June 27, 2017

June 27, 2017 | VoLuME XCix | IssuE XXVII bringing back chef’s corner since 1918

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NEWS

CULTURE

OPINION

SCIENCE

SPORTS

New chair of CRWR program named

Bard on the Beach’s opener is dazzling

Letter: Cancelling the 480 is the most symplistic solution

Students win competition with rocket Cypress

UBC participates in annual Dragon Boat festival

THE UBYSSEY

LINE OF CREDITS UBC focuses on updating its course registration system, and students continue to utilize new ways to thwart it.

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JuNE 27, 2017 TUesDAY

your guidE To uBC EVENTS & pEoplE

events

2

our caMpus

Mining engineering student Veronica Knott strikes gold JuNE 22 - SpriNg 2019 in a different light: reflecting on northWest coast art @ moa presents more than 110 historical indigenous artworks frEE admiSSioN for STudENTS

July 14 To July 16 40th annual vancouver folK Music festival July 14 aT 1 p.m. To July 16 aT 11 p.m. @ JEriCho The 40th anniversary of this festival — special surprises are apparently planned! TiCkETS VariouS priCES ENgiNEErS CaNada

“The future is very bright for engineering.”

helen Zhou Staff writer

July 18 4 Your eYeZ onlY tour @ rogErS arENa with guests anderson .paak, Bas, J.i.d, & ari lennox TiCkETS STarTiNg aT $29.50

on the cover photo BY patrick gillin

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JuNE 27, 2017 | VolumE xCix| iSSuE xxVii

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Shortly after moving to Ontario earlier this spring, Veronica Knott’s new apartment was broken into — among her stolen possessions was the 2017 Gold Medal Student Award from Engineers Canada she had accepted just a few weeks ago.

Knott received the award for her work towards making engineering more inclusive and diverse. The award, considered the highest national student engineer award, is handed out by Engineers Canada, the national organization of the provincial and territorial associations that regulate the practice of engineering in Canada.

Fortunately for Knott, Engineers Canada has agreed to replace the stolen award.

“It’s kind of crazy — it’s surreal, it’s humbling,” said Knott. “The thing about student government is that you get really tired, you burn out. You can easily forget why you do these things, like, ‘this doesn’t matter, it’s just student government, this is stupid.’

“And then they do these interviews and you look back and ... it reminds you that you can make a difference.”

Indeed, the mining engineering student has had her hands in many aspects of student government, from her tenure as UBC Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) president, to being a former student representative on the UBC Board of Governors, to chairing several AMS committees.

In 2013, she chaired the National Conference on Women in Engineering, now known as the Conference on Diversity in Engineering. The following year, as EUS president, she started the tradition of the Iron Pin Ceremony for incoming first-year

engineering students to instill the importance of ethics and professionalism in the field early on.

Knott said that while her work has always had the mandate of achieving more diversity in engineering, there was a personal aspect to it.

“I’ve had an experience where I grew up with fantastic parents, a great high school and then I got to UBC and I felt welcomed,” said Knott. “But I saw that other people weren’t being as welcomed.”

That experience drove her to pursue a mandate focused on inclusivity in the EUS. “For me, it was a matter of ‘how can we make everyone feel like they can be an engineer?’ People should be able to decide what they want to do, but they should face no limitations. That’s just been my passion.”

Her passion extended to student experience as a whole and she served on the UBC Board of Governors where she was elected to advocate on behalf of students.

The experience, she said, was very different from being president of the EUS. “When you’re a student representative on the Board, your job is to represent the students — you don’t have a whole society behind you.” Nevertheless, she persisted and served on the Board for two years until her second term ended in May 2017.

“What I felt like I could do for students was really to just give them a strong voice about the value of student experience [in] conversations about mental health and student supports, and continuing the conversation about the issues of increasing tuition and impacts of the pure cost of living in Vancouver,” she said. “It’s about being a mouthpiece for issues that are important to students.”

All of her hard work hasn’t

come easy. Her grades took a toll and she struggled to find a worklife balance. She wrote in a post on LinkedIn, “Big change, gold medal change, isn’t made by one person.

It’s made by an army, an army of allies supporting, collaborating and dreaming. That’s when you make positive change.”

Her “army” includes people like UBC Associate Dean Elizabeth Croft, who nominated Knott for the Gold Medal Award, as well as current Board of Governors student representative Jeanie Malone, AMS President Alan Ehrenholz and Mark Bancroft, who were members of the EUS executive team when she was president.

Now, after six years at UBC, Knott is in Ontario working for Barrick Gold, the largest gold mining company in the world. She will be working for a year before returning to UBC to complete her mining engineering degree.

“I swear, the hardest thing I ever will do is graduate,” she said.

She hopes that after graduation she will be able to work for a company that supports and fosters diversity, especially because engineering is becoming increasingly valuable in Canada.

“It’s not about quotas and it’s not about numbers — it’s about saying that right now there are aspects of our society that tell women and minorities that they can’t be engineers,” she said.

“There’s going to be such a demand for engineers, especially in Canada, and the only way we’re going to be able to fill that demand is if we can be diverse.”

Knott also knows that her work towards inclusion won’t stop when she crosses the stage at the Chan Centre.

“The future is very bright for engineering. I’m excited to be part of a profession that is doing so much self reflection and dreams so big.” u

NEWS

June 27, 2017 tueSDAY

Editors samantha mccabe + ALEX NGUYEN

3

consultation //

School of Biomedical Engineering passes in Senate — with every student senator voting against Samantha McCabe News Editor

At the May 17 UBC Vancouver Senate meeting, a new School of Biomedical Engineering was proposed. When it came time to vote, it passed. But every one of the student senators voted against it.

“Every one [of the student senators] was against the biomedical engineering school proposal,” said Jakob Gattinger, a student senator and former EUS VP Academic — even without the whipping systems that caucuses sometimes have.

According to the supporting materials from the May meeting, the school will function as a centre for “education and training, research, and innovation in biomedical engineering, creating new knowledge, new academic and training programs, and fostering translation and innovation.” Standing within the faculties of applied sciences and medicine, the school would absorb the existing biomedical engineering graduate program as well as the Biomedical Research Centre.

However, one of the main concerns of student senators is that the other proposed component of the school — the undergraduate program of the discipline — did not receive the requisite approval. That program proposal was a major point of contention for both student senators and members of the EUS at the time, with an extensive report being prepared detailing their concerns — most notably, a program fee that some thought circumvented the spirit of the domestic tuition cap.

“So this was unconventional in that sense, that you’re going to the school before even all of your programs that you want to go into it are created,” explained Gattinger.

He attributed some of the rush that he sees in these actions to the expansion plans of applied sciences both from UBC and provincially.

According to UBC Public Affairs, a revised program proposal has already been sent back to the ministry.

Consultation concerns There has been general dissatisfaction from student bodies with the consultation process that occurred from February to March of this year for the school.

“When we were approached for the consultation, we were told it was a ‘pre-consultation,’ that they were just getting their ideas together at that stage,” said Gattinger. “Simply, the volume of information that was at Senate [at the May meeting] was not there during the consultation process.”

