to keep in mind when evaluating the credibility of your next science feed.

Remember that childhood game “telephone”? It should remind you that the further information gets passed along, the farther away it tends to be from the truth. Try to find articles that are as close as possible to the primary research.

The primary research written by the academics themselves, or articles with interviews with relevant researchers, will have the most reliable information you can find.

WHAT IS YOUR SOURCE? There is a fine line between science reporting and science propaganda. With so much competition in the world of journalism, it is not uncommon for science journalists to use popular ideologies to support facts — or vice versa.

Certain news sites are notorious for this — twisting the truth in their favor, or over-exaggerating reality just for a few extra views.

Huffington Post, Fox News and The New York Times are only a few of the mainstream sources commonly guilty of this. For quality science reporting, Science, Economist and The Atlantic are generally reliable.

They even delve a bit deeper into technical details.

If science isn’t your forté and you’re simply looking for some basic, yet credible, mainstream tech news, Vox or The Guardian should do the trick.

WHAT IS THEIR SOURCE? More often than you would expect, science journalists turn to big names — like celebrities or CEOs — for information and advice. Public involvement in science communication is not inherently wrong by any means, but sources who have not been trained in the sciences tend to lack evidence, or are biased towards their respective industries and causes. Whenever possible, articles supported by hard data and academic researchers are usually a better choice.

IS IT ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? More often than not, articles with clickbaity titles are vastly overhyped. They tend to draw dramatic conclusions based on one or two studies, not providing readers with a realistic view of their potential implications.

As sentimental beings, we are naturally drawn to those stories that capture our imagination, and leave us with a sense of awe. But just like clickbaity headlines, these types of awe-inducing articles are often there just for buzz. As awesome and mind-boggling as science can be, don’t be fooled by writers over-sensationalizing their topic and drowning out the hard facts with fluffy anecdotes.

An article from the Daily Mail, for example, claimed that our love for decaffeinated coffee has damaged our ozone layer, and delayed its repair for up to 30 years.

But in reality, this article was based on a single study that showed the impacts of a particular chemical that used to be used in decaf coffee — among other products — in the 1970s. The primary research wasn’t even centered on coffee. Slightly over-dramatic, no?

THINK FOR YOURSELF You may not be a professor with 20 years of research on your back, but neither are most science writers.

If something doesn’t make sense to you, odds are that you are not the only one with questions. Critical thinking is essential in science, so don’t be afraid to challenge what you’re fed. Find more reliable sources, think critically and find your most trustworthy science. U

SPORTS+REC

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

EDITOR LUCY FOX

13

SWEEP FOR THE SEVENTH: WOMEN’S FIELD HOCKEY HOISTS MCCRAE CUP AT HOME WORDS BY SALOMON MICKO BENRIMOH, MITCHELL BALLACHAY AND LUCY FOX

It was a historic weekend for the women’s field hockey team, as they claimed their seventh straight McCrae Cup as U Sports national champions — on home turf as well.

It’s the women’s field hockey program’s 19th national title since 1978.

Facing off in a best-of-three tournament against the Ontario University Athletics’ champions, the York University Lions, the Canada West giants had a fight on their hands if they hoped to keep their streak going.

In the Ontario league, the Lions had dominated their opponents, heading into the national championships with an 11-1-0 record. The ’Birds similarly, had cleaned up in the West with a 7-0-1 record.

UBC was also balancing a new roster makeup this year with seven rookies joining the lineup and with just six senior players — fourth- and fifth-years — anchoring the team.

That said, the fresh faces of UBC’s team came up big during the tournament and the team continued their commanding playing style, ultimately sinking the York Lions impressive winning ship and getting their hands on the McCrae Cup once again.

GAME ONE The Thunderbirds didn’t disappoint in the first game of this year’s championships. In what was easily the most difficult game they’ve played all year, the ’Birds snuck away with a well fought 2-0 victory against the Lions.

Conditions for the game weren’t what the team is used to either, as the temperature dipped below freezing by the 6 p.m. start.

“Conditions weren’t ideal and each team had to battle it out.

Thankfully we were able to come through with the win,” said UBC forward Abbey MacLellan, who was awarded player of the game in the match.

