October 20, 2015

OCTOBER 20, 2015 | VOLUME XCVII | ISSUE VIII SCREW MODESTY SINCE 1918

U

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P / 11

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NEWS

CULTURE

OPINIONS

SPORTS

John Montalbano resigns from Board of Governors

Faster lunch lines in the new SUB

All about the election

Grading the Thunderbirds: varsity report card

THE UBYSSEY

are c t ’ sn e o d C B u.

U o y t u abo you. , Yes

YOUR GUIDE TO (ALMOST) EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THIS UNIVERSITY PAGE 4

// PAGE 2

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS & PEOPLE

2

EVENTS

OCT 6 - DEC 11 HARRY POTTER @ IRVING K. BARBER RIDINGTON ROOM

Also being exhibited in the David Lam Library and Koerner Library, go check out first edition books and memorabilia! #harrypotterUBC

FREE FOR ALL MUGGLES

FILE PHOTO ERIC INASI / THE UBYSSEY

In an effort to engage everyone in the conversation on gender issues, SASC is launching a new campaign to explore masculinity.

OCT 20 - 25 VAN WRITERS FEST @ GRANVILLE ISLAND

Get your daily dose of literature at the Vancouver Writers Festival!

Schedule of events vary, check out writersfest.bc.ca for more info.

PRICES VARY

OCT 23 FREE COTTON CANDY 12 P.M. @ THE FOUNTAIN

Down from the midterm blues? Get some free cotton candy, it’ll make everything better.

FREE

ON THE COVER PHOTO/ART BY Kosta Prodanovic and Aiken Lao INSPIRED BY “Systemic failure”

Want to see your events listed here?

Email your event listings to printeditor@ubyssey.ca

U THE UBYSSEY

OCTOBER 20, 2015 | VOLUME XCVII| ISSUE IX

STAFF BUSINESS Opinions + Blog Editor Vassilena Sharlandjieva, Coordinating Editor Matt Langmuir, Josh Azizi, Business Manager Jack Hauen Fernie Pereira Will McDonald Bill Situ, Elena Volohova, fpereira@ubyssey.ca coordinating@ubyssey.ca opinions@ubyssey.ca Jeremy Johnson-Silvers, Julian Yu, Sruthi Tadepalli, Features Editor Design Editor Ad Sales Karen Wang, Jessie Arno Rosenfeld Aiken Lao Kenneth Chang Stirling, Vicky Huang, advertising@ printeditor@ubyssey.ca features@ubyssey.ca Olamide Olaniyan, Henry ubyssey.ca Allan, Natalie Morris, Copy Editor Web Developer Miguel Santa Maria, Accounts Bailey Ramsay Peter Siemens Sivan Spector, Sarah Abigail Pelaez Nabila, Sophie Sutcliffe, webeditor@ubyssey.ca features@ubyssey.ca accounts@ubyssey.ca Rithu Jagannath, Samuel News Editors du Bois Web Editor Emma Partridge & Jordan Schalm LEGAL Moira Warburton web@ubyssey.ca The Ubyssey is the official stu- without the expressed, written news@ubyssey.ca EDITORIAL

Culture Editor Olivia Law culture@ubyssey.ca Sports + Rec Editor Koby Michaels sports@ubyssey.ca Video Producer Tim Hoggan video@ubyssey.ca Photo Editor Kosta Prodanovic photo@ubyssey.ca

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SASC launches healthy masculinity campaign Sivan Spector Staff Writer

The Sexual Assault Support Center (SASC) is starting a program this month to facilitate the exploration of masculinity.

The “Creating Healthier Masculinities Leadership Program” seeks to question social expectations of men through conversation, training and eventually whatever program participants decide that UBC needs.

To kick off the project, former BC Lions player JR LaRose will discuss his own relationship to the hyper-masculine stereotype.

“Men, this isn’t a women’s issue, a trans issue [or] a gender nonconforming issue — it’s your issue ... We’re trying to contextualize it more than just, ‘Stop screwing up, do better,’” said AMS President Aaron Bailey and future participant

in the training. “This could make you healthier, make you better able to deal with things.”

A step to combatting genderbased oppression and violence is for male-identifying people to recognize the implications of their masculinity.

“What we’re really hoping for ... is to draw folks from athletics [and] from fraternities,” said SASC Manager Ashley Bentley. “Women have been doing this fight for a really long time.”

SASC’s goal is to confront problems of gender-based violence and oppression in the UBC community, yet most of the individuals involved in SASC identify as a woman. Healthier Masculinities hopes to target maleidentifying people including those who Bentley would like to see take a more active role in preventing such issues.

According to Bentley, those who identify as a man may think gender issues are not important to them because they have not been oppressed, have not perpetrated violence, or they do not see rape culture around them.

Yet, rape culture is exactly defined as the normalization of rape by society to the point where it can be denied as an issue.

“We live in a community here at UBC and part of being a part of this community is taking responsibility for how you can shift culture,” said Bentley.

However, when this is brought up to many people, according to Bailey, they view it as an attack.

The goal of the campaign is to help men overcome the harmful societal expectations that prevent them from accessing counselling, exploring male privilege and other personal issues.

For UBC to become the supportive, safe environment SASC hopes it will become, both men and women need to be present in the fight against these challenges — many of which come from gender roles both men and women feel the need to fulfill.

“When [men] don’t perform these ideals of how masculinity should be, they often face ... disadvantagement by patriarchal structures,” said Silken HandfordPerronnet, VP Internal of the UBC feminist club. “At UBC, I would like to see this issues not being pushed off.... People talking about it and accepting [genderbased oppression] is happening.”

After the training, the maleidentified students involved will be creating whatever project they see fit — such as a men’s circle for example. They will also receive training in how to be better allies against gender-based violence and oppression through workshops led by UBC professors.

“Every time I do a training workshop with [SASC] ... I always learn a little bit more about things that are sort of built into my personality from society,” said Bailey. “I’m still learning how to be healthier as a man and promote healthy societal constructs of masculinity.” U

// NEWS

EDITORS EMMA PARTRIDGE + MOIRA WARBURTON

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

ADMIN//

John Montalbano resigns from Board Emma Partridge News Editor

Former Board of Governors Chair John Montalbano has resigned.

This announcement came after a fact-finding investigation found that UBC failed to protect the academic freedom of Jennifer Berdahl, the Montalbano Professor of Leadership Studies at the Sauder School of Business.

The report by former Supreme Court Judge Lynn Smith concluded that “UBC failed in its obligation to protect and support Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom,” but also that “Mr. Montalbano, on his own, did not infringe on any provision of the of the Collective Agreement.”

Nonetheless, Montalbano has resigned from the board entirely.

He had previously stepped down as chair until the fact-finding process ended.

Montalbano called Berdahl, whose tenured professorship happens to be made possible by Montalbano’s $2 million donation to the Sauder School, at home to discuss a blog post she had written.

Berdahl had suggested in her post that the unexpected departure of fromer President Arvind Gupta a few days previously was, in part, due to institutionalized ideas about who looks like a leader.

Though Montalbano maintained that his phone call was an effort to learn, he noted in an interview with

PHOTO WILL MCDONALD/THE UBYSSEY

The resignation was announced at a press conference on Thursday.

The Ubyssey last August that he also expressed his concern the post had the potential to damage UBC. A subsequent debate on whether this constituted infringment of academic freedoms ensued. An unflattering spotlight was shone on UBC for weeks thereafter, but ultimately Smith concluded that “no individual in the Sauder School of Business identified by the Faculty Association, on his or her own, infringed any provision of the Collective Agreement.”

“I am gratified that Ms. Smith’s report confirms that I was mindful of the need to protect Professor Jennifer Berdahl’s academic

freedom, that I acted in good faith and that my intentions were not to infringe on Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom,” read a statement that Montalbano released after Smith’s report was made public.

According to the statement, based on the finding of Smith’s report and one by The Conflict of Interest Administrator to the UBC Board of Governors, the Board “asked that [Montalbano] resume [his] duties as Chair” — an offer that would be declined.

As part of the fact finding process Smith interviewed 17 people from a list of individuals that the parties — UBC and the UBC Faculty Association

— provided. The names of these interviewees will be kept private.

The question of transparency was raised at the press conference when Smith’s findings were released, to which Piper said, “I thought we were being very open by allowing the press to ask questions as soon as the report was out there.”

Confusion was also raised over how UBC as an institution failed in protecting academic freedom, yet no individual is being reprimanded. When asked about possible consequences, Interim Provost Angela Redish simply said the board was having preliminary conversations with the Faculty Association.

Still, the Faculty Association has expressed their disappointment with UBC’s statements at the press conference in an open letter. The letter noted the inconsistency between saying that the institution failed Berdahl but that no one is being held accountable.

According to the letter, UBC “repeatedly stated that Dr. Berdahl’s academic freedom was not infringed. This communication is not entirely consistent with the Summary Report.”

UBC now plans to hire a specialist to safeguard academic freedoms, create a new program teaching about academic freedoms and develop an online resource as well as a more formalized module on academic freedoms. U

ELECTIVES//

Why science students need 12 arts credits

Unlike science students, arts students only need six credits within the other faculty.

Helen Zhou Contributor

Ever think it’s unfair that science students need 12 arts credits while arts students only need six science credits? According to UBC, there is a reason for it.

The arts and science faculties were one faculty until 1953, said Paul Harrison, Associate Dean of Science in Student Services. Once they separated, the Faculty of Science still kept the requirement that science students must take a minimum number of arts credits.

“A basic belief in the Faculty of Science is that a majors student should be broadly educated,” said Harrison. “Knowing something about other cultures, peoples [and] other areas of learning is

important for a science graduate to be able to apply their sciences in different walks of life.”

Stefania Burk, associate dean of arts in academics, also believes that arts students should have a diverse range of knowledge beyond their faculty.

“Both faculties probably think about the kinds of education their students receive and are looking at breadth — or a combination of breadth and depth — as they put together their degree requirements,” she said.

Both associate deans also acknowledge the potential for modifications in the requirements. Harrison said that the Faculty of Science is looking to put together a committee later this fall to look at the curriculum

FILE PHOTO GEOFF LISTER / THE UBYSSEY

and whether an adjustment is in order.

However, for students, an increase or decrease in the credit requirements may not be the answer. For arts students in particular, it seems that it should be the system itself that should be revisited.

“Right now, you can take any science course to satisfy the requirement, with some exceptions, but mostly any science course. So what ends up happening is students just look for the easy science courses that all arts students take,” said Daniel Munro, arts undergraduate society student senator and vice president academic.

He said that, while those courses may be great, they’re not

always relevant to the students’ main field of study. Several firstyear earth and ocean sciences courses as well as a food and nutrition course are some wellknown “easy” science courses that many arts students take.

“Rather than just saying, ‘Here’s a requirement, take something that lets you check off this box,’ we should be saying, ‘Take something that’s relevant to you or the goals you have in the future,’” said Munro.

Munro suggested that an improvement would be that the science requirements be expanded to “a scientific or quantitative reasoning type requirement” and that students provide a rationale for how the course is relevant to their field of study. He believes that, in the event of reform in the Faculty of Arts, students should be included in the conversation.

In fact, Burk agrees.

“The Faculty of Arts is the most diverse and largest faculty at the university. It would require a thoughtful process of consultation with various stakeholders, students, faculty, advisors [and] departments,” she said.

At the end of the day, both faculties have meaningful skills to offer and the requirements allow for students to explore their options.

“Making everything a little more cohesive while also encouraging that breadth of study is, I think, a great thing,” said Munro. “I would be really interested in seeing what they come up with to replace what we have now.” U

3

ELECTIONS //

Vancouver Quadra

candidates come to UBC

PHOTO HELEN ZHOU / THE UBYSSEY

While Blair Lockhart was absent, the other candidates spoke to a range of issues.

Helen Zhou Contributor

The Alma Mater Society and Graduate Student Society held an on-campus Vancouver Quadra elections candidates meeting on Wednesday.

The forum included Kris Constable of the Green Party, Scott Andrews of the NDP, Joyce Murray of the Liberals and Jean-Francois Caron as an Independent candidate.

Blair Lockhart, candidate from the Conservative party, declined to attend.