UBC’s statement on the matter stands in direct contrast to this, saying that the university “consulted extensively” with students prior to the Senate vote and subsequent approval of the school. The statement reads, “This consultation period included meetings with the Alma Mater Society, Graduate

file rowena kong

There has been general dissatisfaction from student representatives with the consultation that took place.

Student Society, Engineering Undergraduate Students and Medicine Undergraduate Students. Consultation also included a meeting with student senators in March and an online form that could be used to register any feedback or concerns.”

“We wanted to say very clearly [with this vote against] that we’re not going to put up with [inadequate consultation].”

— Ian Sapollnik, student senator

Said Ian Sapollnik, a student senator, of the “half-baked” proposal that student groups received for consultation, “The proposal that they got during their consultation wasn’t finished. So the reason there was no real AMS or EUS feedback was because they gave none, because they were waiting for a better proposal to come forward.”

For Sapollnik and Gattinger, their worries about a lack of consultation and credence given to the student opinion, already present from the biomedical engineering program process, have now been compounded.

“It wasn’t just about this proposal — it was an ongoing trend of inadequate consultation that we wanted to stop. We wanted to say very clearly [with this vote against] that we’re not going to put up with that,” said Sapollnik. He further clarified that the problem isn’t with students getting the required meetings — it’s about them being listened to.

“All of this upheaval” Only one faculty member has agreed to full-time employment (FTE) at the school as the prospective head. Several other faculty are at 20 per cent appointment, which means that they will devote 20 per cent of their time to the school.

During the meeting, a motion was put forward to waive the minimum FTE requirement for the School of Biomedical Engineering, which mandates 15 full-time faculty in place for the creation of the school. That vote passed.

A high amount of current turnover within the department also presented itself as a concern to student representatives.

“I think it’s just troubling to us [within the faculty],” said Gattinger as an engineering student. “There’s all of this upheaval: our dean is

leaving ... we’ll have an interim dean, we currently have an acting provost and we’ll have a new provost as of July 1, and those are the two senior administrators who will be ultimately responsible for the school.”

The roll call proposal During the May Senate meeting, student senators aired some of their main concerns.

At one point, Sapollnik put forward a motion to send the proposal back to the committee phase for reexamination and possible amendment. The idea behind the motion was that student concerns could be heard and potentially implemented through strong engagement over the summer — student senators were willing to support the proposal when it would come back to the Senate in September, but before then, they wanted “better process, more details given.”

For Sapollnik, the issue wasn’t that he would never support the program; it was the timing of the process that was the biggest issue.

The motion on the vote to return to committee failed.

Sapollnik later asked for a roll call vote to take down the names of each person voting and which way that they voted, a practice that doesn’t usually happen in Senate.

The motion to have that roll call vote failed.

“I think the biggest insult for me was that that [roll call vote] motion failed,” said Sapollnik. “I

can respect differences in opinion ... [but] for me, it crosses the line when we ask for a level of accountability that usually isn’t in Senate, and that failed as well.”

“We won’t know exactly how many people voted in favour [for the approval of the school], which seems ridiculous, but unfortunately that’s just the way it is,” said Gattinger.

The student senators specifically requested that their votes against were recorded in the minutes, a move that they hope will preserve their strong opinion moving forward.

“The school will be fine. I’m not concerned that the School will be a disaster. UBC as an institution is in good hands and has the mechanisms to do this well,” said Sapollnik on the experience. “For me, it was just a big learning lesson of knowing how student Senate caucus can have influence and how far we can take things and how well people listen to us.” u

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4 | news | TUESDAY June 27, 2017 TECH //

admin //

UBC dis-Connects and switches to Canvas platform

Alix Ohlin named new chair of creative writing program

Stephanie Noritz/Maclean’s

Samantha McCabe News Editor

file joshua medicoff

Connect has become notorious for its user-unfriendly layout and tendency to crash.

Joshua Azizi Staff Writer

UBC is replacing Connect with Canvas, a cloud-based learning management system designed by Instructure.

The switch will occur over a 15-month transition period where some courses will use the Canvas system while others will remain on Connect. By September 2018, all courses will be located on Canvas.

This decision came 10 months after UBC began their search for a new program to replace Connect.

Since the university’s contract with Blackboard Learn — the company that owns Connect — ends in 2019, Connect’s outdated interface and long history of usability issues gave UBC the incentive to look for another platform.

To decide on the system, UBC tested five courses with Canvas and five courses with Brightspace — a learning management system designed by DL — in the second semester of the 2017 winter term.

Canvas was then adopted as Connect’s official replacement after UBC reviewed feedback from lecturers and students in these test classes and researched other universities’ experiences with these programs.

What is Canvas?

In many ways, Canvas is similar to Connect as a learning management system. What distinguishes Canvas from its predecessor is that it’s significantly more user-friendly.

As a result, the reception to Canvas’s interface and design was very positive, according to Simon Bates – UBC’s senior advisor, teaching and learning and one of the sponsors in the project to replace Connect.

“We got feedback from students who were in these pilot courses and all of them indicated that the Canvas interface was much better than the interface in Connect,” he said. “It’s simpler, it’s cleaner and it’s easier to navigate.”

Beyond this accessibility, users can also access Canvas via mobile devices — a format that Connect did not accommodate for — and download additional tools and applications to the system.

“The mobile experience is actually pretty good,” said Bates.

“You can not just view things — you can actually contribute to discussions, you can take assignments and look at when your deadlines are due.”

What’s wrong with Connect?

Over its time serving UBC, Connect has become notorious for its user-unfriendly layout and tendency to crash. The system experiences frequent programming disruptions and undergoes scheduled maintenance on a very regular basis, as demonstrated in professor of geography Elvin Wyly’s anti-Connect document “Disconnect.”

“There were some severe limitations around Connect in terms of usability and the interface,” said Bates. “Certainly students who were on campus a few years ago would remember that Connect went down for almost a week at the start of the 2013/2014 academic year.”

According to him, this disruption occurred due to the large amount of new users that the website had at the time. In contrast, Canvas won’t experience these frequent scheduled upgrades and downtime periods

because it operates using cloudbased technology – information is stored over the internet and resources are automatically allocated to meet the demands of high user traffic.

On a r/UBC subthread called “UBC has replaced Connect with the Canvas platform,” users also discussed how UBC faculty members have had a lot of difficulties using Connect in their teaching. One particular user delved into the difficulties of grading on the system.

“You need to create the a new grade column for what you’re entering [sic], export the grade book as a .CSV file, edit it to include the new grades, then import it back in,” said Reddit user “pikachufan2164.”

In contrast, Canvas offers an additional tool called SpeedGrader, which allows instructors to grade students’ assignments offline and provide them with feedback within a single frame.

As a result, most UBC faculty members are glad that Connect is on its way out, according to Bates. “‘Well thank goodness you’re actually changing the system, we’ve been telling you for years that it’s not user friendly, it’s click heavy, it’s not responsive’ — there was a lot of that from faculty,” he said.

However, he also noted that some were displeased that UBC was abandoning Connect after already spending many years figuring out how to make it work.

“There were some people who were saying, ‘we’ve now gotten to grips with Connect, we’ve learned to live with it, we’ve got it doing what we need it to do, please don’t change it,’” said Bates. “So as you might expect, there’s a range of opinions in a place as large and diverse as UBC.”