Throughout the first half, play stayed in the middle of the field with both teams battling it out — possession was constantly changing. Near the end of the half, the ’Birds started to make a push for a last-minute goal against the fatigued York players. In the dying seconds of the 36th minute, UBC’s Niki Best would break the goal drought, pushing through to the net before finding the back of the goal and giving the ’Birds a 1-0 lead.

Best’s last-minute goal jumpstarted the ’Birds, who took control of the game in the second half.

“We were able to stick to our game plan and work together, especially once we got that first goal it really brought the momentum up,” MacLellan said.

That momentum continued to increase for UBC despite some close calls, including a York drive right at the goal that left many thinking they had scored, before the umpire waved it off for not having crossed the goal line.

UBC’s added pressure in the second half finally paid off with just under five minutes to go in the game.

With MacLellan and Sophie Jones playing their way through York’s defence, Thunderbird rookie Jordyn Faiczak would be the beneficiary of their work as she got on the ball and hurtled it past York’s keeper to assure UBC the opening game win.

UBC also played a strong defensive game, fending off numerous counterattacks and dangerous corners from York throughout the game. In net, UBC keeper Harris recorded yet another shutout — the team’s fifth of the season.

“I think our defence [from] the whole team was really good this whole game. Starting with our forwards, I think our press was really good. Our defence did a really good job once we got into the defensive edge of the circle,” Harris said.

GAME TWO

Thunderbird Jordyn Faiczak gets ready to make a pass upfield.

PATRICK GILLIN

After shutting out the Lions 2-0 on Friday night, the team entered Saturday afternoon’s game with an opportunity to close out the series in just two games.

With the championship title just one game away, the Thunderbirds looked comfortable in the opening minutes of gameplay. They played patiently, despite the weight of the McCrae Cup on their shoulders. UBC’s possession was solid early on as they focused on speed, aggressive counterattacks and spreading out the field with their passing game.

As the first half carried on, the ’Birds continued to put pressure on the Lions as they persistently pushed play up the wings with players in support of every rush.

The team was able to generate quality scoring opportunities with crisp passes into the Lions’ crease, but nothing found the net early.

York’s frustration was evident as UBC hemmed them in their own end throughout the opening half.

The Lions were limited to long breakout passes that were easily broken up by UBC’s defense, and they were also unable to sustain a substantial attack.

Late in the half, the ’Birds would be rewarded with a penalty corner following some strong counterattacking pressure, and they capitalized on the opportunity.

Fifth-year defender Sophie Jones fired a low shot off of the inbound pass to beat Lions goalie Brianna Fequet through traffic.

The ’Birds would have an opportunity to double their lead as the game’s clock expired for halftime. On another penalty

UBC rookie Thora Rae moves into open space on the field.

corner, a solid shot was fired at the Lions net – but the ball would be redirected wide, bringing a close to the first half.

The Lions entered the second half with more fight than they could muster in the first, but UBC remained tough and patient — the half swayed in the Thunderbirds’ favour. The few opportunities that York generated were comfortably turned aside by UBC’s goalkeeper Harris. She would go on to post back-to-back shutouts in their series sweep.

UBC would add to their lead later in the half as Sarah Keglowitsch fired home a back-handed shot from the top of the crease to beat the Lions’ goaltender in the 49th minute. That would be the final goal scored in the team’s season as they held on to win 2-0 and solidify their seventh straight McCrae Cup win.

If there were a way for a team to comfortably finish an undefeated season, it would be the way the T-Birds did. Though the series with the Lions was tight in score, it was clear that the ’Birds had the upper hand overall and York’s difficulties with giving away straight corners caused them trouble. With that advantage, UBC secured their seventh straight McCrae Cup. “The team worked really hard,” said Harris, U Sports field hockey player of the year. “With the excitement surrounding nationals, it’s easy to get off track, but I think the team did a really, really good job of sticking to the game plan

PATRICK GILLIN

and just working hard the whole way through.”

Beyond the national title, UBC’s roster also earned some individual hardware on the night, starting with a tourament most valuable player award to Keglowitsch.

Looking to U Sports specific awards, Thunderbirds goalkeeper Harris, midfielder and captain Keglowitsch, and forwards MacLellan and Margaret Pham all earned a spot on U Sports AllCanadians roster.