“This event in particular is nice because the AMS is trying to bring politics to the students,” said Akshiv Bunsal, a student at the event. “It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to find credible information and hearing it straight from the candidates is probably the best way to go.”

Bunsal believes that engaging students in politics is important and said that the event allowed him to hear the candidates speak as well as become fully confident in deciding who to vote for.

Constable shared his party’s platform on free post-secondary tuition by 2020, a $10,000 maximum cap on loan forgiveness for current students and a guaranteed livable income system.

He also proposed a $1 billion injection into the green tech field.

“We believe that clean tech and green tech are just two of the areas that we should be focusing on to move ourselves to renewable resources,” he said. “Any aspiring entrepreneurs [should] start thinking about what kind of future can we build and together. We can start to leverage the beautiful think tanks we have here.”

Meanwhile, Murray talked about the Liberal Party’s “focus on young people,” promising $1.3 billion over three years to invest in co-op and increasing jobs with a youth employment strategy.

Murray also mentioned the barriers that aboriginal youth face in pursuit of a post-secondary education. According to Murray, the Liberals are committed to spending $2.6 billion on “bridging the gap” to help First Nations youth graduate high school.

“In B.C., there are more aboriginal people that go to jail than graduate high school on reserves,” she said. “It is a tragedy of lost opportunity and lost fairness.”

Andrews believes that problems surrounding opportunity and affordability prevent millennials from starting families and settling into careers. He said that the NDP platform would provide longterm solutions to these problems, including apprenticeship programs, reinstating research funding and a $15-per-day childcare plan.

Other topics the candidates spoke on included the Broadway subway line, greenhouse gas emissions and affordable housing. U

4 | WHOSE CAMPUS |

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

As students, we ask for an excellent education. We ask to be supported by our university. We did not ask for UBC to become a “university town.” We did not ask for UBC to fight its way up an arbitrary rankings list. We did not ask UBC to become a “Place of Mind.”

But the administration never asks what we want UBC to be.

WHOSE CAMPUS ?

This package of detais just how far UBC has strayed from being a university that treats students with the respect we deserve. We’ve tried to outline the problems and propose some solutions. But what UBC becomes is ultimately in your hands.

Let UBC and the AMS know what you want. Write letters, protest, share the stories on social media and make your voice heard.

- Arno Rosenfeld, Features Editor

I. Between naïveté and arrogance: tuition increases at UBC MOIRA WARBURTON NEWS EDITOR Pinned to backpacks, painted on cheeks, held in clenched fists above megaphones and signs with slogans like, “Place of mind? Place of money,” and “UBC drop the fees”: the red squares were everywhere on campus last year.

The protests were nothing new.

In 1989, the signs read, “Increase funding not fees: 11% NOW.” In the 1990s, they said, “BoG listen to students and stop walking over them.” Toward the end of President David Strangway’s term in 1996, students erected “Camp David” outside his office while others camped inside. His administration refused to negotiate with the students who were there to protest a 310 per cent tuition increase being pushed through that year.

UBC was founded on student protests and as far back as the 1930s the AMS was clashing with an intransigent Board of Governors over whether tuition increases were really the best way to improve the university.

When it comes to tuition hikes at UBC, there are two entrenched problems: tuition as a source of prestige and the manner in which students are consulted.

While the university has raised tuition for various reasons — in the mid-1980s, a dramatic increase was needed due to a provincial budget crisis — its current justification walks the line between naivety and arrogance.

UBC sees tuition as an enabler of “excellence.” Yet they admittedly have no definition of excellence.

Instead they insist that the stature of the institution can only increase with tuition hikes despite not knowing how they’ll be spending the increased revenue. Even less, apparently, do they consider the sideeffects the hikes will have on their students of today and tomorrow.

UBC argues that when the University of Toronto and the University of McGill raise their tuition fees — as they have over the past decade or so — they are able to lure top-notch faculty to their doors. Global ranking systems such as the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) or Shanghai Rankings — in which UBC is ranked 40 — look primarily at faculty research output and good research costs money.

As U of T and McGill climb on something that shouldn’t have job training,” said Gabriel D’Astous, higher and higher in rankings, UBC a price tag, said Amy Metcalfe, an a UBC graduate and one of the main administrators say the Board of associate education professor at organizers of last year’s IAmaStudent Governors directed them to keep UBC. student protest movement against pace with tuition at the rival schools, When the university sets a tuition hikes. seemingly solely on principle. With a monetary value on a degree from “I personally think that UBC is firm provincial domestic tuition cap, UBC, they’re putting a price tag on much like a company,” complained it falls to international students to something that shouldn’t have a Rachel Chan, a second-year Sauder foot the resulting bill. price tag student. “It gives motivational This logic seems simple enough: “The discussion is about speeches and paints pretty fluffy UBC needs money to maintain human capital rather than human pictures for students because we are its status as one of Canada’s top potential,” she said. “The human customers. They need us to refer universities. The easiest place to get capital approach to higher education new customers, tell other friends that money is by increasing tuition funding places a value of a student’s about how great UBC is and perhaps fees of international students. But time at university and tuition spent get them to join.” relying on high tuition revenue as a as an ‘input’ with an expected rate It should be noted that it’s not source of prestige just international turns a degree from students whose UBC into a product. tuition fees Administrators are being seen become less as avenues for concerned with prestige, either. In the needs of a briefing to AMS individual students councillors in July, and instead focus the university primarily on and government whether they can relations advisor pay the price. This to the AMS attitude makes UBC pointed out that less accessible for the university is students from lower actively pushing socioeconomic the provincial backgrounds, government to limiting the range remove the cap on of opinions and domestic tuition perspectives in the increases – the classroom and on only mechanism FILE PHOTO RICH LAM/THE UBYSSEY campus. standing in the Glen Clark announcing first tuition freeze in March of 1996.

Moreover, it way between puts students at a disadvantage in of return in the form of employment domestic students and the same kind tuition negotiations because the income after graduation.” of fee hikes international students university views them first as a This turning of education into a are currently experiencing. source of income. commodity is reflected in the Board The university maintains The wording of the UBC’s Board of Governors mandate which is the that despite fee increases for of Governors resolution directing reason Knott said she voted against international students it sees the the administration that to raise fees the tuition resolution: the resolution value of having people from a is crucial: was based too much on supposed wide variety of backgrounds in the The university doesn’t determine market value and not enough on classrooms. the worth of a UBC degree based UBC’s actual needs.

“By having a very diverse on practical economic indicators “The motivation really is to university campus, students from such as the average post-graduation improve the experience and improve around the world … enrich our starting wage or after-tax income of the university ... that was what drove learning,” said Pam Ratner, Interim UBC grads. Instead the school judges that resolution,” said Knott. “I think Vice-Provost as well as Associate the financial worth of their degrees it’s the right goal … I think there’s Vice President Enrolment and off students’ personal happiness and just better solutions.”

Facilities. satisfaction with their education.

The commodification of Redish also notes the benefits “It’s about when students education was a concerning trend for of having students from a variety graduate they say, ‘This was many students who participated in of socioeconomic classes. Drawing something I’m really glad I did,’ even the protests last fall. on her experience as an economics understanding what it cost them,” It encourages students to see professor, she said domestic students said Interim Provost Anji Redish. “university, not necessarily as a had a more limited view on some But when the university sets a learning experience or as a place issues like monetary policy. monetary value on a degree from to acquire like a certain kind of “For students that have been UBC, they’re putting a price tag knowledge, but rather simply as like elsewhere, that have lived in

situations where there have been deflation or there’s been hyperinflation, they challenge the students in the class,” she said.

“Bringing different perspectives is a very important component.”

However, Redish herself freely admitted UBC has no way of measuring the socioeconomic diversity of its international student body.

“So that’s probably something we need to work on,” she said.

In the same interview, Redish said that the international tuition was being raised in increments over three years to measure whether the increases will have a negative impact on diversity. This suggests a cognitive dissonance that has yet to be accounted for.

“By pushing this limit of international tuition up and up and up, we’re really going to start seeing the diversity of this institution erode,” said AMS President Aaron Bailey. “[That’s] detrimental, not just to the international students who can’t come here and study, but to the people who can afford to study here.”

As with prioritizing “diversity” despite lacking necessary metrics to track it, the university has used the quest for “excellence” to justify the tuition increases. Yet, there is startlingly little information on what exactly “excellence” means for the institution in real terms.

“They don’t know the meaning of the word they are using to justify something this massive,” said a frustrated Bailey.

Redish acknowledged that there is no working definition for the term at UBC. “We’re going to seek feedback on that,” said Redish when pressed.

“I’m not going to chart out a simple statement.”

In the way that the word “excellence” is used most frequently by the university it denotes highprofile faculty, world-class research and, in theory, the best students in Canada who will flock to UBC because of its faculty and research reputation.

But Redish said the definition is open to change and could come to include student learning.

“Maybe after we’ve finished all of the consultation people will say, ‘Actually, the goal should be the best student learning experience and you

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

should be measuring the experience and not to attract the best students in Canada,’” said Redish.

The problem with relying on a subjective word like “excellence,” said AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Jenna Omassi, is that it ignores the day-to-day experiences of the students who are attending UBC now but being asked to pay for future “excellence.”

“If excellence has to do with university ranking it is only research that is really included into the conversation,” Omassi said when the international tuition increases were announced. “But as a student and a member of the UBC community I know that university excellence is more than that. It is about the student experience primarily and the community that surrounds a university.”

The nebulous definitions which UBC uses to justify the most recent tuition increases are meant to be defined, at least partially, through the student consultation that opened this week. However, because the Board instructed the administration to raise fees and the administration created a plan to do so, Redish said that student consultation won’t change whether or not the fee increases go through.

The order in which this process has taken place is problematic to many.

“The process was backwards,” said Omassi. She feels that it has left no place for the voice of students. “It really puts a barrier on how we can advocate on behalf of

students and what’s going to happen with these increases.”

Student consultation has always been limited. The 1997 sit-in at President Strangway’s office occurred in part because the university did not abide by their own Policy 71 — outlining how consultation should be carried out — and unilaterally raised tuition fees by 310 per cent. “We did feel we had a gun pointed to our head,” admitted protest organizer Jonathan Oppenheimer at the end of the sit-in in Strangway’s office. During the sit-in the administration refused to negotiate with the protesters.

The contentious relationship between university administrators and students persists today. “We still need to push as a student body for them to really meaningfully consult with students,” Bailey said. He added that students should be seen “as problem solvers, not just ... as customers who are being notified of a price increase.”

“It can get adversarial because there can be an expectation that, because we don’t want tuition to increase, we just won’t engage in anything,” Knott said of the university’s perception of students.

“It’s a default mechanism and I think that’s really unfortunate because that shuts the student voice out.”

Bailey also believes that it’s time for students to start being more vocal as well and to tell the Board of Governors and the administration that UBC is their institution too.

“There’s papers, there’s midterms, you’re bogged down [and]

| whose campus | 5

you’re probably working three jobs just to try to pay to go through. But remember that the university, at all times, needs to listen to you when it makes decisions,” Bailey said.

“It’s your responsibility and your opportunity to get loud and speak up about these kinds of things.” U – With files from Joshua Azizi, Sarah Nabila, Arno Rosenfeld, Vassilena Sharlandjieva and Bill Situ

Recommendations •

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•

•

•

UBC postpone tuition consolation and the Board of Governors vote on whether to increase international tuition until the university does not have interim leaders serving as president, board of governors chair and provost.

UBC justify any tuition increase by explaining the specific financial needs of the institution.

UBC adopt a policy of notifying students through a broadcast email of any proposed tuition increase as soon as it becomes an agenda item at a Board of Governors meeting.

UBC be required to consider and publicly outline the impact any tuition increase will have on student diversity.

UBC adopt a policy of lobbying the provincial government for more funding before seeking to raise tuition and publicly outline the lobbying process and outcome.

FILE PHOTO GEOFF LISTER/THE UBYSSEY

Rob Morton, founder of The Party Calendar, at a protest against tuition hikes on campus in fall 2014.

- ARNO ROSENFELD

PHOTO COURTESY AMS ARCHIVES

Students protest tuition hikes outside of the Old Administration Building in 1993.