What happens during the transition?

Since the transition from Connect to Canvas will take place over a 15 month period, students will likely be using both platforms over the next year. Bates estimated that fewer than half of the courses will use Canvas in the upcoming winter term’s first semester, most of the courses in the second semester and all of the courses by next year’s summer term.

Different faculties are also taking different approaches to when they want to transition.

For example, the faculty of arts is hoping to move all of their first year courses onto Canvas by September 2017, while others are planning to get a better grasp on the platform before they make the switch.

Overall, Bates believes that this longer migration period — instead of an eight week period — will give students and faculty more time to adjust to Canvas.

“For a place the size and complexity of UBC, that’s just not practical,” he said. “Plus, that also would mean that people wouldn’t have enough time to learn about some of the features that the new system has that they might want to build into their courses.”

Nonetheless, UBC will still be committed to completing this switch in no longer than 15 months.

“The last time UBC changed its learning management system, it actually took three years to move everything from one system to the other,” said Bates. “That’s just too long in an environment that’s changing this quickly, so we’re absolutely adamant that we’re gonna try and get everything done within 15 months.” U

Alix Ohlin, Canadian author and professor, has been named incoming chair of UBC’s creative writing program. On January 1, 2018, she will take over from interim co-chair and creative writing professor Linda Svendsen, who declined to be considered for the position.

This new appointment concludes a formal interview process that took place in March of this year, and that permanently fills the spot left vacant since Steven Galloway’s firing in June of 2016.

Born in Montreal, Ohlin holds an English and American literature and language degree from Harvard and a master’s degree from the Michener Center for Writers at University of Texas.

Ohlin is currently an English professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, a position that she has held since 2004. She has also taught creative writing with other schools and programs throughout her career, and has written several novels and collections of short stories.

Her most recent book, titled Inside and published in 2012, was named best book of the year by Amazon and was nominated for both the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

alexohlin.com

According to a press release from UBC, Ohlin will also join UBC’s faculty as an associate professor in creative writing.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to join a program with such talented faculty and students. I look forward to working with the entire literary community there and building on the program’s rich history,” said Ohlin, as quoted in the press release.

Galloway is currently undergoing an arbitration process to appeal his termination from UBC with the Faculty Association.

Both UBC and the Faculty Association have declined to comment on this matter. U

CULTURE

June 27, 2017 TUEsDAY

Editor samuel du bois

5

Bard on the beach//

Much Ado About Nothing’s style makes the show Eve O’Dea Staff Writer

On June 15, the production of Much Ado About Nothing had its opening night at Vancouver’s own Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival. The play was true to the style of the writer in its plot about miscommunication, improbable love and deception.

Originally set in the sixteenth century at the estate of the governor of Messina, Italy, this adaption put our characters on the estate of a 1959 Italian director, with a visual aesthetic similar to Frederico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and 8½.

Accordingly, the set and costumes were some of the highlights of the production. For the play’s first act, the costumes, set pieces and props were black, white and grey, emphasizing the cinematic feel of the production.

After love was introduced into the plot, small bits of colour began to appear in the costumes.

In the second half, colour became completely present on the stage.

Two scenes stood out in particular as major crowd pleasers.

In the first, two characters who are in love have a conversation about how to deal with the latest turn of events. It was not so much the dialogue that made it special but a modern twist on the scene’s set up. Both characters began their conversation and later exited the

scene on classic Italian vespas, one black and one pink. This modernization made an otherwise uneventful scene memorable.

Another clever moment of modernization took place when the character Antonio, played by David M. Adams, was meant to sing a short song. In the original script, the 16th century ballad is in English. In this version, it was sung in Italian and sounded like something one might hear strolling down the streets of Florence, complete with added percussion and back up dancers. This light moment was warmly embraced by the audience.

The play’s shortcomings can be traced to its source material.

Yes, in this instance, I am criticizing Shakespeare.

The use of both comedy and tragedy in Much Ado About Nothing has been historically cited as one of the play’s strengths, adding to it great complexity. However, I would argue that the sudden changes in tone and mood made the progression of the story awkward and inconsistent. The audience did not have time to emotionally prepare for such a dramatic and dense turn, and they soon forgot the fun that they were having minutes earlier.

While there was some comedy remaining in the second half, it was not as obviously funny as before

The style of the play is impressive, but it’s the source material that is ultimately the problem.

and the audience seemed unsure whether or not to laugh at certain occasions.

The play’s message about female empowerment was mixed throughout the acts. The first half had the lead explaining why she saw no reason to settle down with a husband, while in the second act a woman was wished dead by her

father due to a false claim of her no longer being a virgin. Especially when said shamed woman eagerly takes back the man who only hours before had scornfully rejected her, the messages become inconsistent and hard to process.

Again, I understand that the production team did not have the luxury of simply changing

Bard On the BEach

a major plot point of the story.

However, the sincerity of the story’s conflict is not as relevant for modern audiences as that of plays like Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth. U Much Ado About Nothing will be running until September 23. Tickets are available online.

THEY might die //

Two UBC graduates are hitchhiking across Canada with only $150

Pictured left to right, Ori Nevares and Philippe Roberge.

Genia Zhang Contributor

We’ve all asked ourselves the question: “What am I going to do after I graduate?” Some of us answer with “full-time work” or “grad school,” though most of us just say “who knows?”

For Ori Nevares and Philippe Roberge, the question has mostly been answered. Their plan is to hitchhike from Whitehorse, Yukon

to St. John’s, Newfoundland with only $150 in their pockets, all as a celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday. They will set out on July 8 and are going to document their entire journey to share the stories of all the Canadians who help them along the way.

UBC graduates Nevares and Roberge — both 23 — met about a year and a half ago and bonded through their love of photography.

philippe roberge

“I can’t think of anyone else who I would rather do this with. I don’t think anyone else would do this with me,” said Nevares.

After graduating, Roberge had initially planned on visiting all the national parks. He received 75 rejections for funding requests from companies and many no’s from potential travel partners.

He noticed that Nevares hadn’t responded to his request and wrote,

“Please don’t reply no — just wait.

Let me tell you more in person.”

After that, Nevares came on board.

Like many Canadians, Roberge and Nevares have not had the opportunity to see most of their own country. Thus, the idea was born to hitchhike across Canada and share the journey with others who have not had this experience.

Initially they planned for a $3,000 budget but Nevares said, “We have to make this crazy for people to be interested. Let’s do $500.”

According to some of Nevares’s initial calculations, $500 was enough for three $3 meals a day for two months. That was what it was for a while until they decided to be even more bold and make it $150 to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.

“This is the time to show appreciation,” said Nevares. “We’re well aware that if we’re on our own it’s impossible.” The goal of this project was never to travel “budget-friendly,” but rather to share the stories of the kind Canadians who helped them to reach their goals and bring the country together.

“It’s been really surprising how many people are willing to host complete strangers and have them come into their house. It’s heartwarming to see that people aren’t all closing their doors and hate towards their world and this xenophobic rage that’s taking over the world,” said Roberge.

Aside from banking on the kindness of strangers, the two have given a lot of thought to their survival and budgeting strategies.

They’re packing one backpack

each with 50 per cent for survival tools and the other 50 per cent for camera gear.