Harris was also awarded the Liz Hoffman Award for player of the year after earning both player of the year and goalkeeper of the year in Canada West as well.

So the weekend was a successful one for the ’Birds though they say goodbye to three veterans who played out their final year of eligibility with the team that weekend: captains Sophie Jones and Keglowitsch and midfielder Meghan Hayden. They parted ways with the team on a high-note though, having won the national championship in every year they played with UBC. And they can leave knowing the team has some strong players coming up the ranks with the likes of Jordyn Faiczak, Thora Rae, Hannah Eborall and MacLellan putting in strong showings over the weekend.

The ’Birds have more to come.

We’ll just have to wait until next season to see if the legacy will live on. U

SPORTS+REC

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY

EDITOR LUCY FOX

PLAYOFFS //

Thunderbirds win Canada West gold with electrifying comeback

14

Fixtures Sport

Home

Score

Away

Friday, November 3 Basketball (W) Calgary

64-35

UBC

Olamide Olaniyan Staff Writer

Soccer (W)

Trinity Western

3-0

UBC

A two-goal deficit against a dominant rival in a playoff final is a hard place to be, and a harder place to come back from. This weekend, the Thunderbirds beat those odds.

On Saturday, November 4, the UBC men’s soccer team stunned the Trinity Western University (TWU) Spartans and roused their fans with a 3-2 overtime victory in the Canada West playoff final. With the win, UBC earned a berth to the U Sports national championships.

The first half started with many close opportunities for UBC, but a failure to connect in a lot of key moments meant that they came up short. Still, the ’Birds held their defensive line and bombarded the Spartans’ goal with attacks.

Things went wrong for the ’Birds as the first half drew to a close. In the 45th minute, a free kick from Spartans forward Leighton Johnson found teammate Vito Poletto in the UBC box. Poletto, unmarked, polished the strike off.

Poletto returned the favour in the second half when he set up Johnson for a goal of his own in the 59th minute. “[The players] were gutted, they were disappointed, to give up a goal, right before half … but we reminded them again, of the number of times that we’ve been down and come back,” said UBC head coach Mike Mosher.

Despite the setback, the Thunderbirds remained calm, and kept attacking the Trinity Western goal. They were down but not out.

The T-Birds found their groove later in the second half. In the 69th, UBC forward Zach Verhoven weaved between two Spartans defenders in the left corner of their half and let loose a cross into the box. UBC forward Kyle Sohi connected first-year forward

Field Hockey (W)

UBC

2-0

York

Volleyball (W)

UBC

3-1

Calgary

Basketball (M) Calgary

100-76

UBC

Volleyball (M)

UBC

3-2

Calgary

Soccer (M)

UBC

3-1

Thompson Rivers

Saturday, November 4

UBC men’s soccer celebrates their Canada West win.

Victory Shumbusho with the ball, and Shumbusho scored the T-Bird’s first goal.

“We kept saying, ‘we need one.

We get one, it changes the game.’

Sometimes you get that goal and the tendency is to sit back,” said Mosher. “No, I think you gotta keep getting pressure higher up the field and not get bunkered in, and that’s kind what happened for them, for a lot of the second half.”

Mosher gave some credit to two of his assistant coaches — David Henry and David Partridge — for the comeback.

“They were just [saying], ‘We’ve got to go for it. We’ve got to go three at the back. We’ve gotta change it. We’ve got to have our impact players who can score our goals for us in spots.’ So they sketched something up and we went with it.”

In the 80th, UBC defender Connor Guilherme scored the equalizer. He converted a superb cross from midfielder Kerman Pannu into a one-touch strike. The ‘Birds were back in the game.

PATRICK GILLIN

With both teams tied at 90 minutes, the game went into overtime. Mosher believed that these extra minutes of play would favor his side a little more. The ’Birds had won the day before in a decisive 3-1 victory against the Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack while the Spartans had gone into a tiring overtime battle against the University of Alberta Golden Bears.

In the 97th minute, the T-Birds took their first lead of the game.

Guilherme scored a header off of a corner kick — his second goal of the match and the game winner.

“I am so happy for [Connor Guilherme]. The injuries that the kid has suffered…” said Mosher. “In all my years, he’s maybe the hardest working player I’ve ever had and I couldn’t be happier to see that kid get rewarded with an all star recognition, two goals tonight, a championship.