II. Sold to the highest bidder: international students at UBC VASSILENA SHARLANDJIEVA STAFF WRITER

“I would be ashamed to try to prevent foreign students from getting some of their education in Canada,” declared UBC Chairman William Gibson.

The year was 1980 and Gibson was responding to an ultimately discredited report released by MLA Jack Davis. The report claimed that foreign students were preventing Canadians —“our own people” — from getting into BC universities.

Differential fees — the practice of charging domestic and international students different rates for the same education — did not exist at any of BC’s universities in 1980. UBC’s president opposed implementing them even though universities in Canada had begun to.

It was a time when a university’s excellence was not measured by tuition rates and international students were not seen as ATMs for cash-starved universities.

With UBC now referring to international students as “customers,” much has changed in the years since the Davis report was released to widespread condemnation.

The first international students came to Canada in the 1960s as part of a Canadian International Development Agency program.

The Canadian government covered the cost of studies for most international students and the few who paid their own way through did so at the same rate as their local classmates.

“CIDA had a commitment to try and support the development of countries that needed wellqualified personnel for their own government [and] for their

private enterprises,” explained 50 per cent announced this week, — which it had also done. When York University Professor with UBC claiming it needed to a group of students took UBC to Roopa Trilokekar, who studies set tuition at the same rate as court, a judge ruled that UBC had international education. “It was “comparable institutions” like the to reimburse students who had about training students from University of Toronto and McGill. paid the ancillary fees. the developing world for them The 1997 hike was far more The university had also failed to return back to the developing dramatic than today’s. Tuition to follow its own Policy 71 — the world.” tripled — becoming the highest in administration raised tuition Over the next several decades, Canada at the time. But the logic without any consultation with Canadian foreign policy shifted its has remained the same according students. UBC had “created priorities from development aid to to Doug Owram, former chancellor an atmosphere of hostility and trade and economic growth. This of UBC Okanagan and a history mistrust,” the judge said. shift was coupled with a significant professor. “You can do it because Failing to consult with students reduction in public funding for was not the only lapse in UBC’s universities — federal transfer accountability. The university funds for post-secondary committed to putting 6.7 per education dropped from 0.5 per cent of the increased tuition cent of Canada’s GDP in 1983 to fees toward financial aid along 0.33 per cent in 1989. with funding 10 full scholarships With a need for more for students from developing revenue and the government countries. Yet by 1999 only 3.5 turning away from supporting per cent of tuition was going international students, towards financial aid and the Canadian universities began promised scholarships had not considering charging higher been created.

PHOTO COURTESY UBC ARCHIVES fees to non-citizens. Differential It was also unclear how Students socializing in international house on campus fees for international students international tuition revenue in an undated photo. were first proposed by the federal was used as there was no central government as an additional source others are doing it,” he said of the regulation over how individual of university revenue in 1976. international tuition hikes. faculties managed the funds.

These higher fees became standard This crude institutional logic As in 1997, UBC has pledged during the 1980s. was not met without resistance. that around seven per cent of UBC, however, was a unique Over 400 students, faculty and staff the revenue brought in from the holdout and the administration protested with a sit-in in former currently proposed tuition increase opposed differentiating fees. But UBC President David Strangway’s will go toward financial aid. They a provincial budget crisis in the office, but to no effect. Twenty have also acknowledged having no mid-1980s meant that by 1985 students from the University of plan for how to spend the money international students were paying Victoria occupied the Deputy that will come from the increases. around 2.5 times the domestic rate.

Minister of Education’s office in Martha Piper, who served Graduate students continued a sympathy protest. Both groups UBC’s president for nine years to pay domestic tuition fees until unsuccessfully argued against starting in 1997, returned this 1997, when UBC set fees for those differentiating domestic and summer in an interim capacity. programs at rates closer to what international fees.

By 2001, international other Western universities charged While international students education had shifted to a for similar degrees. weren’t protected by provincial completely market-oriented The process that year was legislation, the university was model and at UBC fees were over much like the proposed increase barred by the Tuition Freeze Act of six times higher than domestic in international tuition of nearly 1996 from raising any ancillary fees tuition. In 2013, the Canadian

International Development Agency — responsible for first encouraging students to study abroad in Canada — lost its autonomy and was merged into the Department of Foreign Affairs and oriented toward aiding Canadian economic interests abroad.

However, the international tuition hikes did not lower undergraduate enrollment at UBC. That is because — just before what would amount to a 600 per cent increase on international tuition was implemented — UBC began to actively recruit foreign students. The International Student Initiative, which today recruits students in 78 countries, was established in 1995. The creation of ISI was accompanied by a mandate to create more capacity for international undergraduates at UBC from whom they could then charge higher, market-based fees not capped by the domestic tuition freeze.

As Canadian universities became more entrepreneurial, the federal government also adopted a strong market rhetoric in its International Education Policy.

Data from 2012 showed that international students in Canada sustained 86,570 Canadian jobs and generated $445 million in federal and provincial tax revenues. As a result, international education became a “priority sector” under Canada’s Global Markets Action Plan announced in November 2013.

The government’s stated goal is to attract 450,00 international students to Canada by 2022 in order to sustain a total of 173,000 new jobs and generate $910 million in new tax revenue.

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The policy outlines how efforts should be concentrated on “branding Canada to maximize success.” “ [A] clear long-term strategy is needed to ensure that Canada maintains and increases its market share of the best and brightest international students and researchers,” an advisory panel reported. Such a plan would be key to securing Canada’s economic success, according to the policy.

Karen McKellin, UBC’s International Student Initiative’s executive director, uses a similar commercial rhetoric when discussing the impact the current proposed tuition hikes will have on recruitment. She explained that applications to UBC rose last year despite the 10 per cent tuition increase implemented for the 2015/16 academic year.

“It doesn’t always mean that your customers drop off when your

fees go up,” McKellin said, noting UBC’s international ranking. “If you have a really good product ... then some parents and families just dig a little deeper.”

She believes students will not be deterred from applying to UBC once they recognize that UBC’s competitors’ tuition is also increasing. “‘We have to position ourselves in the global market,’ to me, is very problematic,” said Kumari Beck, an SFU professor who studies international education.

She expressed concern that when degrees become viewed as commodities international students are “objectified as the means to that end.”

“It’s back in the old neocolonial game of resource plundering, except now what we’re doing is we’re plundering human resources,” Beck said, referring to how international students are

targeted as the ideal immigrants to sustain the growth of Canada’s workforce.

Pam Ratner, UBC’s Interim Vice Provost and AVP for enrollment, also noted that graduating international students benefit Canadian companies.

“Not all students have the global mobility that employers would like to see,” Ratner told The Ubyssey.

Beck believes more value should be placed on what international students bring in terms of a diversity of perspectives.

That could result from better government funding for higher education and a relaxation of the competitive marketdriven approach to recruiting international students, she said.

The benefits international students bring to Canada are seldom recognized by the public, according to Owram, the former UBCO chancellor. He said many

FILE PHOTO CHERIHAN HASSUN/THE UBYSSEY

Students protest international tuition increases last fall as part of the IAmAStudent protest movement.

still view international students as “parasites” who displace domestic students from universities.

“It’s just not true,” he emphasized, arguing that both universities and governments have a responsibility to correct these misconceptions.

UBC says they fill every domestic student slot that the province provides funding for and create additional capacity in order to enroll students from abroad.

“The message has to be repeated over and over for people to get it,” said Owram.

When Mohamed Shaaban applied to university, UBC was his ninth choice. Despite gaining admission to his top eight choices including partial scholarships McGill and the prestigious Hong Kong University, he chose UBC for financial reasons — he was awarded the International Leader of Tomorrow scholarship which covers the full cost of his studies.

“I love this decision,” said Shaaban, an Egyptian third-year math and physics student.

But he has also noted the damage that charging marketbased tuition fees to international students has had on the international student population 18 years after UBC implemented the aggressive 300 per cent tuition increases.

“They might be diverse in that they’re from different countries, but they’re all sort of the same person,” Shaaban said of his international classmates. “It’s the upper-middle class citizen who went to an international school, a who-can-afford-coming-to-UBC kind of person.”

While Shabaan believes the current international population lacks socioeconomic diversity, the university administration has noted that they do not keep track of such information. For this reason they will be unable to measure the impact of the 50 per cent international tuition

increase on the economic diversity of international students going forward.

With UBC already only accessible to the most privileged classes in developing countries, Shaaban said raising tuition more can only limit the educational experience that UBC provides.

“In university, you learn more outside of class than you learn in class,” said Shaaban. “You learn more from the people than you learn from your books ... If everyone is the exact same person, you won’t learn anything because you’re just seeing yourself.”

Although he is not opposed to tuition increases in light of government funding cuts or to invest in student financial aid or services, Shaaban is against raising tuition simply to match the rates of other institutions.

“That is not a valid reason,” he said. “In mathematics, we’re always taught logic and flow — you’d get a zero on your assignment if that was your reasoning.” U - With files from Joshua Azizi, Sarah Nabila, Arno Rosenfeld, Moira Warburton and Bill Situ

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UBC should cap international tuition no higher than costrecovery levels, adopting a policy stating that international students enrolment should be made on academic grounds rather than financial ones UBC should immediately begin studying the economic background of enrolled international students and make a summary of that information public Before any international tuition increases are implemented UBC should publicly provide a forecast of the impact international tuition hikes on student diversity

- ARNO ROSENFELD

III. Seen as schoolchildren: barriers to campus fun MOIRA WARBURTON NEWS EDITOR Rob Morton had a vision for Oktoberfest. The founder of The Calendar wanted to create an annual event at the War Memorial Gym on campus, mimicking the massive German beer halls taking place around the world this month. UBC Oktoberfest wouldn’t be limited to a tiny proportion of the student population — it would be able to accommodate hundreds of students from different social circles and clubs.

For weeks, his vision looked like it was coming to fruition. According to emails between The Calendar and War Memorial Gym Facilities Coordinator Jenny Black, progress

was being made well into late September. Discussions were had about capacity and price.

Then three weeks before the event, The Calendar received an email familiar to other student event organizers on campus.

“I am saying no this time, and likely no to any future requests ‘in season,’” wrote Black, referencing the varsity athletic seasons. “I know that your group has delivered many successful parties and I wish you all the best with planning your next social event.”

Oktoberfest went ahead last night at Koerner’s Pub on the far edge of campus. But Koerner’s capacity

was capped at 500 — less than half of what War Memorial Gym could have potentially held for the night of celebration and camaraderie.

Since Arts County Fair was cancelled due to a lack of funding in 2007, there’s been a perception on campus that students can’t be trusted to organize events like beer gardens, concerts and social mixers involving alcohol.

The perception used to be well-founded. Aside from racking up large amounts of debt for the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS), Arts County Fair was known to be a messy affair. “I saw vomit and unconsciousness [as well as] tens

of thousands of my fellow UBC students reducing themselves to a hostile, self-degrading sea of intoxication,” said an op-ed by AMS exec Lyle McMahon in 2005.

Since 2008, the RCMP’s university detachment has become more proactive in limiting the special occasion licenses (SOL) needed for private events at which alcohol is be available. A UBC Insiders investigation in 2009 found that the vast majority of SOLs didn’t go to student-organized community events. When they were granted to students, the regulations for each event approved by the RCMP and campus fire marshal varied hugely

from case to case.

The RCMP, which did not respond to a request for comment from The Ubyssey, had a generally hostile attitude toward campus parties and licensed social events in the aftermath of Arts County Fair.

“Nobody out here qualifies for a special occasions license,” Sgt. Dan Wendland told The Tyee in 2009.

He claimed SOLs were exclusively intended for events like weddings and bar mitzvahs, not “weekly beer gardens, daily beer gardens, drunkfests, whatever [students] want to call them.”

As UBC Insiders noted, the sergeant was wrong about whether

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a beer garden or “drunkfest” could legitimately qualify for a special occasion license. However, his comments point to the difficulties facing students trying to hold licensed events on campus.

Fire marshal Marcus Von Minden is responsible for setting maximum occupancy numbers for campus events and has also been making it harder to organize events at UBC. The UBC Fire Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Both the AUS and the Science Undergraduate Society have seen the capacity of their student buildings drop by around 30 per cent since Von Minden was appointed in 2009.