“We’ve been talking about the cheapest way to sustain ourselves. Foods that are dry, we can pack them before starting, like oatmeal, peanut butter, cup noodles, soup packets … it’s a formula of highest calories for lowest weight and cost without going nutrient deficient,” said Nevares.

To fellow UBC students who have any ideas they deem too wild to act upon: “If you’re going to do something crazy, do it now. It’s better to try and fail than to never try at all. Never trying is the only way to guarantee failure,” said Roberge.

“You have to take the first step. The hardest thing is to tell people your idea,” said Nevares.

“If you’re going to take action and fail, now is the perfect time to do that ... Any of the wild ideas you have that scare you — it’s only going to be harder from now on to go for. But it’s worth it. It’s scary.

Especially when you’re talking to your parents when you’ve spent five years in university and it’s time to get a job and you tell them you’re going to hitchhike the country and make a film.

Especially being in an academic environment like UBC where you’re kind of conditioned to fear failure, it’s hard to work around that.”

You can live vicariously through Nevares and Roberge’s adventures on their website, YouTube channel, Facebook page and Instagram. U

FEATURES

June 27, 2017 TUESDAY

Editor MOIRA WYTON

6

WORDS Julia Burnham PHOTOS Patrick Gillin

LINE OF

CREDITS “I

would be walking down the middle of the street or I was cooking and if I got an email or a text from Eyeout, I would literally just drop everything and run to my computer and check and pray to god that someone wasn’t as desperate as I was,” said Amie Kim, a fourth-year arts student.

“But they usually were.”

Kim’s story probably sounds familiar to many of the thousands of UBC students who have resorted to unconventional methods in order to register for the courses they need. From small class sizes in major requirements to non-restricted seats in required classes going to students taking them as electives, course registration is rarely a picnic for students on a tight graduation deadline.

The morning of June 13, 2017 — the first day of course registration for fourth years — students were greeted with a pop-up reminder about acceptable use of the system when they logged onto their Student Service Centre (SSC).

The message made students accept or reject “a) not to use any service or software that prevents other members of the University community from having fair and equitable access to the SSC … and

b) not to use any bots, scripts, apps, services or other processes to automate the use of the SSC.” According to the message, activities in breach of this agreement may be considered academic or nonacademic misconduct.

For many, the message might mean giving up the methods that have helped them get a spot in a required course — or that have at least given them hope they could get one at all.

Undoubtedly many scholarships and post-grad plans ride on the outcome of course registration each year, but whether a student has the time or the money to get around a blocked registration is another question. While UBC focuses on updating its system and students continue to utilize new ways to thwart it, The Ubyssey explored the causes, consequences and costs that students bear trying to get into their first choices.

June 27, 2017 TUESDAY | feature | 7 Degree re-navigators UBC, with its 25 faculties, hardly has it easy when it comes to course planning — with larger and larger first year class intakes each year, the challenges of tailoring course schedules and available spaces to the multitude of combined degrees, specializations and limited teaching space can certainly take its toll on students’ carefully planned degrees.

Double majoring in math and economics, Kim had planned to focus on her math courses in the first two years, then zero in on economics in the latter half. For the most part, she managed to get into all of her math courses — which she attributes to the typically larger sizes of those classes. However, when it came time to complete her economics requirements, she hit more than a few registration roadblocks.

“We’ve all dealt with the SSC for a long time but this was the one time that it’s actually affected my timeline. I’m the type of person that has a five to 10 year plan, like I’m going to graduate by this time, get married by this time — the full plan you know?” said Kim, who is now planning to extend her degree to five years due to her difficulties registering for major requirements.

“The fact that I couldn’t [register for required classes] because of something that’s supposed to work in my favour, it was kind of contradicting.”

For Elizabeth Garvie, a third year political science student, it meant attending a class and studying for a midterm when she didn’t even know whether or not she would receive an open spot before the add/drop deadline.

“When I was in first year and I was in the computer science program, there’s a class we had to take — CPSC 110 — and I wasn’t able to get into it so I was on a waitlist.

And so I went to the first day of classes they said ‘well, we’re going to have ten spots, we’re not sure when they’re going to open up and what not’ and there’s about 40 students who won’t get into the class and the spots actually weren’t opened up until after our first midterm.”

Ultimately, Garvie was able to secure one of the spots that opened up, but not before studying for a midterm worth 20 per cent of her grade without knowing whether or not she’d be able to continue in the class. If she hadn’t chosen to take a gamble and prepare for the midterm, she wouldn’t have been promoted to second year standing in the computer science program, out of which she has since transferred.

First in the class, first served Course registration at UBC is allotted to students based on registration priority. This encompasses a combination of year level, the number of credits you have taken and your academic average.

Students in first and fourth-year have the earliest registration dates, while students in third and second are the last to register.

“I guess that the grades based registration system is kind of a virtuous circle or vicious cycle, depending on how you look at it,” said Kevin Doering, a student senator and UBC Board of Governors representative who stressed educational equity in his platform earlier this spring.

“Obviously students who do well year round will have their pick

of courses, and students who don’t perform as well obviously possibly could continually find themselves in that situation where they’re also in courses that are more difficult or unwanted or less popular with students.”

Some students, like Kim, have found reprieve in services like Eyeout, a software that will send students a text message when a spot in their course has opened up. The service operates under slacknotes.com, which provides data on grade averages for all UBC courses. It also has paid competitors like MyUBCCourseIsFull, which charges $5 per course to sign-up for notifications.

Bea Subion, the UBC student who manages Eyeout, said it has sent over 80,000 notifications that a spot had become available — and that doesn’t include the number of people who signed up for courses that never opened up.

“It was never about making money … what Eyeout really stemmed from was just this problem that people didn’t want to constantly check [the SSC], and that was the purpose of it.”

Plenty of fish Although using Eyeout seems to be a popular choice to navigate full courses, there are also other methods to beat the system.

“I met someone in my first year that had an auto click on their mouse, you just download it off the internet and it clicked refresh every couple of seconds on the registration button. So, every three seconds the page would refresh,” said Doering.

“If it isn’t Eyeout, someone will find a new program or a new way to get around everything — not that that justifies it.”

Perhaps the latest addition to the list of strategies is the buying and selling of courses. After receiving many messages in the suggestions box, Subion decided to add a classified section to Eyeout where students could submit advertisements to buy and sell spots.

“It was me just testing out a service to see if it would take off,” said Subion. “I have no clue what happens once people buy, whether or not people actually do buy and sell courses. I have zero indications of whether or not they actually proceed with that.”

There are many questions to be raised with the buying and selling of spots — how does it work, is it ethical and is it even allowed?

“I don’t have any experience with it, but you’re correct that there are students who pay significant sums of money to get a seat in a course and that sort of discrepancy between those who have an extra hundred dollars on hand to register

in a course and those who don’t does create a very serious concern about equity at the university,” said Doering.

According to Kate Ross, the associate vice president of enrolment services and registrar, the buying and selling of courses is also in breach of UBC’s Policy 104.

“Courses are university property.

So that’s kind of how we would be looking at it and there is something in that policy that is really about disrupting university activities. So, it’s not explicit, but there would be ways that we would be able to interpret that.”