“Gosh, if anybody deserves it, he does.”

Another standout on the night was UBC goalkeeper Chad

Soccer (W)

UBC

2-1

MacEwan

Rugby (M)

Meraloma RC

17-70

UBC

Football

UBC

28-21

Regina

Field Hockey (W)

UBC

2-0

York

Basketball (W) Calgary

59-62

UBC

Volleyball (W)

3-0

Calgary

Basketball (M) Calgary

92-74

UBC

Volleyball (M)

UBC

3-1

Calgary

Soccer (M)

UBC

3-2

Trinity Western

UBC

Other Results to Note UBC men’s rowing won gold at the Canadian University Rowing Championship for the third time in four years this weekend. The women’s team finished in third.

Bush, who kept the ’Birds’ lead intact in crucial moments. This was especially true in overtime when he saved a point-blank shot from the Spartan defender Caleb Johnson.

For the rest of game, the Thunderbirds held their ground and defended hard until the final whistle. It paid off — when the whistle came, the ’Birds were the Canada West champions.

Next week, the ’Birds will be going toe-to-toe against other Canadian university heavyweights in the U Sports national championships in Kamloops, BC. Mosher has seen the competition and knows it is going to be “a tough tournament.”

“Every year, it seems like the tournament gets tougher and tougher. It’s going to be stiff competition… There’s going to be no easy games,” said Mosher. U

PLAYOFFS //

Football routs Rams, heads to Hardy Cup final Bill Situ Staff Writer

After a back-and-forth match up against the Regina Rams this weekend, the UBC football team is headed to the Hardy Cup finals — they pulled out a 28-21 win to continue their playoff run.

“We survived it,” said UBC head coach Blake Nill. “[The Rams] did a good job most of the time. You’re looking at a program with quality athletes and quality coaching.”

It was also the ’Birds’ second straight win against the Rams. Last week, UBC defeated Regina 44-15 in their final regular season game.

“We deserve a lot of credit for beating them two times in a row.

That’s a feat and we’re going to remain positive with that,” said Nill.

Regina was first to get onto the scoreboard early in the game with a team safety, until UBC responded with a 66-yard play by receiver Alex Morrison for the first touchdown.

Only minutes after his first touchdown, Morrison delivered again for the ’Birds, catching a four-yard reception from quarterback Michael O’Connor at the end zone. With a minute remaining, UBC got a safety during a Regina punt, taking a 16-2 lead by the end of the first frame.

At the start of the second quarter, the ’Birds picked up another touchdown, this time by receiver Trivel Pinto. Both teams then each recorded a field goal to make the score 26-5 in favour of UBC. In the final seconds before halftime, UBC conceded another safety after picking up two simultaneous penalties that put them at their own one-yard line.

One of those penalties went to star running back Ben Cummings, resulting in his ejection.

In the third frame, the ’Birds had their second team safety for a gain of two more points. As the period neared the midway mark, Regina recorded its first touchdown of the game by Frankie Gray.

With the ’Birds ahead 28-14 after three intermissions, the Rams opened the scoring in the fourth with a touchdown by Simon Atlee, who made a 46-yard play to narrow UBC’s lead to 28-21.

“We had a couple of breakdowns.

A couple of long runs really hurt us. It’s disappointing giving up the long runs,” said Nill.

Trailing by a touchdown, Regina was desperate to equalize the game towards the end. Still, despite many close scoring attempts, Regina was unable to produce another touchdown, allowing UBC the win at 28-21.

“We couldn’t make plays and their defence was timing us. They were phenomenal,” said Morrison.

“We got more points than [Regina] at the end of the day, so that’s all you play for.”

With the win against Regina, UBC has advanced to the Hardy Cup finals, where they will travel on the road to play against the first-seeded Calgary Dinos next weekend. U

The Thunderbirds set up for a snap just inside the 30-yard line.

SAMAN SHARIATI

NOVEMBER 7, 2017 TUESDAY | SPORTS + REC | 15 NAMES TO NOTE //

Unfinished business: Conor Morgan has a score to settle in Canada West Adam McQueen Staff Writer

Late in the third quarter, Conor Morgan slips out of a high screen and steamrolls towards the basket, urgently pointing at the rim in hopes of receiving a spectacular alley-oop lob. Instead, he receives a crafty backdoor pass, yet finishes the play in equally extravagant fashion — soaring for a massive two-handed slam that fans in War Memorial Gym have become accustomed to witnessing.