“It’s constantly changing,” SUS President Melissa Lachica said concerning the capacity limits at the Abdul Ladha Student Science Centre. “It impacts [where] student groups are taking their events, so a lot more people will book offcampus.”

AUS President Adrian Talingdan has faced similar problems with the Meekison Arts Student Space — decreased occupancy limited the society to hosting smaller events that don’t involve alcohol despite representing the largest faculty on campus.

“I hate when I see restrictions from the university controlling student life,” Talingdan said. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

AMS President Aaron Bailey understands the difficulty of organizing events at UBC first hand. He has spent the past four months working to find a permanent location to host Block Party, the year-end concert which replaced Arts County Fair in 2008.

Bailey determined that, following the destruction of MacInnes field to build the new Aquatic Centre, Thunderbird Stadium was the sole venue on campus with enough capacity for the concert. Block Party has easily sold out 7,000 tickets in the past, only to be told that certain members of the university administration had instructed UBC Athletics to refuse the AMS permission to use the stadium.

“It’s complete disregard and disrespect,” Bailey said of the negotiations, which he sees as the university leading the AMS on. “It’s a continual sense of appeasement: ‘We’ll listen to you when it’s convenient for us and then we’ll just tell you no with no explanation.’”

For Bailey, who will be leading an AMS campaign to save Block Party, the administration’s intransigence on finding a venue for it is especially painful. That’s because he sees Block Party as an important physical manifestation of the UBC community.

“It’s that one day a year that everybody knows about and everybody looks forward to in terms of getting together and celebrating what it means to be a UBC student,” said Bailey.

We like having fun.

VP Students Louise Cowin declined requests for an interview regarding the use of Thunderbird Stadium for Block Party and the difficulty of hosting student events on campus.

“We appreciate that this is an important event for students,” she said through a spokesperson.

“That’s why UBC is working hard with the AMS and other groups on campus to find a resolution that works for everyone.”

Morton, like Bailey, is also frustrated.

“The university doesn’t even need to facilitate or actively build this movement to have an even more fun and more exciting campus,” said an exasperated Morton, founder of The Calendar.

“Students are doing it. All the university needs to do is gently move out of the way and provide a few resources.”

“Or not even — They literally just need to say, ‘Okay,’” Morton added.

No one can attest to this better than Anna Hilliar, AMS programming & events manager.

For the past four years, she’s been in charge of making sure events like Block Party and Welcome Back Barbecue are successful — but this doesn’t come easily at UBC. With the Welcome Back BBQ in September, for example, Hilliar and her team had just two and a half weeks to advertise and book talent because of the delays in getting space usage approval from the university. This is not a oneoff either.

FILE PHOTO STEVEN RICHARDS/THE UBYSSEY

“We have to fight for it and beg for it and then eventually we do end up getting a space. But at that point, it’s a challenge for us to get things together,” said Hilliar.

Hilliar, like Bailey and Morton, has no complaints about the lower levels of the university bureaucracy. All three emphasized that the relationship between lower-level departments and organizations, such as AMS Events and The Calendar, have been improving in recent years.

“Everybody was very supportive … and then everything seemed to fall apart when it got up to the executive level,” said Hilliar of the Thunderbird Stadium negotiations.

Bailey sees all this as revealing a fundamental problem with how the university sees the student body.

“They show an automatic negative bias towards student organizations and fun on this campus,” he said. “They don’t believe students and the AMS are capable of running safe, secure and enjoyable events.”

But the bias is not a wellfounded one — student-planned events on campus have come a long way since the days of ACF. Hilliar said that since she came into the job four years ago, she can count on one hand the number of ambulances called to Block Party.

David Sidoo, an exThunderbird football player and Board of Governors member, noted that— despite having nearly 8,000 students at the licensed Football Homecoming event in September — there was not a single medical or police incident.

“I was really proud of that,” he said at the time.

The mistrust of students is a wide-ranging problem with more serious effects than simply stopping students from drinking at campus parties once in a while.

Bailey and Morton both see direct causation between UBC’s high rates of loneliness, stress and depression among students and the university’s disrespect for students.

You don’t need to be a student at UBC Vancouver for very long to feel the lack of community engagement on campus. Morton started The Calendar for exactly that reason.

“From the time I left my residence to when I came home at night, I would see two people that I kind of knew and was just out super lonely all day,” he said of his first few terms at UBC. Anastasia Gornostaeva, a second-year arts student, is unconvinced that there is a larger community at UBC with which to connect. “As a community connecting people together ... it’s kind of hard to unite the whole school,” she told The Ubyssey.

She attributes feeling at home on campus to the friends she’s made rather than a sense of a larger community on campus.

She’s not alone — according to the AMS’ Academic Experience Survey this year, 46 per cent of undergrads don’t feel a sense of belonging on campus and 44 per cent have trouble making friends.

Gornostaeva was astonished to discover that other people share the same feelings as her.

“That’s awesome that I’m not alone,” she said.

It’s the kind of statistics found in the AMS survey that bother Morton the most – particularly when

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they’re so avoidable.

“It just seems so silly to not remove these barriers to helping students have a fantastic experience while they’re on campus,” he said.

“They just need to unlock a few doors and let students do the rest.”

“We don’t feel welcomed,” said Hilliar as she often feels shut down by the administration when trying to plan events.

In a recent interview concerning the tuition increases currently going through, Interim Vice Provost Redish was asked whether the students’ voice entered into the university’s long term plan. She suggested not. “Am I proud of all the things we’ve done over the last 10, 20 years? I absolutely am,” said Redish.

Morton, Bailey, Hilliar and others are proud of the things they’ve done on campus too. But the fact that every event becomes an uphill battle when it reaches a certain size means that the ability to create any sense of overall community on campus through student-run events is extremely limited.

“All I want to do is create great programming for students and enhance student experiences and having to spend so much time on [bureaucracy] … means that we can’t do all the fun things that we want to do,” said Jenna Earnshaw, events coordinator at AMS Events and third-year arts student.

Bailey said some of these problems could be fixed if the administration took the voices of its constituents more seriously.

“They’re not taking students’ feedback seriously,” Bailey said.

“The university is steamrolling over students.” U – With files from Olivia Law, Kelly Lin, Sophie Sutcliffe and Vassilena Sharlandjieva

Recommendations •

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UBC should allow block party to take place at Thunderbird Stadium UBC should encourage and support student efforts to hold events, including licensed events, on campus UBC should adopt a policy favouring students and faculty members over private residences when it comes to hosting events and activities on campus

- ARNO ROSENFELD

IV. Company town: how campus became commercial ARNO ROSENFELD FEATURES EDITOR The current spat between the AMS and the university administration on holding the year-end Block Party concert at Thunderbird Stadium is, in a word, weird.

UBC Athletics had agreed in principle to let the AMS host the concert at the stadium this year. On a campus with limited open space, it is the largest event venue and, for almost 20 years, the stadium was home to the Arts County Fair with an attendance that dwarfed Block Party.

To add another layer to the odd case of a university barring a concert from the campus stadium, AMS President Aaron Bailey told The Ubyssey that Campus and Community Planning as well as UBC Properties Trust were influential in convincing the administration to prevent Block Party, despite neither

having jurisdiction over the venue.

But as with so much at UBC today, the answer to all the weirdness lies in money.

If you look at a chart of UBC’s endowment fund growth, the pattern is striking. From around $100 million through the 1980s, the fund begins climbing at a steep rate starting in the early 1990s and today hovers around $1.2 billion.

This growth is largely a result of commercial housing development undertaken by UBC Properties Trust (UBCPT), a private entity entirely owned by the university and responsible for maximizing campus real estate assets. While the lucrative nature of their work is hard to argue with, commercial real estate motives inevitably run up against student interests — as was the case with the

Block Party tussle.

Toward the end of the summer, Bailey was visited by an account manager with UBCPT. This was the beginning of the university’s decision to reject Thunderbird Stadium as a venue. At a separate meeting, Bailey was informed that Thunderbird was located in South Campus, home to many private residents and where UBCPT has plans to construct more luxury housing.

When university campuses are located in existing communities — usually urban centers or rural towns — clashes like the one between the property developers and students on this campus are unavoidable.

Blessed with a bucolic block of land set apart from Vancouver by parkland and low-density residential housing, UBC has long had the

advantage of being adjacent to a major urban centre without needing to worry about rowdy college students or self-absorbed faculty clashing with city dwellers.

Then they decided to bring the town to them.

Perhaps, it all began as an accident. A prominent local real estate investor found himself thrust into a vanity appointment on UBC’s Board of Governors and decided to do what he knows best: build.

“A member recently appointed to the UBC Board of Governors cannot figure out why he is there,” The Ubyssey reported on September 14, 1984. At the time, appointee Robert “Bob” Lee was the president of Vancouver’s Prospero Realty — and it was true that he didn’t quite seem to know how he ended up on the

body tasked with running British Columbia’s largest university.

“I don’t know why I was chosen,” Lee told this newspaper at the time.

Four years later, he had convinced BoG to create UBC Real Estate Corporation to manage 28 acres of campus land designated for private housing. Nearly 30 years later, thanks to Lee, our campus is home to over 8,000 private residents.

This includes many townies unaffiliated with the university or its academic mission, but able to afford the ritzy condos and single-family homes offered for sale. UBC hopes to see the number of private residents grow to 24,000 over the next 25 years, according to the Land Use Plan.

In a 2000 memorandum of understanding with Metro

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Vancouver, UBC declared its intentions to develop a land use model “that substantially replicates ... municipalities in British Columbia.” The university, in other words, wants to be a city. It has said as much in the Metro Vancouver memo and elsewhere, expressing its desire for a “distinctive ‘college town’ community.”

Through the 1960s, campus was not luxurious. When enrollment tripled to 9,000 students following World War II, the university repurposed army barracks on campus to serve as student residences.

Then-President Norman MacKenzie encouraged the growing enrollment, seeing UBC as fulfilling an important role in educating the masses rather than serving as an elite research institution.

It was student pressure that led to a 1968 campus plan emphasizing “a garden-like environment and preservation of landscape, and limit on southward expansion,” according to a 2009 study of campus by a team of urban planners and researchers.

But the neoliberal shift in Canadian government during the 1980s encouraged publicprivate partnerships and reduced subsidies for higher education and other public services. That new attitude coupled with a provincial budget crisis in the mid-1980s led to the university hiking domestic tuition around 50 per cent over three years and differentiating international student tuition such that foreign students started paying 2.5 times more than their domestic counterparts.

UBC was also led down the road of corporate partnerships and private development that would both propel the university into the upper echelons of the world’s major research institutions and rob students of their voice on campus.

A sign of the university’s changing mission came in 1984 when they hired their first vice president for development and community relations. David McMillan came to Point Grey from the Canadian Direct Marketing Association — which in the 1980s looked like junk mail and telemarketing — with a swagger embodying the decade of greed.

A Ubyssey article noted a poster in his office seeking “funding support and public recognition” from “big money boys.”

“I only like being associated with success,” McMillan said.

With limited government funds for post-secondary education and ambitions to be “positioned among

the elite of the world’s ... universities,” UBC set out to raise private funds and transform its core mission — part of that would mean turning UBC into a real estate developer.

“A few influential politicians leaned on UBC to emphasize its role as an elite institution in contrast to the ethic of broad, democratic access espoused by many in the student movement,” explained the 2009 report, entitled “What Do We Value?”

The big money boys and influential politicians had found their man in David Strangway, who came into the presidency in 1985 and would transform UBC during A protest against the development of a library data center on campus circa 1970s. his twelve-year term.

“Universities are a major source of free members of the university a day.” It is unclear when people enquiry, providing the ideas that community on campus. staying on campus 18 hours a day can later be exploited by free Protests against Hampton became one of UBC’s goals. enterprise,” Strangway said in Place were loud and a suspected In 2003, when UBC proposed 1986, outlining his vision of arson destroyed a model of the building three 18-story residential higher education. site being used to promote the towers with retail space along It was as part of this new development.