Warning on the wall While the warning message and agreement that appeared on the SSC doesn’t only target course registration, many don’t think it will do much to deter students from using any of the previously mentioned methods to get into their courses.

“This might be the first time that UBC has actively considered [this kind of infraction], but I’m also not sure how the university would pursue a case like that and actually have enough evidence to show that a student has used one of these services,” said Ian Sapollnik, a student senator. In Sapollnik’s recollection of the past three years of reports from the appeals committee, there have been no cases of student discipline for this type of infraction.

Subion said this isn’t the first time this message has popped up on the SSC for her, and that she has never been approached by UBC with a cease and desist.

“Whatever UBC decides to do about is completely up to them, but for our future, it’s not a business, it’s a website that people seem to like and if people still like it and still use it, then it’s probably going to stay up,” said Subion.

As for UBC’s response, it seems like the administration’s energy will be focused on creating a better system for the future, rather than tracking down services like Eyeout.

“It’s through our investigation [of system performance issues] that we learned about what is occurring and speaking with a group of students that really cooperated with us in terms of understanding what is occurring,” said Ross.

“One of the steps that we’re taking to ensure an equal playing field for students and to ensure that the system can continue [is] that we don’t have any outages and issues in terms of allowing students to be able to register when they need to register and keeping the system stable.”

The plan to re-haul the SSC

stems from the Student Academic Systems Initiative (SASI) and is an ongoing project.

“We’re actually in the process of finalizing a decision to secure a new student system. This is actually the whole SSC, so everything from admissions through to graduation,” said Ross, noting that no decision had been reached regarding approaching Eyeout about its services.

“Our hope is to have a system in the future [where] all of these issues would disappear because there would be a different method in terms of how we handle this to ensure that

students have a level playing field.”

Since the new student centre won’t be ready for a few years, Ross encouraged students to continue to work within the limitations of the current SSC, while UBC puts its energy into achieving a new system that will address these kinds of issues.

In the meantime, someone’s got an Eyeout for you. U

OPINION

JUNE 27, 2017 TUESDAY

Editor EMMA HICKS

8

TRANSIT //

Letter: Cancelling the 480 — a simplistic solution for underlying problems Kevin Wong Contributor

On May 23, TransLink released phase two of the Southwest Area Transit Plan (SWATP), which includes proposals and consultation of transit service changes in Richmond and South Delta for the next decade. One of these proposals involves cancelling the 480 bus line, which runs between Bridgeport Station at Richmond and UBC. In the Southwest Area Transit Plan, TransLink claims that they propose to cancel the route because it “duplicates with other services, [has] declining ridership, the lowest on-time performance in 2015, and [faster alternatives].”

Is TransLink correct in their claims? Yeah, their points are very valid. The 480 is slow and unreliable, which is why many are taking other buses, like the 49 instead.

Who’s still taking the 480?

There must be reasons why 975,000 people continued to stick to the #480 in 2015. The Canada Line, 43 bus and 49 bus are all overcrowded during peak hours.

Also, many commuters simply enjoy a one-seat ride.

With plenty of new condos or townhouses being built or completed in Richmond, south of the Fraser, Marpole and along

Marine Drive, there will certainly be UBC students, faculties or staff commuting from these areas.

On top of that, the 480 connects to a variety of Richmond, Delta and South Surrey/White Rock bus routes at Bridgeport Station.

Adding an additional transfer for the bus riders who already have very long commutes makes transit a less attractive commute choice.

Making matters worse, TransLink proposes to re-direct various Richmond internal bus routes to Bridgeport Station in the SWATP. This will just further challenge the capacity of Bridgeport Station.

The underlying problem is not with the 480. It is the issue of bus speed and reliability that affects the 43, 480 and many other bus routes is the only appropriate solution for long-term transit improvements.

subjected to elimination again in future transportation plans.

1. Eliminate the underused offpeak service on the 480. The 49, future 41st B-Line and the Canada Line are frequent, fast and have enough space to accommodate everyone.

2. Transfer the route to Vancouver Transit Centre, improve scheduling efficiency by grouping the 480 with other UBC buses (25, 33, 41, 49, 84) and reduce the need and distance of buses running as “not in service” (also known as deadheading).

3. Modify the route to be faster and more reliable. In the writeup this routing is recommended because it is faster, more reliable than most options, and it covers more people and maintains connectivity to the 10,000 bus routes.

Aftermath and solutions: looking at the alternative worlds In any case, whether or not TransLink ends up deciding to cancel the 480 or not, a lot of issues remain to be addressed. I would like to take a look at both worlds, and make a few recommendations in either case.

Suggested actions in alternative world #1: 480 saved If TransLink decides to keep the route, then action must be taken to make it more efficient, or it may be

Suggested new route for re-designing the 480 Suggested actions in alternative world #2: farewell #480 (summary) In the case that the 480 is cancelled as proposed, I suggest that the following items should be considered: 1. Increase frequency on the 43 and 49, and upgrade capacity on the Canada Line. Yeah, of course.

2. Improve transit efficiency, speed and reliability through the

file joshua medicoff

Kerrisdale area, regardless of the fate of the 480, because right now, 41st Avenue through Kerrisdale is a chokepoint for bus routes such as the 22, 41, 43 and 480.

3. Introduce a new peak-hour only express service parallel to 49 and coexists with the 41st Avenue B-Line, just like how the 84 and the 99 coexist.

4. Keep a peak-hour express route between Marpole, Marine Drive and UBC, via Granville Street and 49th Avenue.

constraints and congestions.

Building more SkyTrain lines can help commuters avoid traffic jams, but we won’t see SkyTrain lines everywhere in our lifetime.

Buses and other forms of surface transportation are here to stay in the foreseeable future. Our municipal governments should not overlook things that they can be doing for the bus riders in this region, by taking actions to improve transit efficiency and reliability. U

Final words: roads, roads and roads There is one theme throughout this letter: road

Kevin Wong is a third-year civil engineering student. For the complete article that includes support figures, visit his blog.

school //

Ask Natalie: what do I do if I don’t get into my major? work harder than you had before.

Find a study group or hire a tutor if you need to and can afford to for the classes you need serious help in. Go to office hours. Talk to your professor and TAs. Work hard and work smart.

This sucks, I know. It’s hard being told you didn’t get something you really want. But that’s a part of life. Not to say it doesn’t suck every time, but take this as a learning experience, not a discouraging one.

This might feel like this is on you, but if you worked hard and tried your best, then it’s not on you. Things happen. You can’t win 100 per cent of the time.

This isn’t a failure, because you haven’t failed, but learn from this.

Coping mechanisms are important and this is not a bad time to tune them up a bit. This isn’t the end, so start moving forwards.

I got my third choice, but it’s not really what I want to do.

Natalie Morris Design Editor

“Dear Natalie, I didn’t get into my major. I feel like I’ve worked really hard, maybe not ‘ignore everything else in my life and study 24/7’ hard, but a solid amount that I’m happy with. Well, was happy with it. What do I do? I got my third choice (my top two choices were

pretty competitive) but it’s not really what I want to do.”

Straight up, major selection isn’t my forté and like all courserelated questions, I’m not your course advisor, so go to your faculty advising. But I can help with some of the broader elements of this.