While others may revel in the crowd’s reaction to such a highlight reel play, Morgan remains focused and calm as he flies down the court.

He drifts out to the three-point arc as point guard A.J. Holloway drives into the lane, then proceeds to knock down an incredulous threepointer while seemingly fading backwards into the sixth row.

The commentators are struggling to contain their excitement after Morgan provides another quick jam — at this point both players and fans alike are anticipating what he has in store next. Morgan immediately obliges — nonchalantly stepping into a three-point shot from Stephen Curry range, sending the crowd into raptures and putting the game to bed.

In just over a minute of play, Morgan demonstrated his unique jack-of-all-trades skill set that earned him Canada West Outstanding Player of the Year for 2016/17.

GROWING PAINS People often use terms such as “heat-checking” and “warming up” when a player begins to drain basket after basket — however, in Morgan’s case, that’s the usual.

Morgan remains ice cold as he torches the defense with an array of offensive moves that have proven unstoppable at the collegiate level. Able to handle and pass the ball like a guard yet remain an imposing defensive presence in the paint, the Victoria native attests his unique skillset to a sudden growth spurt early in his basketball career.

“Honestly, the biggest thing for me was when I was in high school I was a point guard.” said Morgan. “Growing four to five inches in my grade 12 year, that summer changed me into a different player.”

As Morgan adjusted to his new frame upon entering UBC, it was clear he had to add different facets to his game in preparation for his imminent positional change.

“In my first year I was just a three-point shooter, a second guard on the perimeter. My game [in my first year] was strictly shooting.”

Morgan notes. “Working out with [Coach Hanson], I really developed that inside game. It didn’t come until that national year in 2016 actually.”

Since then, Morgan hasn’t looked back. Combining the guard skills of his youth to torch

Morgan dunks the ball in front of home fans.

larger defenders on the outside with a matured post up game that bullies smaller opposition, Morgan emerged as a matchup nightmare on the court this past season.

“The game slowed down a lot for me,” Morgan humbly acknowledged when reflecting upon his dominant season. “I can do a lot of things other 6’9” guys can’t.”

LASTING WOUNDS The 2016/17 T-Birds were a reflection of their star player — a unique cocktail composed of strength, athleticism and outside shooting as they marched to a 17-1 record through the regular season.

Morgan proved to be the straw that stirred the drink, pouring in 22.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game. Those numbers alone are impressive, however, only playing a hair over 25 minutes per game and shooting 40 per cent from three-point range offers a greater insight into how efficient Morgan truly was.

As February rolled around, the ’Birds and Morgan were cruising into playoff season buoyed by an impressive 11 game win-streak.

However, the most vivid sports moments are those of underdogs defying the odds — the unpredictability of sport is what makes it enthralling. Last season, UBC were cast into the role of Goliath, succumbing to a

SALOMON MICKO BENRIMOH

first-round home series sweep by the Manitoba Bisons despite being heavy favourites. A severe ankle sprain suffered by Morgan only added to the playoff difficulties the ’Birds faced — ultimately, the series loss ended UBC’s dominant season in unceremonious fashion.

Morgan shies away from blaming the injury for the loss, but its impact was clear to see.

“It was truly the worst ankle sprain I’ve had in my life,” Morgan confessed.

After months of rehabilitation, he is back to write his final chapter this season and settle his score with Canada West.

ADDING TO THE REPERTOIRE Morgan returns to the Point Grey campus for his final year of eligibility with a wealth of experience, spending the summer in Taipei competing in the William Jones Cup with Team Canada and the FISU games with the U-23 national squad.

“I saw a completely other side of basketball. Pro basketball is a lot different than university basketball, in regard to guys fending for themselves,” Morgan said.

“It was more of a showcase than a tournament, it was really an eye-opening experience,” he explained. “I’m happy I did it, but I’m also happy I did stay at UBC for another year.”

The resounding success Morgan achieved winning the Jones Cup along with some impressive performances at the FISU games seems to have only strengthened a player already oozing with confidence.