University Boulevard — where orientation toward a university “The Alma Mater Society Shoppers and Mahoney’s now existing in the free market that is is united in being against the are — Chair of the Development UBC Real Estate Corporation. development,” AMS Director of Committee Harold Kalke suggested The first development External Affairs Vanessa Geary students’ parents could buy condos undertaken by the corporation told The Ubyssey in 1988. for them. in 1988 was Hampton Place, Mark Betteridge, who led Campus and Community a development intended for UBCPT at the time, belittled Planning is the UBC department non-students and non-faculty calls from local residents who that oversees development on members. were asking for both affordable campus — serving as a kind of City While the initial plans called housing and opposing the Hall for approving building and for the profits to be put toward decision to clearcut a forest to event permits as well as ensuring student housing, by the time build luxury housing. a 2010 Land Use Plan is properly Hampton Place was finished, “Well, if you’re going to build implemented. nearly $90 million profit simply housing, you can’t have trees,” While CC+P goes through contributed to UBC’s growing Betteridge told this newspaper rigorous consulting processes on endowment. in 1989. He suggested students proposed developments, they are Various student leaders found should stop demanding more ultimately an undemocratic body this galling given that, during the residences on campus and simply and answer to the largely unelected late 1980s, UBC students were share private housing.

Board of Governors which has a facing a housing crisis and did Student opposition to private mandate to oversee the university’s not understand UBC’s expansion development on campus persisted financial health. into condos. even as the the private housing “It’s quite an amazing story if “It was highly controversial, fueled UBC’s transformation into you look at it broadly,” Michael [Metro Vancouver] was appalled an elite institution. But given its White, leader of CC+P, said of the that this was happening without status as a private entity run by transformation of campus into a oversight,” Poettcker, the a team of real estate developers, small city. “Something we always Properties Trust co-founder, said UBC Properties Trust has been remind people [is] that, as an in a UBC Archives video. able to move ahead despite academic instruction and as a quasiMeanwhile, the AMS was community protest. municipality, place is a big factor in seriously considering requesting Poettcker explained the role our success.” permission to build their own UBCPT played accelerating White said the goal was not just student residences to alleviate campus development. to grow the endowment, but also the shortage of housing for “In a university setting ... it’s to build a sustainable community just very consensual,” he told on campus that will cut down on UBC Archives, explaining that commuting times and encourage this just was not acceptable when people to both live and work on it came to building projects. “You campus. The Land Use plan calls can’t wait until you get everybody for half of all households in private on side — if something is being housing to have at least one member built, answers need to be made affiliated with the university. CC+P immediately.” also wants to ensure 25 per cent of The disconnect between the student body can live on campus.

Poettcker and others leading By all indications, White and campus development from the his colleagues at UBC’s planning students is apparent in comments department want to build a model made over the past 30 years. In community on campus. But with response to demands from Metro development being the primary Vancouver, UBC developed a source of growth for the university’s land use plan in 2000. The plan endowment and that they are not outlined commercial and private democratically accountable to the housing developments and student community, the student body raised hackles from many in the is marginalized. community.

Moreover, while Campus and However, Poettcker noted Community Planning is theoretically during a community consultation, the sole arbiter of development “If we don’t reach a critical mass at the university, UBC Properties here, we’ll never attract the kind Trust holds outsize influence for FILE PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY of services that will make people its supposed role as a private entity Students protest the development of private housing on campus in this undated photo. stay on campus 16 to 18 hours distinct from the university.

FILE PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

“There is a very important separation of roles on this campus,” Lai, the university counsel, said, emphasizing that UBCPT was only a stakeholder on campus and not a decisionmaker. Campus and Community Planning “is required to exercise their judgement independently.”

Yet, Bailey said representatives of both Campus and Community Planning and UBCPT came to suggest moving Block Party away from the private residential areas on South Campus. More, he said that Poetcker was part of the university’s executive committee meeting that put the final kibosh on Block Party at Thunderbird Stadium over concerns related to land values.

That does not mesh with Lai’s explanation of UBCPT’s status as a private entity outside the university’s structure.

“If the chief executive officer of UBC Properties had something to say, of course anybody can express their views to Campus and Community Planning and they will consider all those views, but ultimately the decision they make is their decision,” he said.

The rather convoluted and undemocratic nature of what campus development has become was summed up well by disgruntled faculty member Mike Feeley in a 2003 Ubyssey article. “[UBC Properties Trust] is there to make money. They’re there to get your money,” he said. “We’re living in a company town.” U - With files from Vassi Sharlandjieva and Samantha McCabe

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UBC Properties Trust should be excluded from executive committee discussions - UBC Properties Trust should be required to solicit student feedback in addition to the consultations conducted

by Campus and Community Planning when proposing new developments on campus -The university should diversify the sources of its endowment such that it is significantly less reliant commercial real estate development on campus

- ARNO ROSENFELD

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

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V. All BoGged down: tuition without representation ARNO ROSENFELD FEATURES EDITOR In the mid-1990s, water fountains in UBC buildings started disappearing.

The university cited poor water quality and said, that instead of repairing the fountains, plumbers had accidentally taken them out altogether. They removed 97 fountains from 17 buildings, former Ubyssey writer Stanley Tromp reported in the Georgia Straight.

Then they built new buildings on campus, like the Forest Sciences Centre, without any water fountains.

Whoops.

The move coincided with a joint UBC and AMS 1995 deal with Coca-Cola to become the sole drink supplier on campus. Including water.

Vending machine’s selling Coke’s Dasani brand of water popped up around campus.

The deal turned out to be rather insane. Coke was to pay the university $8.4 million over 10 years.

But to meet the requirements of the deal, UBC needed to consume 33.6 million Coke products over 10 years.

That did not happen. In exchange, UBC had to grant Coke a free, twoyear exclusivity extension.

But students did not find this out for six years because UBC refused to release the terms of the deal.

They justified this under the nowrepealed Policy 116, which granted private corporations contracted with the university to decide what information to release in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Eventually, the BC Information Privacy Commissioner ordered the university to release the terms of the Coke deal over the strenuous opposition of the university. It was eventually revealed that, in negotiations with Coke, UBC and the

AMS had the option to sign a deal with public terms and had decided not to.

University Counsel Hubert Lai explained the situation: Coke said, “There’s two sets of pricing information we’re prepared to share with you. One is the information that we can share with you if we know it’s going to remain confidential because, if it was disclosed, that would put us at a competitive disadvantage.

If you can’t do that ... then we can give you a different set of pricing information which will be higher prices. But if that’s the cost of transparency, then that’s a decision the AMS and the university can make.’”

The university declined to pay the price of transparency.

This has not been a great year for transparency at UBC. UBC announced that President Arvind Gupta was stepping down as president in early August, late on a Friday afternoon. In other words, they tried to bury the news.

The statement released said Gupta had “resigned” from the presidency to focus on academia.

This was widely considered to be a euphemism for Gupta being forced out of his leadership position.

The president serves at the will of the Board of Governors.

The board oversees all the financial affairs of the university — including setting a budget and making decisions on construction and tuition rates. It is also an undemocratic and unaccountable body.

The board has 21 members, 11 of

whom are appointed by the province.

Many of those 11 have donated significant sums of money to the BC Liberals — the current government — and have little to no experience running a university.

UBC Insiders, an investigative blog on campus, has documented the BoG secrecy quite thoroughly over the past several years.

In June, Board Secretary Reny Kahlon proposed a new board policy that would ban recording BoG meetings or taking photographs.

“It was intended to ensure that activities of the board could be handled in a way that was appropriate and efficient,” University Counsel Hubert Lai said in an interview. He added that, while his office was charged with writing the policy, they are required to respond to all such requests. “[It] doesn’t always mean that every policy request is a good idea,” he added.

Neal Yonson of UBC Insiders noted that if the policy passed — which, as of this writing, it has not — this would only compound the secrecy already prevalent on the board.

He wrote that an agenda item covering international tuition increases, detailed in full just last week, had been discussed by the board last spring in a rather opaque manner.

“It [came] with no documentation, no presentation and [was] only allotted five minutes,” Yonson wrote. “This item did not appear on the open portion of the Committee agenda the week prior. Motions like this do not appear out of nowhere. Chances are extremely

FILE PHOTO WILL MCDONALD/THE UBYSSEY

Then-Board of Govenors Chair John Montalbano walks past reporters as he returns to a secret board meeting.

high that, in the closed session of Committees, there was documentation, a presentation and way more than five minutes of discussion.”

Apparently, the Board of Governors contact information is a state secret. When Yonson sought to find that information through a Freedom of Information Act request, the responsive documents included just a handful of phone numbers and no email addresses.

Everything else was considered personal information not subject to disclosure.

Board members are apparently not given UBC email addresses, which would be exposed to Freedom of Information requests.

The lack of transparency on the university’s highest governing body is disconcerting — especially considering that, since the majority of the board is appointed rather than elected, it becomes difficult to hold the board accountable for their decisions and behavior.

“In terms of accountability, they are accountable to their respective

constituencies,” Lai, the university counsel, said.

While the provincial government could remove an appointed board member for any reason they see fit, students and others in the university community have little recourse to move against any board members with the exception of handful of representatives elected by students, staff and faculty at the university. U

Recommendations •

•

•

•

Board of Governors meetings should be video recorded and open sessions should be live streamed on the internet The university should appoint an accountability liaison to ensure the Board operates in as transparent a manner as possible Board of Governors members should be given university email addresses and all official board emails should go through these addresses Board of Governors contact information should be posted publicly

- ARNO ROSENFELD

But if that’s the cost of transparency, then that’s a decision the AMS and the university can make.

// OPINIONS

EDITOR JACK HAUEN

VOTING //

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

VOTING //

10

ELECTION //

More should take advantage of Canada’s peace

Naa Karley Addo Letter

ILLUSTRATION AIKEN LAO/THE UBYSSEY

ILLUSTRATION AIKEN LAO/THE UBYSSEY

Why I didn’t vote You should’ve voted Jastej luddu Letter

If you’re 18 or older, you’ve probably felt the pressure to “exercise your right to vote.”

It comes from the media, our university and every budding poli-sci major on campus. From Rick Mercer showing up on my Facebook newsfeed demanding that I take part in democracy, to the posters plastered everywhere on campus telling me to “Champion The Vote,” the message is clear — voting is my right and, by not exercising it, I put to shame to what it means to be Canadian.

That being said, I’m not voting.

Before you close your browser window in disgust, hear me out.

I’m not an apathetic young adult who doesn’t care who’s running the country. I’m an informed individual who thinks changing the system by working within it accomplishes nothing.

Take strategic voting — what happened to voting for someone who represented your beliefs?

We’re willing to mess with an already broken system just to see one man gone. Our willingness to resort to strategic voting proves there’s something wrong with the system. We act as if some nefarious supervillain threatened this country with nuclear weapons and forced us to place Harper in power. The truth is that we voted him in using the same system that we’re now employing to kick him out.

Take a look at the issues that have dominated this election season: the niqab, Bill C-51 and Justin Trudeau’s hair. The politics are of fear, misinformation and superficiality reign supreme.

Thoughtful political discourse is missing in the current political landscape because the system

prefers sensationalism. How are voters supposed to decide when presented with candidates that are caricatures of themselves and have policies that can be summed up in a few short sentences?

Jude Crasta compared our system to a “broken down car in the woods.” He argued that we wouldn’t abandon the car in hopes of fixing its engine, so why do the same with our system? I agree that our system is broken. But voting won’t fix anything because it’s part of the system itself. It’s like opening up the hood and being told to fix the engine with the spare tire. Sure, the tire is part of the car — but it’s hardly the right tool to use. I’m not abandoning the system by not voting, I’m simply refusing to acknowledge its legitimacy and looking at an alternate method of fixing it.

“

Voting won’t fix anything because it’s part of the system itself.”

If 80 per cent of the population decided they wouldn’t take part in a democratic farce, government would have to look at reform. It sounds like a dream, but all it requires is that people stop pretending democracy works in this country. Citizen education, electoral reform and political revolution is necessary in order to unite this country and break free of ideologies, class, religion and race. If you think the system works fine, then enjoy the thrill of filling out a ballot. But if you think your voice is worth more than just a slip of paper, then educate yourself, start a movement, demand change and opt out of the circus.

Jastej Luddu is a first-year arts student at UBC. U

Bailey ramsay Op-ed

This op-ed is a response to “Why I didn’t vote” by Jastej Luddu.