Your timing tells me that you’re most likely a science student. If this is the case, then you can re-apply next year. Other than a few majors, it

file maiai Boakye

looks like there are spaces set aside for upper years.

If you feel in your heart of hearts that your top major is the major you truly want to do then go for it. Try to register for your dream major’s required courses and work hard. I’m not telling you to start working at a “ignore everything” level, because that’s not healthy and that’s what causes burnout. Just remember what you’re working towards and

“I’m doing long distance with my girlfriend this summer and it’s very shitty of me, but I want to break up with her. I’m tired of the Skype calls and the texts and the snaps and being concerned if she’ll be upset if I go out with my friends and all that shit. I want to break it off.

I’m tired of this. I just want it to end. But, breaking up over the phone, that seems like a step too far. Help?”

Oh yeah, don’t break up with her over the phone. How far is long distance for you? If it’s more than a day’s car trip, you can justify breaking up over video call. It’s still shitty, but to be completely honest, almost all

break-ups are shitty. All you can do is try to make it the shitty as possible.

I know a lot of people would argue against breaking up while doing long distance, but we’re not even half way through the summer.

It’s only going to get worse. It’s going to get way worse. If you’re not willing to work on the relationship — which, I want to be clear, is okay, relationships that end always reach that point — than you playing along for the next two months is going to be a lot worse than ending things now.

So, if you can visit, do it in person. Rent a car if you have to and get your butt up there. Don’t invite her down, don’t make it into a huge trip, just go. Drive safe and make sure you pull over if you become too emotional to drive (also an okay thing).

If it would be a flight you would be taking, don’t do it, unless you already have a trip planned and paid for. It’s not worth it and honestly, I’m sure she would not appreciate either having to host for you while you’re planning on breaking up with her or having you awkwardly hanging out in her house or city after you have broken up with her.

So yes, resign yourself to this being shitty, because again nearly all break-ups are. Video call her and do it. Don’t make it about her or the distance, just make it as clean as possible.

Breaking up always sucks. I’m sorry. U Need advice? Contact Natalie anonymously at asknatalie@ubyssey. ca or at ubyssey.ca/advice and have your questions answered!

science

JuNE 27, 2017 TUesDAY

EdiTor NIVRETTA THATRA

9

Wildlife//

Frustration in response to ban of whales, dolphins and porpoises at Vancouver parks emma loy Staff writer

The Vancouver Park Board recently hoped to end a decades-old debate when they banned cetaceans — whales, dolphins and porpoises — from Vancouver parks. While animal rights advocates rejoiced, scientists winced as the scientific evidence backing the decision is far from conclusive.

The ban was enacted on May 15, 2017. Two weeks ago, the Vancouver Aquarium launched a legal challenge to overturn the Park Board’s ban on cetaceans.

The day after the legal challenge against the ban was announced, another of the aquarium’s three cetaceans died, leaving only two remaining at the facility. The ban will allow these two cetaceans to stay on display, though they will not be allowed to perform in shows.

The ban will also halt the aquarium’s plans to bring back their five other beluga whales currently on loan to other facilities.

The aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue Centre will not be affected by the ban, but it will become the only long-term care option for rescue animals unfit for release.

“It was a really hard decision,” said Park Board commissioner Michael Wiebe.

The Vancouver Park Board heard from scientists and animal advocacy groups at public hearings in March of 2017. Still, it is questionable how much weight was actually given to science in the final decision.

Dr. Andrew Trites and Dr. David Rosen, both active researchers with UBC’s Marine Mammal Research Unit, are concerned the Park Board’s decision was based on ideology rather than on scientific information.

“When you have a public that’s not educated to understand science, you end up hearing things presented with emotion,” said Trites. “On one hand, you have flat-toned scientists presenting the facts, and on the other, you have someone else so emotional that what we’re doing is morally and ethically wrong. The louder they say it, people start to think there must be some truth to that.”

Rosen and Trites worry the Park Board made a short-sighted decision that will have long-term implications for captive cetacean welfare and cetacean science.

vancouver parK Board responds Commissioner Wiebe disagrees with Trites’ and Rosen’s assertion that the Park Board gave more weight to emotional arguments than to science.

The Park Board held public meetings, consulted experts, reviewed briefings and scientific documents, and fielded thousands of emails from the public and various organizations.

“Policy makers around the world are having trouble getting through the layers of information related to this debate,” said Wiebe.

It is indeed challenging to wade through the body of evidence

pertaining to cetaceans in captivity — some evidence supports keeping cetaceans in captivity, while other evidence does not.

Wiebe explained that the Park Board quickly realized the evidence for each side of the debate was conflicting and that they needed to dig deeper by looking at who was producing and funding the research they consulted.

“You start having to creditcheck each source and take everything with a grain of salt.

But we started to see trends: more and more reports with similar numbers,” said Wiebe.

The data and trends pointed to one main conclusion. The aquarium could not provide the Park Board with enough data to show that continuing to keep cetaceans in captivity would help in future research. “[Scientists] already have the baseline data, which is the only data you can get from mammals in captivity. There are enough facilities in the world that are providing that baseline data, and the aquarium couldn’t prove that it would help in any research,” said Wiebe.

Rosen disagrees with this notion, arguing there is still more to be learned from captive studies beyond gathering baseline data.

He added that if the Park Board recognizes the value of research coming from cetaceans in human care, they should support the aquarium’s role in gathering such data. “They’re basically saying, ‘not in my backyard.’”

“In the end, they’re saying either we don’t need science or we can get it from somewhere else,” noted Trites.

the aniMal Welfare arguMent One of the major arguments raised in favor of the ban was that cetaceans in captivity are unhealthy and die prematurely, and the natural environment needed for them to thrive can never be replicated in captivity. Since these are highly intelligent animals, it is assumed that cetaceans in captivity are suffering.

On the contrary, Rosen, who is compiling a review of captive cetacean welfare studies, believes these claims are unsubstantiated.

“Studies measuring indicators of welfare in captive cetaceans have found either no differences or historical differences, or they’ve found that captive animals are better off on those indicators than wild animals,” said Rosen.

According to these studies, cetaceans in captivity exhibit lower levels of chronic stress and have more robust immune responses than wild cetaceans.

Animal advocacy scientists have heavily criticized scientists like Trites and Rosen who support captive cetacean research, claiming they are biased and cherry-picking information.

Trites and Rosen have researched captive animals and have worked in conjunction with the Vancouver Aquarium, so can appear biased. But their work adheres to standards of peer-

why do the Vancouver park Board and aquarium disagree about keeping cetaceans in captivity?

reviewed scientific research that aims to recognize and minimize such biases.

“When somebody asks me to give a report, I want to make that report as balanced as possible,” said Rosen. “If I don’t see the evidence that everyone says is out there, show me that evidence.”

longevity is now identical to those in the wild.”

Vancouver Aquarium head veterinarian, Dr. Martin Haulena, said that science does not support the view that animals in captivity suffer a poor quality of life.“It’s absolutely a different life, but not a bad one,” said Haulena.

What science saYs aBout cetacean Welfare Negative views of captive cetacean welfare likely arise because of incorrect assumptions about cetacean health.