NAVIGATING NEW WATERS Morgan will be thrust into unfamiliar territory as he returns to UBC without longtime teammate Jorden Jensen-Whyte, who has exceeded his eligibility.

Despite this, Morgan hopes to bring his best friend’s leadership intangibles to the team this year.

“His demeanour doesn’t change, that’s what I took from him. It’s pretty crazy seeing how he conducts himself. He always rises to the occasion,” Morgan praised.

Morgan is also quick to applaud two other veterans, Luka Zaharijevic and Phil Jalalpoor, for their early leadership during his national team absence.

“Luka has absolutely stepped up, he is our off-the-court leader for sure,” Morgan recognized.

“Phil Jalalpoor is absolutely stone cold — man, that guy’s shooting the living lights out.”

Despite the buzz surrounding his return to campus along with the influx of an impressive recruiting class, Morgan brushes off the notion of heightened

expectations for the upcoming year. Instead, the Mount Douglas product preaches the importance of consistent focus and intensity during the slog of a long season.

“The biggest focus this year is we have to go at it every game, we’re not a veteran savvy team like we were last year where we could turn it on and off,” Morgan warned. “We are so young.

“The biggest thing for me when rookies come in is who has a work ethic, who likes to compete and who really has energy. So the things I want to see from our rookies is that they want to come in and play basketball every single day. The first week back I’ve gone to the gym every single day at 7:30 a.m. just to see who is going to show up.”

BEYOND WAR MEMORIAL Morgan’s skillset alone makes professional basketball a distinct reality in his future, however it is the work ethic and commitment that he demonstrates which make him a truly special player.

“If you don’t have that external motor to really go and get things done by yourself, I mean you can be successful, but you are not going to be as successful as the next guy.”

All that is needed now to cap a sparkling university career is a national championship crown. U

16 | GAMES | TUESDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2017

COURTESY BESTCROSSWORDS.COM

COURTESY KRAZYDAD.COM

CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1 Carpeting calculation; 5 Strong Australian horse; 10 Retained; 14 Blackbird; 15 Start of a Dickens title; 16 “___ quam videri” (North Carolina’s motto); 17 Palmist’s words; 18 Fills to the gills; 19 Capone’s nemesis; 20 Peculiarity; 23 Crackpot; 24 ___ go bragh!; 25 Destroy hearing; 29 Opening word; 31 Where It.’s at; 32 Siouan speaker; 33 Plant grown chiefly for its leaves; 37 Jessica of “Dark Angel”; 40 Assn.; 41 Wings; 42 Carousel; 47 For shame!; 48 Yes, to Yves; 49 Disorder; 53 Sweet Spanish wine; 55 Nile nippers; 57 Simile center; 58 Narrowness; 61 Makes lace;

64 Gloomy, in poetry; 65 Don Juan’s mother; 66 Clearasil target; 67 Omit in pronunciation; 68 Horse hair; 69 Ed and Mel of baseball; 70 Units of force; 71 Cabinet dept.; DOWN 1 French cathedral city; 2 Free from danger; 3 Puts up; 4 Toward shelter; 5 Spendthrift; 6 Pong maker; 7 Caesar’s tongue; 8 Util. bill; 9 Remainder; 10 Nairobi’s nation; 11 Legal ending; 12 Letter addenda; 13 Your, to Yves; 21 Verne captain; 22 Maryland athlete, for short; 26 Young horse; 27 Europe’s highest volcano; 28 E or G, e.g.; 30 A long way off; 31 Breakfast brand; 34 ___ Arabian Nights;

35 Part of ETA; 36 Gentlewoman; 37 Kind of radio; 38 “Star Wars” princess; 39 Songwriter Jacques; 43 Hindu discipline; 44 Protected; 45 Referees; 46 American space agency; 50 Island in the South China Sea; 51 Ancient ascetic; 52 Rascal; 54 Church recesses; 55 ___ the hole; 56 Willow provision; 59 French airport; 60 Corona fruit; 61 Chinese “way”; 62 Do something; 63 Explosive stuff;

U

THE UBYSSEY

You’re doing great, kid.

Oct 31 Puzzle Answer:

COURTESY KRAZYDAD.COM

ANTHONY LABONTE