Dear Mr. Luddu, In your letter, you condescendingly state: “if you think the system works fine, then enjoy the thrill of filling out a ballot.”

Canadians are visibly upset by the state of their government and unhappy with the system — that I can agree with. However, strategic voting is a way to fix it.

If you were as informed as you say, perhaps you’d realize that all parties have expressed serious support for reforming the electoral system and part ways with first-past-the-post — of course, all the parties with the exception of the Conservatives.

An obvious minority of people were actually in support of a Conservative government in the 2011 Canadian federal election.

Only 39.62 per cent of votes cast their ballot for the Tories.

That means an estimated 60 per cent of voters didn’t want a Conservative government.

Unfortunately, we have the firstpast-the-post electoral system to thank for the unrepresentative Conservative win.

You claim to not be apathetic, but not voting is an incredibly passive response. Doing nothing requires no energy and giving nothing receives nothing.

You claim that Canada has a simple solution: “It sounds like a dream, but all it requires is that people stop pretending democracy works in this country.”

Yes, a dream is exactly what that sounds like — a dream in which you can lay in your bed with your eyes closed and

blindly hope that your collective passivity will achieve something.

It won’t. If we want to change the system, we need to figure out how to change it from within.

If nobody voted, governments would steam ahead unopposed while Canadians watched.

Walking away from something that frustrates you is easy; challenging politicians at their own game is hard.

“

If we want to change the system, we need to figure out how to change it from within.”

You complain about the substance of various political platforms: “Take a look at the issues that have dominated this election season: the niqab, Bill C-51 and Justin Trudeau’s hair. The politics are of fear, misinformation and superficiality reign supreme.”

Please note that all three of the issues you listed are part of the Conservative Party’s fearmongering platform. These dirty political tactics are exactly why we must collectively conquer this current government in order to alleviate these issues in the future.

If you are unhappy with your current government, passivity won’t achieve anything but more inequality. Instead of opting out, take responsibility for the change you want to see in our nation’s democratic system. Do something about Canada’s future, and vote.

Bailey Ramsay is a fourth-year English Literature major and copy editor at The Ubyssey. U

MAD ABOUT THE ELECTION? Tell us about it. opinion@ubyssey.ca

Election time in Ghana (my home country) is quite an event. Party colours and paraphernalia are everywhere from manifestos to calendars and more eccentric merchandise such as fans, albums and even tissue boxes with electoral candidates’ faces plastered all over.

In Ghana, you’ll find snaking lines of people queuing up to vote, many of whom woke up at 3 a.m. to get a spot in line. Ghana is filled with eager citizens who really can’t wait to vote.

Ghana is a peaceful democracy.

That being said, we have suffered military coups in the past. As a result, whenever elections come about, you see a lot of peace campaigns. Some of the media went as far as to broadcast Hotel Rwanda during the most recent 2012 election in the hopes of inhibiting election violence and serving as a reminder of the fallout of violence we see all too often in daily news.

So why is there such apathy among Canadian youth when it comes to elections? If you have peace, don’t take it for granted. U

ADVICE //

Am I allowed to feel sad?

Natalie Morris Advice column

“Dear Natalie, I broke up with my boyfriend this weekend and I feel really bad now. I know it was the right choice, but I feel like I don’t deserve to feel this way.”

Just because you were on this side of the break up doesn’t mean it was any less of a break up. You still have a blank space in your life now that was filled until a few days ago.

Don’t think that just because you were the one who broke things off that you don’t have a right to feel whatever you feel. That’s the thing about feelings – no one should tell you which ones you can have.

You deserve the same love and hugs from your friends, the same ice cream runs, the same understanding when you need a cry.

When things are tough, remember that it takes a huge amount of courage to end a relationship that needs to end. You will find love in a partner one day, even if it wasn’t today. U

U

// CULTURE

EDITOR OLIVIA LAW

THEATRE //

Heartbreak and hilarity: Empire of the Son

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

APPS //

xDine makes lunchtime easier

xDine aims to shorten wait times for food on campus.

Adam Siddiqui Contributor

PHOTO COURTESY THE CULTCH

Shigematu’s performance was stunning, hilarious and emotional.

Olivia Law Culture Editor

“Seventy-two per cent. That’s how much water is in your body. And that water has been around here on earth for four and half billion years.

That means, the moisture in your breath was once at the centre of a glacier during The Ice Age. In your frozen form, you carved valleys through unnamed mountain ranges.”

When one man can make a room full of adults laugh, cry, feel excessively uncomfortable and mourn for a man they never knew all in 90 minutes, it’s undeniable that something special is happening.

Tetsuro Shigematsu, a Vanier scholar at UBC, is performing an extended run of his one-man, one-act play Empire of the Son at The Cultch. A play that explores intercultural and intergenerational differences, Empire of the Son is a profound piece of theatrical, technical and literary mastery.

The story of Shigematsu — his childhood in England, growing up in Montreal, travelling to Asia, his marriage, his children and parents — are embodied through recordings, live video and different voices and stances. Scenes from his childhood are portrayed through a model bathroom, a miniature mail cart and abstract representations through hand motions of conversations with his father, a former BBC radio producer.

Shigematsu read letters from his father aloud, used microphone settings to mimic the loneliness of radio broadcasting to the world and projected photos of his own children and childhood.

Empire of the Son is a musing on feelings — what it means to be strong, whether tears are a sign of strength or weakness and how to show people that you love them.

Shigematsu questions which generation in the male heritage of his family stopped being able to cry — and when the cycle will end.

The first moment of wrecked emotion in the audience was a video clip of Shigematsu’s children. A candid video, shot in

his garden, the eight and 12 year-old ask their father whether he had ever really cried as an adult. No answer is given. It is enough.

Looking after his father in the last few months of his life, Shigematsu shows his struggle to express his love for his father, comparing it to the “hop in his step” when his grandfather finally returned home from being a prisoner of war. The parallels between his life and the life of his father are hauntingly heartbreaking.

He tells of the way his three sisters could “coo and cluck” over him, transforming from mothers, wives, business women back to benevolent children again.

Though Empire of the Son focuses largely on the nuclear relationship of Shigematsu and his parents, the second moment that brought the audience to tears was one of the few mentions of his wife.

Shigematsu’s mother — unable to see any light throughout the painfully slow deterioration of his father – was invited to move in by her daughter-in-law. She could see the joy the two children brought to her — a joy only children can bring.

Playing himself and his father, Shigematsu shows immense comedic talent, capturing the spirit of the quiet, understated man who — although he had lived through bombings, fires, the infamous Marilyn Monroe birthday address and tea with the Queen – was just his father.

The magic of Empire of the Son lies in the fact that the audience cannot tell exactly what is true and what is false. The lines between what is for theatrical effect and what is pure emotion are blurred, and the intimacy of Shigematsu’s performance uses subtleties that can only be indulged within a small theatre.

What ultimately keeps the two apart are their similarities. The differences in values, culture and relationships are glaringly obvious, but the strength evident in both men is moving and inspiring.

A beautiful performance and stunning memorial of an incredible man, Empire of the Son deserves every single sold out show. U

11

Lunchtime rushes at food outlets around campus can put a huge damper on anyone’s day. xDine is an app that integrates online ordering into a restaurant’s website in order to provide a way for them to move into the digital age with ease. The app is now being used by the AMS for students in the new SUB. The AMS has taken this concept and worked it into the Nest. Now, instead of waiting in line for a horrendous amount of time to get your food, students can order their food before even arriving at the building. This means that the precious moments before you have to dash to class will not be spent waiting for food because, in all your smartness, you have ordered your food online.

Something to keep in mind when using the app is that there is

a delay in the time you order your food and the time you can pick up your food.

Ava Nasiri, AMS VP Administration, explained this as a way to prevent people from ordering their food just to jump to the front of the line.

“You can’t stand next to someone in line, order and get your food before them. There is a bit of a delay for that food outlet to have an opportunity to make your food,” she said. “It’s also preventing the risk for a system in which you have people waiting in line forever because these online orders just pile up and the people in line continue to get bumped down.”

This feature has been at UBC for a year now. Formerly Lunchstreet, it was launched last year and has been updated to complement the new food outlets in the Nest.

The app is simple: you first choose the outlet you want, then select menu item(s) that fit your diet

PHOTO STEPHEN DURFEE/THE UBYSSEY

and finally pay by credit or debit card.

For those who pay with debit or credit cards, the app will save time. However, for the hundreds of students, first-years especially, who rely on their meal cards to feed themselves, they are out of luck.

Nasiri said that the AMS is very aware of the students who rely on their UBC Cards and have been in contact with UBC over the use of their cards on the AMS’s xDine.

Unfortunately, UBC is trying to get students to pay more if they wish to use their UBC Cards to pay for this service. This is something the AMS is not trying to endorse.

Long term goals for this app seem within reach. The AMS hopes that xDine will allow students to log on anywhere, order from any UBC outlet with either their credit, debit, UBC Card or an AMS gift card; go to the outlet, show them the confirmation number and walk out with their lunch for the day. U

12 | culture |

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

MUSIC //

Speaking, literature and music combine in De Profundis

Olivia Law Culture Editor

Oscar Wilde is a writer known to almost every speaker of the English language. Known not only for his literary mastery, Wilde was a renowned personality in the latter half of the 19th century.

For two years from 1895-1897, Wilde was placed in solitary confinement in Reading Gaol for sodomy. During this period, he wrote a letter to his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. According to Dr Gregory Mackie, a Wildean scholar in the department of English, Douglas was “one of the greatest shits in the history of English literature.” An extremely good-looking, flamboyant and wellconnected man, Douglas was never tried or placed under arrest for his “indecent actions” with Wilde or other men.

De Profundis, the letter from Wilde to Douglas, not only addresses specific points in their relationship, but Wilde’s own downfall, his suffering in prison and the injustice of the situation. The School of Music is putting on a performance of Frederic Rzewski’s composition – a set of eight piano preludes interlinked with excerpts from Wilde’s work.

Terence Dawson, a professor in the School of Music and pianist for the production, recites the text in a dictated rhythm, accompanied by the musical composition.

“It’s in a rhythm that [Rzewski] has dictated, but it’s not unnatural at all,” said Dawson. “It’s basically the rhythm of the speech.”

The pianist plays the music at the same time as the speech. In a

PHOTO KOSTA PRODANOVIC/THE UBYSSEY

The decision to take on this mammoth performance was not one Dawson took lightly.

way, it also seems perfectly natural.

In combination with the words, there are singing, humming and whistling portions as well as using the body and piano as percussive instruments. The composition is driven by the text where the overriding emotion stems from.

De Profundis is a complex work for the musician. Dawson spent an intensive six weeks rehearsing the piece before deciding to fully commit to the performance. Rzewski handwrites his compositions and provides specific, elaborate directions for the extended nonmusical techniques.

“I could play the music

expressively, but when it came to putting them together and figuring out how I’d be able to do those two seperate things, that was the big challenge for me,” said Dawson on the rehearsal process.

The performance is preceded by a panel discussion about the fusion of Wilde’s words and Rzewski’s music. Panelists Dawson and Mackie are also joined by Dr. David Metzer of the School of Music.

“I think what we’ll be talking about is looking at the emotive power of the text because it’s highly emotional and quite intense at moments,” said Mackie. “I can see how it would lend itself to music because of its emotional power and range – from suffering to joy, rage

and anger.”

There is, of course, a long history of poetry being set to music and being used as lyrics, but the text from Wilde’s De Profundis is prose.

“This piece encapsulates or represents that struggle of uncertainty, but also the resilience and the strength of human spirit,” said Dawson. “It shows how strong a character he really was. It’s a powerful piece of music combined with powerful text.”

Wilde is not known for his musical connections or associates – he is more akin with his extensive knowledge of literature, art and philosophy. Yet, De Profundis lends itself beautifully to the music of Rzewski. The music is both

lyrical and tonal – a very listenable piece which serves to effectively emphasise the hideous conditions Wilde was subjected to.

“After 30 minutes, you get a very small glimpse of what it could have been like,” said Dawson. “It still chokes me up because I don’t think an ordinary person can understand what it’s like to go through two years of solitary confinement.”