“For example, orcas and other large cetaceans in care do tend to have a drooping fin,” said Rosen.

“People immediately think this is a sign of bad health, but there’s no scientific evidence that this is unhealthy.”

Additionally, people commonly think captive cetaceans are unhealthy because aquarium environments are much smaller than natural environments. Trites said people often point out that belugas swim and dive great distances in the wild.

“But they haven’t asked, ‘Why does a beluga dive that deep?’”

“Because it’s hungry and looking for food, it has to. It doesn’t do it for its health. And why does it swim so far? It’s trying to avoid being eaten. In an aquarium they’re fed and predators aren’t there to kill them,” said Trites. He wants people to remember that natural does not mean healthy; for cetaceans, swimming and diving great distances are necessary behaviors in the wild rather than solely healthy ones.

The other common argument made is that cetaceans in captivity die earlier. According to Rosen, this argument is based on outdated data.

“In the 60s and 70s when they started acquiring animals from the wild, yes, the mortality was higher in those cases,” said Rosen. “But people started discovering how to take care of these animals. Their

value of cetacean research The other major argument given by animal advocacy groups supporting the ban is that research done on captive cetaceans cannot be extrapolated to wild cetaceans, and therefore is of little benefit to science.

Some scientists claim that as little as five per cent of captive research is applicable to wild cetaceans, but Rosen said these numbers are flat-out wrong.

“Those who say there is no value in research done at facilities either do not understand the nature of research or they are misconstruing the truth,” said Rosen.

“A scientific review of the literature showed that almost a third of all published, peerreviewed research derives from animals under human care. And almost 50 per cent of all studies published exclusively on wild animals have results based on or in reference to research done on animals in facilities.”

The authors of the review mentioned by Rosen stated that, “It is critical that research continues to integrate information from both wild and captive populations.”

According to Rosen and Trites, some data can only be collected by doing studies on animals in controlled settings. Likewise there are certain studies that should only be done in the wild.

“In the wild you’re under more realistic conditions, but you can’t do experiments looking at cause and effect,” said Rosen.

Additionally, many techniques used to study wild cetaceans are

yuko fEdrau

developed in research facilities using captive animals, and data from wild animals is often validated through captive studies.

Conservation efforts like those to save the vaquita porpoise — the world’s most endangered marine mammal — could be aided by research on harbor porpoises in human care.

Trites opined that studies using captive cetaceans will be essential for understanding the effects of climate change on cetaceans, such as how they will handle warming oceans and changes to diet.

“theY should listen to eXperts” The Vancouver Park Board was faced with the enormous task of deciphering reliable evidence from unfounded evidence in an emotionally-charged field of study. The lack of consensus from the scientific community on the matter did not make the decision easier.

Despite the Park Board’s efforts to make sense of the science, some say the evidence presented to the Park Board supporting cetaceans under human care was drowned out by moral arguments and beliefs.

“In my personal opinion, it was ignored,” said head aquarium vet Haulena, “I have nothing to support that, but just having been there at the meetings, expert opinion was ignored.”

For now, local scientists as well as the Vancouver Aquarium remain frustrated with the Park Board’s decision. The aquarium will proceed with legally challenging the ban.

“People do have a poor sense of the facts. I know it’s overwhelming — that’s why generally you have experts in things,” said Rosen. “You can’t know everything otherwise you just go by a set of beliefs. The Park Board shouldn’t have to be experts but they should listen to experts.” u

10 | sCIenCe | TUesDAY JuNE 27, 2017 funding //

rocKets //

Under the microscope: Science for the sake of science

aikEN lao

a grad student weighs in about the justifi cations for scientific research.

chantal Mustoe Contributor

I’m a scientist, and in every social situation, my mind is constantly whirring trying to find the delicate balance between telling someone what I actually do and avoiding the tidal waves of boredom which may soon be crashing down on their face.

I love explaining my work to new audiences; it is important to advocate for science and participate in community outreach.

But when scientists are asked to justify research based solely on the outcome, I find myself thinking, Since when did the value of fundamental knowledge disappear?

Why must I promise a grand discovery, like curing AIDS, before I can pay my rent?

What ever happened to science for the sake of science?

Fundamentally, science is an art where curiosity inspires questions which, when investigated, lead to a greater understanding of the universe. If this understanding improves the lives of those around us, so much the better.

There are two inherent values in the curiosity-based search for knowledge. Firstly, and foremost, there is a beauty in our ability to understand the world around us. Secondly, many unexpected

groundbreaking discoveries have been made by someone who just thought, wouldn t it be cool if we could do this? with little idea of how they will change the world.

A couple years ago I attended a talk given by one of the founders of Illumina, a company that sequences genomes. In his advocacy for science for the sake of science, Dr. Shankar Balasubramanian declared that the idea which ultimately resulted in their company came from an evening at the pub when he and his colleagues declared — and I paraphrase — “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could watch DNA being made!” This is exactly what they did.

Illumina went on to pioneer next-generation DNA sequencing.

Suddenly, the field of genetics exploded, with companies like 23andMe offering to give the public insights into the inner workings of their bodies. Personalized medicine has been revolutionized. We now know that different people respond differently to the same drug, and we can start predicting what drugs might work based on a person’s specific genome.

Yet, as Balasubramanian declared, the scientists who revolutionized this field weren’t interested in the applications of watching DNA being made at the time of their brainwave. They simply realized that with the tools they had at their disposal, they could explore an area of science that they thought was cool!

Potential applications of research enables funding agencies to justifiably distribute money. But perhaps it is worth considering that in this era of justification, we may be missing not only beautiful scientific discoveries but groundbreaking ones as well. u Read more online.

Chantal is a PhD candidate in chemistry at UBC.

Our students find jobs. Langara Journalism has proudly maintained one of the highest placement rates in the industry.

Get real world hands-on training for print, broadcast, online, and whatever comes next.

uBC rocket team, including co-captains Simon Bambey (far left) and Joren Jackson (far right).

zuBair hirJi

UBC Rocket’s Cypress wins first place after suborbital journey Mona adibmoradi Staff writer

members to create realistic timelines for building Cypress.

A year ago, there was no UBC Rocket team. Now at 60 members strong, they competed for the first time from June 20 to 24. And they won: Cypress took home the Spaceport American Cup in the 10,000-foot category.

The Spaceport America Cup started as a partnership between the Experimental Sounding Rocket Association and Spaceport America, a commercial rocket-launching base, to provide an opportunity for the next generation of aerospace scientists and engineers to collaborate and compete.

This year, the rocket engineering competition welcomed 110 student teams from around the world to launch rockets to altitudes of 10,000 and 30,000 feet. One of these rockets was UBC Rocket’s very own Cypress, named after the West Vancouver mountains and provincial park.

Simon Bambey and Joren Jackson, the team’s co-founders and captains, are passionate about space technology and aerospace engineering. As pilots with the Canadian Air Cadets and engineering students at UBC, Bambey and Jackson were ready to take their passion to the next level: all the way to suborbital space.

“The competition is an awesome opportunity for a team like ours with no real official rocketry experience to have a framework to get a lot of experience to build a high-powered rocket and launch it in a safe way,” said Jackson.