This performance is striving to show the intense interrelations between the arts, music and words in complete harmony and cohesion.

De Profundis will be performed on October 29 in the Roy Barnett Recital Hall. U

ELECTIONS //

Improv team make elections even funnier

AMS Vice would aim to educate students on substances.

Shanna (Shan) Larsen was only 24 when she lost her life to breast cancer

Symptoms ◆

breast lumps (most common)

◆

breast thickening

◆

dimpling/puckering of the breast

◆

breast swelling, redness, warmth or pain

◆

breast or nipple changes

◆

nipple discharge/leaking

teamshan.ca facebook.com/team.shan.ca @TeamShan

Samuel Du Bois Contributor

Nothing is funnier than national politics.

The UBC Improv team took to the stage in the AMS Student Nest Blackbox Theatre to provide an hour of improv shenanigans, relieving all of the pent-up election stress that is no doubt churning in the hearts of every politically-conscious student out there.

The show got off to a strong start with lots of input from the audience ensuing much hilarity.

The evening was comprised of all the traditional games from improv theatre, including audience participation, shouting, freeze frames, character switching and word games.

The performance wasn’t exactly as political as what might have been planned, though there

PHOTO COURTESY AMS

were some funny parts early on — one in particular involved Obama and Clinton in a scene saturated with sexual tension.

The lack of politics had more to do with the inclinations of the audience and their suggestions rather than the performers. The small group of people in attendance made the event an enjoyably intimate one. Most people got to contribute to the show at some point if they wanted to.

There were, of course, the inevitable awkward transitions you expect sometimes in improv.

However, on the whole, the team handled the performance like pros as they dealt with curveball audience suggestions and each other’s bizarre and inevitably hilarious decisions in their stride.

The Improv Team perform every two weeks on Tuesdays in Scarfe 100. U

// CULTURE

EDITOR OLIVIA LAW

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

FILM //

Telling the story of Eadweard Muybridge

13

Food on the Brain

Paula Duhatschek Contributor

Before there was YouTube, there was television. Before there was television, there was film. And before there was film, there was Eadweard Muybridge who created the first moving pictures in the 19th century through stop-motion photography.

Historical significance aside, have you ever heard of Eadweard Muybridge? Likely not – if you’ve read about him before, you’d probably remember his creative interpretation of the word “Edward,” if nothing else.

UBC alumni Josh Epstein and Kyle Rideout aim to remedy this omission. The two have co-written, directed and produced the new film, Eadweard, a stylized historical drama based on Muybridge’s story.

“Our attempt would be to make everybody know who Eadweard Muybridge was,” said Epstein.

Epstein and Rideout’s interpretation of Muybridge is of a tortured genius — an anti-hero who would fit in alongside Walter White or Don Draper. In Eadweard, he is played with cryptic power by actor Michael Eklund, who was recently seen skulking around on the TV show Bates Motel.

The film follows Muybridge from his first encounter with soonto-be wife, Flora (Sara Canning), through to his time spent conducting “motion studies” in photography at the University of Pennsylvania.

It ends with a bang — Muybridge received the last verdict of justifiable homicide in the U.S. for murdering his wife’s lover.

In between, there are plenty of elements that will appeal to lovers of historical costumes and psychodramas alike — these are not typically two groups with a lot of overlap. The film is also

ILLUSTRATION JERRY YIN/THE UBYSSEY

(And also on the table).

Elysse Bell Food columnist

Epstein wants everyone to know the name “Eadweard Muybridge.”

suited to photography enthusiasts.

It was shot all around British Columbia, resulting in an Instagram feed’s worth of beautiful, well-lit landscapes.

As Muybridge’s wife, Canning is appropriately minx-like and beautiful. She has the unique power to deliver phrases such as, “My father taught me how to use a pinhole camera,” sound like brash propositions. Although Canning plays it to a tee, Flora’s role is a little troubling from the outset.

According to Epstein, hers was the hardest character of all to write.

Little was known about her beyond what she wrote about her husband during their divorce trial. As a result, the writers had to reverse-engineer a personality for Flora with varying degrees of success.

“We wanted to take her away from just being someone who was at home and had no other interests,” said Epstein.

“There wasn’t a lot known about her except for the things she wrote about him when they were getting divorced. So we took those things, but we also added in that she desired to be a model and that put her in

PHOTO COURTESY MOTION 58

contrast with what Eadweard was going through.”

Despite the writers’ best efforts, Flora still spends much of the movie either being seductive or complaining about wanting to be more involved in Muybridge’s work. I would have liked to see more about Flora’s inner life without reducing her to a big whiner.

Still, Muybridge’s story is remarkable and he deserves more of a legacy than he’s gotten so far. For this movie, come for the history lesson and stay for the same reason. U

THEATRE//

Aliens taking over downtown Vancouver

PHOTO COURTESY VIRTUAL STAGE

Virtual Stage are back with another terrifying interactive theatre experience.

Rithu Jagannath Staff Writer

Spending a Tuesday night as an agent for NASA frantically running away from angry, famished zombies isn’t something that happens ... ever. Alien Contagion: Rise Of the Zombie Syndrome is the third Zombie Syndrome production created by Andy Thompson.

It all began at a top-secret location, which was disclosed the night before the show. Everyone

was gathered uncomfortably in groups here and there in the waiting area.

“Have you done this before?”

“Yeah, it’s been amazing and we have been here so many times that I expect it to be just as awesome!”

Then an army sergeant walked in through those doors with a great deal of purpose.

“Are you the NASA agents?” he yelled. The audience nodded – fully aware that this was going to be a completely unforgettable theatrical experience.

In one word, the performance was unexpected. The audience is directly involved in the plot, completely separating it from any form of “traditional” theatre.

The audience is assigned different roles that are vital to the mission’s success. The mission details are given – super advanced aliens have created a zombie plague to save the Earth from destruction. The audience is challenged to venture out on an epic quest to save their species before it’s too late.

The fun part of this production is that it throws out some of the etiquette observed in traditional theatre. They encouraged the audience to use their phones in order to solve problems that have been put forward.

The production was terrifyingly realistic. Although there were some people that weren’t fazed by the zombies that would lunge forward at you from in the dark, their groans were absolutely blood curdling.

The first zombie sighting is a “safe” distance away, but as the production continues, they don’t hold back.

The performances put on by the actors, from the soldiers to the undead, were so believable and put the audience totally into the moment.

The most impressive performance of the entire night was by a young woman who played a girl “possessed” by the alien pilot. She absolutely nailed how the alien being was rejecting her human form.

At the culminating point of the entire production, the audience is given a choice to determine how the play ends — a complete twist.

For a terrifying, exciting experience, The Virtual Stage performance is highly recommended and perfect for the Halloween season. U

Imagine that you are sitting around a table full of very passionate, very smart people who you have probably never met before. As a group, you are tasked with visualizing an abstract and inevitably controversial concept, and encouraged to draw on the table in order to do so. Dinner is served. Sounds like a business retreat mixed with a kid-friendly chain restaurant, right?

Lenses of Sustainability, the brainchild of Owen Sondergeld and Sarah Barnes, two upper-year undergraduate students at UBC, the event series is the result of years of planning, dreaming and strategizing.

The structure of the event was unlike that of any other campus affair I’d ever been to. Though the university often provides wonderful opportunities to hear about new ideas and inspiring research, events often follow the format of a lecture with a limited amount of time for questions and answers at the end.

As a result, conversation between participants tends to be restricted to discussion between, or before and after, different portions of the event.

Lenses of Sustainability, however, has something different up their proverbial sleeve. A dialogue series, the focus of the evening is to encourage discourse that privileges both intellectual and emotional outlooks on the issue at hand, and that allows each person to speak and listen from their own perspective.

It was obvious that much thought had gone into the logistics in order to create this delicate atmosphere: the tables were set with everything the participants needed to feel at ease and on track.

With the addition of a designated “break out leader” for each table, participants were poised to delve into broad, complex questions and work through them, just enough outside of their comfort zones that they couldn’t fall back on their usual social dynamics and patterns.

The organizers did not shy away from the fact that the evening would be inevitably threaded through with conflict. With a room full of people passionate about different ways of approaching the issue of sustainability and necessary change, how could it not be?

Attendees were encouraged make this a productive process, both speaking and listening.

The event and the ideas it raised live on in my mind, reminding me to pay attention to all the ways in which concepts and concerns around food and sustainability intersect. I was inspired, challenged and reinvigorated by this new way of giving life to important ideas and thinking through change as a campus community. U

// SPORTS+REC

EDITOR KOBY MICHAELS

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

14

THUNDERBIRDS //

HENRIK HOLE

LAURA TAYLOR

MIA BOTTRILL

Volleyball

Hockey

Swimming

Hockey

Soccer

To become Canada West champions and to win Nationals.

Support the team in any way that I can, improve as much as I can every day and enjoy the experience!

To podium and win at CIS!!

I’d like to do my part to help the team win another championship.

It would be great to have our senior players graduate on a high note.

2. Which sport would you like to play other than your own?

Hockey.

Skiing! I might have secret skills in this area...

Soccer.

[It] is to not have to wear our team’s fantastic vibrant pink helmet for on-ice warm up. It’s a gorgeous helmet, but I just don’t pull off pink very well.

I started playing soccer way before I ever played hockey — I’d like to shake the rust off a little bit one day.

I would play futsal which is a really technical 5-a-side indoor soccer game. Or I would join a swim team.

3. What is your favourite thing about campus?

The Pit.

It’s a getaway from the city and the responsibilities in my other life.

The fountain!

Without a doubt being so close to the beach and our breathtaking views.

The campus is beautiful.

I enjoy the daily walk down Main Mall when I’m heading to training at Thunderbird Stadium.

“You are lazy!”

Ahh, it’s not to be repeated.

Can’t think of any!

Let’s just say that the worst piece of advice I’ve received shouldn’t be repeated.

I don’t like the saying “you’ll get what you deserve” because it’s false for so many people in the world.

Alex Russell is my favourite because he is so nice and well behaved in practice and outside the court. However, he trash talks a lot during game.

To be determined...

Any of the women on the swim team! They’re all awesome and a good time!

Most definitely Thunder!

When I was five, I won a scooter from the kids draw at a UBC volleyball game … it made my week.

Our trainers Leo and Gevorg. They aren’t student athletes, but we get along well and they’re so important to the team.

T-BIRDS 5-ON-5

MIKAYLA OGRODNICZUK

NIKE AZUMA

ROWDY ROOKIES

by Isabelle Commerford

1. What are your goals for the season?

4. What is the worst piece of advice you have received?

5. Who is your favourite Thunderbird?

Thundebirds heading to playoffs after blowout win Bill Situ Staff Writer

After beating the Alberta Golden Bears 39-21 on the road, UBC football beat them again 54-10 at home to

produce the season’s most impressive victory.

“They’re doing what it takes to turn this program around and I’m pretty proud of them for doing that,” said Blake Nill, UBC’s head coach.

The match remained scoreless until T-Birds kicker Quinn van Gylswyck opened the scoring late in the first quarter with a 19-yard field goal. The remaining three quarters of the game saw

Notice of Development Permit Application - DP 15032

Public Open House

Totem Park Residence Infill Phase 2 You are invited to attend an Open House on Thursday, October 22 to view and comment on a proposed new student residence building south of the existing Totem Residence to house 350 first and second year students.

Date: Thursday, October 22, 2015 Time: 4:30 - 6:30 PM Place: Foyer, Coquihalla Commons Block, 2525 West Mall Plans will be displayed for a new 8,900m2 , student residence with 350 beds. The facility will be comprised of a 6-storey dormitory block and a single-storey shared amenity building.

Representatives from the project team and Campus + Community Planning will be available to provide information and respond to inquiries about this project.

For more information or to comment on this project, please visit: planning.ubc.ca/vancouver/projects-consultations

This event is wheelchair accessible.

For further information: Please direct questions to Karen Russell, Manager, Development Services karen.russell@ubc.ca 604-822-1586

impressive performances from various UBC players.

After the Thunderbirds successfully advanced deep into the Golden Bears’ territory at the end of the first quarter, UBC running back Brandon Deschamps scored a touchdown early in the second to increase the team’s lead to 10-0.

Five minutes later, defensive back Stavros Katsantonis recovered a fumble by Alberta running back Ed Ilnicki.

Katsantonis then ran the ball 61 yards to score a second touchdown for the T-Birds, elevating the score to 17-0.

The only points that the Golden Bears scored during the first half were from a field goal

by Stephen Fabian in the second quarter, but that did not slow the Thunderbirds. Receiver Alex Morrison scored the team’s third touchdown to make the score 24-3 by halftime.

UBC’s dominance did not end there. After the T-Birds opened the third quarter with a safety, Deschamps scored two more touchdowns to make the score 33-3 — one of which was on a 68-yard run. Deschamps finished the game with three touchdowns and 176 rushing yards for his best performance of the season. Still, he credits his ability to run and score to the help of his offensive line teammates.

“I think my O-line came out and they were just making people move ... When they get people moving, it makes it a lot easier for me,” said Deschamps.

Deschamps was not the only one who provided firepower for the ‘Birds. The next two touchdowns went to receiver Marcus Davis during the late

third and early fourth quarters, making the score 54-3.

After four quarters of torment

by UBC, Alberta managed a touchdown in the fourth, which brought the game to a final score of 54-10.

UBC’s defensive play was also noticeably strong throughout the game. Katsantonis caught two interceptions in addition to his fumble recovery touchdown.

Linebacker Terrell Davis also had one and a half sacks.

Despite the Thunderbirds’ big win, Nill believes that the team still has room for improvement.

“I was unhappy with the tempo in the fourth quarter, but that’s just experience,” said Nill.

“We’re not as good as people think we are yet, but we’re getting better. We’re going in the right direction.”

UBC football now holds a record of 4-2 and is second in Canada West. They will play their next game at Saskatchewan this upcoming Friday. U

Quarter UBC

AB

1 2 3 4

3 0 21 3 23 0 7 7

Final

54 10

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

| SPORTS | 15

Introduction

While you’ve been busy procrastinating midterms with Netflix, tubs of ice cream and Oreos, the UBC Thunderbird varsity athletes have been busy training, competing and winning (mostly). Most fall sports are gearing up for the playoffs. Check in with some of the best athletes and teams in Canada. Our expert panel of sport fanatics have been closely following the ‘Birds this season and weighed in. Each team was given a letter grade based on their performances, records and chances at the playoffs. We also named a stand out player for each team. Be sure to check out some of the upcoming games and cheer on the ‘Birds as they chase down the CIS.

Grading the Thunderbirds

Register and vote at UBC

VARSITY REPORT CARD 2015

Ready to vote in the federal election?

From October 5 to 8, Elections Canada offices will be open on

B- Football

As a team that missed the playoffs last season, this year is definitely a sign of major improvement. With a current season record of 4-2, UBC football sits in second in the Canada West Conference. With three games remaining in the regular season, entering the playoffs is a possibility. In the past five games, UBC football has witnessed some noticeable strength and talent from the offense, defence and special teams.

Quarterback Michael O’Connor and various receivers have combined to produce many successful touchdowns. On defence, players like Mitch Barnett, Terrell Davis and Taylor Loffler have all proven to be very effective tacklers. Trivel Pinto also currently ranks first in the CIS for average return yards. However, the T-Birds’ overall lack of consistency has taken a toll on their season.

A+ Mens Soccer

After a disappointing 2014 season that resulted in a loss in the Canada West semifinals, long-time coach Mike Mosher has been looking to build a squad that would make the UBC men’s soccer team a national championship contender once again.

Thanks to some off-season moves, the UBC men’s soccer team has gone undefeated so far this season, posting an impressive league leading record of 9-0-1. While the team has been racking up goals from the likes of Sean Einarsson (8G 2A) and Gagan Dosanjh (5G 4A), solid defence has also been key to their success. With newly acquired goalkeeper Chad Bush between the pipes, the squad has conceded just 4 goals and earned 6 clean sheets in their first 10 games. Expect the ‘Birds to make a good run for nationals in November.

A Men’s Rugby

The UBC men’s rugby team have dominated the start of their season recording two big wins. The team’s home opener drew a large crowd on September 26 as they took on Capilano RFC mere days after their return from the first ever World University Rugby Cup in England.

UBC defeated University of Oxford, 18 to 14, to take home third place, facing teams from around the world. The Thunderbirds dominated the second half of play and celebrated a 43-24 win. The team got some much needed rest before returning to the field on October 10 to verse the Vancouver Rowing Club. The team continued to exercise their dominance and recorded a 34-6 win. The Thunderbirds deafeted Burnaby Lake FC 3825 and continue to defend their undefeated record.

BEST PLAYER

Quinn van Gylswyk Upcoming Competitions

@ Saskatchewan — ­ 10.23.15, 6 p.m. vs. Manitoba — 10.31.15, 1 p.m. @ Canada West Semi Final — 11.7.15, TBA

BEST PLAYER

Sean Einarsson Upcoming Competitions

vs. Trinity Western — ­ 10.23.15, 7 p.m. vs. Fraser Valley — 10.24.15, 7 p.m. vs. Canada Wester quarter-finals — 10.31.15, TBA

Cross Country Bregistration and voting for students Cross Country, under their first new coach

BEST PLAYERcampus

to provide information,

since 1987, has been keeping busy this year.

Kirsten Leebefore and the October 19 election day.in three The team has now competed tournaments; the Sundodger Invitational, Jesse Hooton Bring ID withCharles your home address.

Bowles Invitational and the Western Upcoming Competitions

@ Association of Independent Institutions Conference Championships ­— 11.17.15 @ NAIA Cross Country Championships — ­ 11.21.15

Washington University Classic. The team has put up some pretty impressive results.

The men’s team finished third at Bowles and seventh at both Sundodger and the WWUC. The women also finished third at Bowles and posted sixth and ninth performances at Sundodger and WWUC respectively.

Jesse Hooton has consistently led the ‘Birds, finishing first for the team at both the Sundodger and WWUC competitions.

The women led by Port Coquitlam native Kirsten Lee. Newcomers Enid Au and Nicola Symonds have lived up to the high expectations they arrived to at UBC.

Register and vot on campus e

OWomen’s ctober 5–8Soccer A-

BEST PLAYER

Women’s soccer team had a phenomenal season. Despite changing leadership and playing with the ever-present pressure of holding the nationals this year, the team has done well. The team has only slowed twice this season, once against the University of Fraser Valley Cascades (aka the Bird-killers), and by Upcoming Competitions division rivals, UVic Vikes. Head coach Marisa vs. Fraser Valley — ­ 10.23.15, Kovacs has pushed the team to an impressive 5 p.m.

10-1-1 record and has maintained the team’s first place position at top of the pacific division vs. Trinity Western — 10.24.15, from the start of the season. Olivia de Goede, 5 p.m. the team’s goalkeeper, has consistently saved the balls, and the team when it mattered. vs. Canada Wester quarter-fiMidfielder Taylor Shannik is fourth in the league Student Union Building nals — 10.31.15, TBA in assists and has been instrumental in the key plays of most games, while Surrey native Ballroom vs. Canada Wester quarter-fiJasmine Dhanda leads for shots on goal in the nals — 11.5.15, TBA Canada West, and is second in goals.

6138 Student Union Blvd.

Jasmine Dhanda

Nearest location:

Hours: 10:00 a.m.– 8:00 p.m.

BEST PLAYER

Alex Mascott Upcoming Competitions

@ UBCOB Ravens RFC — 10.24.15, 2:45 p.m. vs. Meraloma RC— 10.31.15, 2:45 p.m. @ Seattle Saracens — 11.7.15, TBA

BEST PLAYER

Women’s Rugby D+

The UBC women’s rugby team had a rough season which ended with a 26-0 loss at the hands of the University of Alberta and a record of 0-3-1. The Thunderbirds season on September There are other opened times,theplaces and ways25th at home with a tough 17-31 loss against you can vote. Visit elections.ca the Calgary Dinos falling to or theircall dominatUpcoming Competitions ing scrum. With a quick turnaround they 1-800-463-6868hosted (

TTY 1-800-361-8935) the University of Lethbridge that same weekend and came for this information and the list out of with a 12-12 tie. The team played their first away game accepted ID. at University of Victoria on October 4 and recorded a 10-28 loss. The Thunderbirds’ loss to the University of Alberta sealed their fate, as they failed to qualify for the Canada West championship playoffs this year. Ciara Malone stood out with 20 points, which ties her for the third most points in the league.

Ciara Malone

N/A

WRITTEN BY Olamide Olaniyan, Prabhjot Grewal, Matt Langmuir, Bill Situ and Koby Michaels

16 | GAMES + COMICS |

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015

Public Workshop - October 24

Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood Design Vision UBC, working with the UNA, is undertaking a process to develop a more detailed design vision for the Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood.

This process follows up on a commitment UBC made to the UNA to develop a more detailed design vision for Wesbrook Place. With just over half of Wesbrook Place built, it is now time to check with the community and confirm the design vision to support the development of the remaining sites.

Date: Saturday, October 24, 2015 Time: 10:00am – 1:00pm Place: Wesbrook Community Centre, Room 201, 5998 Berton Avenue

N

Registration for the workshop is required. Email info.planning@ubc.ca before October 21.

Road

Wesbrook Place Neighbourhood

Gray Aven ue

Bir

ne yA ven

ue

Berton Avenue

Binning

Please note that no changes to the UBC Land Use Plan and no net change to planned overall residential floor space within the Neighbourhood Plan area are being considered for this planning process.

Wesbrook Mall

CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1- Those, to Juan; 5- Roman holiday; 10- Tabula ___; 14- Cleanse; 15- Thoughts; 16- Slang expert Partridge; 17- Put out; 19- Entr’___; 20- Now you ___...; 21- Instructor; 23- Common article; 25- Bowling lane button; 26- Will-___-wisp; 29- Noisy; 31- Vertical face of a stair; 35- Bring civil action against; 36- Con game; 37- ___-tung; 38- Lattice; 40- See; 41- Truly; 42- Got on; 43- Ran into; 44- Syrian president;

45- Rider’s command; 46- IRS IDs; 47- Marsh of mystery; 49- “____ loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah”; 51- Values highly; 54- Lulus; 58- Israel’s Barak; 59- Quixotic; 63- Timber wolf; 64- Hard candy; 65- Thus; 66- Bring forth young; 67- Author Zola; 68- Chair; DOWN 1- Female sheep; 2- ___-Coburg-Gotha; 3- Bone: Prefix; 4- Certain Muslim; 5- Cookie fruit; 6- Web address ending; 7- Cinque follower; 8- Sampled; 9- Remains of a fire; 10- Allergic response;

West 16th Avenue

Workshop Location

COURTESY BESTCROSSWORDS.COM

Wesbrook Community Centre

The workshop will include a walking tour and small group discussions on neighbourhood design, including building shape and character, open space and landscape design, streetscapes, and other ways to enhance livability through design.

Online consultation runs from October 19 – November 1 at planning.ubc.ca.

Future Elementary School

ve Dri ss Ro

Future Project Sites

For additional information, contact: Gabrielle Armstrong, Senior Manager, Consultation, at gabrielle.armstrong@ubc.ca or 604-822-9984.

This notice contains important information which may affect you. Please ask someone to translate it for you.

11- St. Louis landmark; 12- Word that can succeed building, web or burial; 13- Super server; 18- ___ degree; 22- Add fizz; 24- Spanish hero; 25- Grog ingredient; 26- Port of old Rome; 27- Rotates; 28- Pays attention to;

30- Western Hemisphere org.; 32- Stalks; 33- City on the Ruhr; 34- Breaks; 36- Heavy hammer; 37- King with a golden touch; 39- Pressured; 40- Court; 42- Letter after pi; 45- Sagacity; 46- Faculties;

48- Miss by ___; 50- ___ polloi; 51- Hard to hold; 52- Foot covering; 53- Big brass; 55- Versailles verb; 56- Baltic capital; 57- Nae sayer?; 60- Actor Wallach; 61- Competitor of Tide and Cheer; 62- Caustic chemical;

COMIC JULIAN YU/THE UBYSSEY

COMIC PATRICK MURRY AND MIKE PAROLINI/THE UBYSSEY

OCTOBER 13 ANSWERS