The competition provided students with a set of regulations and criteria, which the captains used to begin their planning process. The competition also provided the team with a deadline which motivated

theY saY a rocKet isn’t Built in a daY With the goal of getting Cypress to an altitude of 10,000 feet, Bambey and Jackson had their hands full, and they started as all team captains do: they recruited and planned.

“When the captains were looking for peopwle, they looked for people who were interested, not necessarily who had a lot of experience — students who were passionate and interested in learning,” said Lauren Lee, a first-year engineering student who is part of UBC Rocket’s organization development team.

Their open and welcoming recruitment approach led to a diverse team of students from different years and different faculties including engineering, science and business. The students were then split into different subteams with each sub-team taking on a crucial aspect of the rocket.

The aerostructures team designed and built Cypress’s body, all the way from the fins at the rocket’s base to its signature red nose cone.

The team also chose and integrated the rocket’s propulsion system.

The avionics and recovery team developed Cypress’s control system to accurately detect the rocket’s position and the software to analyze data collected during the flight.

This team was also tasked with developing the system to safely return the rocket to the ground after it reaches its highest point.

The integration of the payloads into the rocket were led by a specific team as well. Payloads are the materials and systems that a rocket takes up with it which vary depending on the rocket’s mission.

Cypress took up multiple payloads,

one of which was a system to assess air quality and detect the ozone boundary layer.

rocKet science is teaM science When the team came together, no one had any real rocketry experience. Less than a year later, any member of the team can explain the complexities of making rocket go up 10,000 feet.

“It started with, ‘I don’t know how to do this and I don’t know where to start,’ but as we kept making progress, it turned into, ‘Oh let’s try this first and if it doesn’t work, let’s try that,’” said Jenny Yu, one of the payloads team leaders.

With all the progress that the team has made, they have a lot of ideas they want to implement for the upcoming year. Hoping to send a rocket to an altitude three times higher than this year’s goal, the team will be working on a more advanced version of the avionics system and a new set of payloads.

As well, they hope to develop their own hybrid or liquid propulsion system.

As Cypress got ready to compete with support from their sponsors and their crowdfunding campaign, the captains agreed that the best part of UBC Rocket is the team.

“The most rewarding thing has been coming in on a Sunday and seeing the sheer amount of effort that’s going into making this rocket work, and how excited, passionate and committed everyone is to sending a rocket to 10,000 feet in our first year as a team,” said Jackson.

UBC Rocket proves that dedication and the willingness to learn and experiment can take you to the stars… or at least to suborbital space. u

Learn more.

Langara Journalism | www.langara.ca/journalism

Cypress flew to 10,000 feet, winning the Spaceport american Cup in the most popular category.

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SPORTS+REC

June 27, 2017 TUESDAY

Editor LUCY FOX

11

team spirit//

Ohana:

family values come first for UBC’s dragon boat teams Photos Patrick Gillin

Lucy Fox Sports & Rec Editor

For one weekend each summer, dragon boat teams flood to the waters of False Creek for one the largest dragon boat festivals in North America — the Concord Pacific Vancouver Dragon Boat Festival.

This year, the event was held over the weekend of June 24.

Over three days, seven or eight teams head out in heats and line up side by side in the inlet, a wave of coloured jerseys spreading across the water.

The teams pause, extend their paddles forward and sink them into the still water below. There is a silence, and suddenly what were once groups of individuals in boats are now focused units.

“As soon as you’re on the boat everything just locks in, everyone is awake, everyone is ready to start,” said Kris Jun, a UBC paddler and incoming

vice president of the AMS dragon boat team UBC Thunder. “When the start is called, we move as one boat.”

The race starts, and for two minutes each boat glides at its own rate. The paddlers breathe and move as one.

Each stroke is precise, timed, and poetic. Reach, catch, pull, exit, all the while each team members body is moving to the beat of the boat, helping to propel it forward.

Five hundred metres of speed, precision and teamwork, with thousands of fans watching from the shore: it’s a phenomenon that Vancouver’s summer has come to be known for, and one that UBC’s dragon boat teams have become fixtures at. Since UBC Thunder began five years ago, the Concord event has been a staple in their summer schedule.

At this year’s event, both UBC teams qualified for the Dragon Boat BC Competitive A Championship, finishing in fourth and seventh place.

The team itself, though relatively new, has a rich dragon boat history behind its founding roster. Originally a recreational team, UBC Thunder got its start when several paddlers from Eric Hamber Secondary School — one of the best junior teams in Canada — were accepted to UBC. Hoping to continue to paddle at the university level, several of Eric Hamber’s paddlers created UBC’s dragon boating club, both coaching and paddling for the team.

Once off the ground, the team secured several coaches from renowned dragon boat team One West, and continued to grow to its current capacity of two teams: the UBC Thunderbirds Dragon Boat Sport Club, who are working towards the national championship in Welland, Ontario, in August, and UBC Thunder, the AMS faction who will compete locally with the end goal of placing in the top eight at Concord and other Lower Mainland events.

Even with that high level of training and support, UBC’s paddlers are constantly up against challenges within their rosters due to the everchanging nature of club enrollment at any university.

“Since we’re all students and a university team, our turnover every season is pretty high compared to [other teams competing at dragon boat events]. Every season is basically a brand new team; at least a quarter of the team is new, minimum, [each season],” incoming president of UBC Thunderbirds SC Gregory Goana said. “The coaches have to start from scratch [each year] because we can’t reuse a tactic from the season before.”

With that also comes an incredible level of commitment from team members to make sure the team is race-ready compared to other dragon boat teams that have a more settled roster.

“[We are] pretty much training — whether its practice or just a training session on our team — seven days a week,” Jun said. That can range from team practices, to extracurricular solo practices in single canoes to gym workouts on any given day.

Though much of the work is done independently, Goana, Jun and incoming AMS club president Emily Chan explained that the level of commitment is necessary to build not only individual abilities, but to better understand one’s role within a boat.

What’s more, the daily practices and workouts allow all members to feel like a part of the team and a part of the culture of family that is essential to UBC Thunder.

“It is as much about helping your teammates out by being the best you can be as it is about helping yourself out,” Jun said. “Dragon boat as a sport really fosters that sense of community that I think some solo sports especially are lacking in.”

Chan added, “Everyone is a part of something.”

That sense of community even

comes out in their own races, when the UBC Thunder and UBC Thunderbirds SC face each other at different events.

Though each boat strives for its own success, Goana explained that should either team ever be beaten, they both hope it is by their UBC counterpart.

“It’s a good competitive feeling if there is [one]. It’s good to race against somebody else and have that rush to beat them,” Chan said. In the end, it is that sense of family that prevails, both within the overall dragon boat community in Vancouver, at UBC and within each team’s boat.

That even comes out in past club gear, as UBC Thunder’s sweatshirts last year proudly stated “Ohana: family over everything.”

“Dragon boat is an easy sport to pick up but a difficult sport to master.

Anyone can pick up a paddle and paddle in a boat and make a boat move.

But to actually make a boat move fast as a team, you really have to be loyal to your team,” Goana said. “There is no such thing as a Lebron James in basketball, or a Cristiano Ronaldo in soccer, in dragon boat.” U

12 | GAMes | TUesDAY JuNE 27, 2017

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