December 3, 2019

DECEMBER 3, 2019 | VOLUME CI | ISSUE XVI EXHAUSTED SINCE 1918

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NEWS

CULTURE

OPINION

SCIENCE

SPORTS

books only

A step towards Board of Governors transparency

Researchers use drones to study orcas

The end of the term is here, the grades are in

Midterm reviews of your student representatives

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THE UBYSSEY

DECADE IN REVIEW: 10 YEARS OF STORIES AT UBC // 07

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DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS & PEOPLE

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OUR CAMPUS

EVENTS

Out on the Shelves is determined to be a ‘centre of information’ for Queer audiences THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5 SOUND HOUSE: NÊHIYAWAK 7 P.M. @ MOA’S HAIDA HOUSE

This month’s Sound House presents the synth and indie-rock vibes of the Cree band, Nêhiyawak. $15 will get you into MOA and to see the show!

SOPHIE GALLOWAY

“I struggle and really fight to stay here because I love what I do.”

Tara Osler Staff Writer

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6 BEAM OF LIGHT 30TH ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL 1:30–3:30 P.M. @ CHAN CENTRE

30 years after the violence at École Polytechnique, join students and staff in memoriam and observation of the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

ON THE COVER COVER BY

REDEFINING IDENTITIES

Elizabeth Wang

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

U THE UBYSSEY EDITORIAL

STAFF

Coordinating Editor Zubair Hirji, Moe Alex Nguyen Kirkpatrick, Fariha Khan, coordinating@ubyssey.ca Sam Smart, Bill Huan, Brendan Smith, Diana Visuals Editor Hong, Jordan-Elizabeth Lua Presidio Liddell, Ryan Neale, Sarah Zhao, Charlotte Alden, visuals@ubyssey.ca Andrew Ha, Jasmyne Eastmond, Tianne News Editors Jensen-DesJardins, Maya Henry Anderson and Rodrigo-Abdi, Chimedum Emma Livingstone Ohaegbu, Riya Talitha, news@ubyssey.ca Sophie Galloway, Kevin Jiang, Bailey Martens, Culture Editor Sonia Pathak, Thea Thomas O’Donnell Udwadia, Kaila Johnson, culture@ubyssey.ca Diego Lozano, Keegan Landrigan, Kaila Johnson, Sports + Rec Editor Maneevak Bajaj, Tait Salomon Micko Gamble, Andy Phung, Benrimoh Mike Liu, Anupriya sports@ubyssey.ca Dasgupta, Danni Olusanya, Campbell Video Editor Speedy, Marissa Birnie, Jack Bailey Aman Sridhar, Negin Nia, video@ubyssey.ca Opinion + Blog Editor Tristan Wheeler opinion@ubyssey.ca Science Editor James Vogl science@ubyssey.ca Photo Editor Elizabeth Wang photos@ubyssey.ca Features Editor Pawan Minhas features@ubyssey.ca

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We would like to acknowledge that this paper and the land on which we study and work is the traditional, occupied, unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓ ə m (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ í lwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (TsleilWaututh) Nations.

LEGAL

The Ubyssey is the official student newspaper of the University of British Columbia. It is published every Tuesday by The Ubyssey Publications Society. We are an autonomous, democratically run student organization and all students are encouraged to participate.

Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff. They are the expressed

Out on the Shelves (OOTS) was established on Davie Street in April 1983, at the heart of Vancouver’s burgeoning 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and is the city’s oldest queer library.

After years of jumping from location to location, OOTS found a new home in the Nest’s Resource Centre.

Though not officially affiliated with the AMS, the library’s coordinators struck a deal with the Student Resource Group to occupy the space. The library’s location and collection have changed many times, but its core mandate — being volunteer run and dedicated to accessibility — has remained the same throughout the decades.

DECEMBER 3, 2019 | VOLUME CI | ISSUE XVI

Alex Vanderput, Tanner McGrath, Tara Osler, Zohrah Khalili, Jonathan Harris, Harshit Kohli, Alex Wang, Lisa Basil, Myla White, Zhi Wen Teh, Jack Lamming, Meriwether Morris BUSINESS

President Ali Zahedi president@ubyssey.ca

Business Manager Douglas Baird business@ubyssey.ca

Editorial Office: NEST 2208 604.283.2023

Account Manager Adam McQueen adam@ubyssey.ca

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Web Developer Amelia He amelia@ubyssey.ca

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NEST 2209 604.283.2024 The Nest 6133 University Boulevard Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 Online: ubyssey.ca

Web Developer Razvan Nesiu razvan@ubyssey.ca opinion of the staff, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Ubyssey Publications Society or the University of British Columbia. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of The Ubyssey Publications Society. Stories, opinions, photographs and artwork contained herein cannot be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of The Ubyssey Publications Society.

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The Ubyssey accepts opinion articles on any topic related to the University of British Columbia (UBC) and/or topics relevant to students attending UBC. Submissions must be written by UBC students, professors, alumni, or those in a suitable position (as determined by the opinions editor) to speak on UBC-related matters. Submissions must not contain racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, harassment or discrimination.

Authors and/or submissions will not be

Twitter: @ubyssey Instagram: @ubyssey precluded from publication based solely on association with particular ideologies or subject matter that some may find objectionable. Approval for publication is, however, dependent on the quality of the argument and The Ubyssey editorial board’s judgment of appropriate content. Submissions may be sent by email to opinion@ubyssey.ca. Please include your student number or other proof of identification. Anonymous submissions will be accepted on extremely rare occasions.

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

“When we inherited the collection, it was largely white, gay, male centred,” Amanda Tolentino, a coordinator with the library explained.

It was a reflection of the times — other identities were still marginalized within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Now, OOTS is pushing for the inclusion of more lived experiences — its donation wish-list asks for books by authors of colour, as well as books featuring trans, non-binary, TwoSpirit and bisexual narratives. It also emphasizes the diversity it currently holds in its catalogue — poetry, nonfiction, autobiographies, graphic novels, children’s and young adult fiction.

The collection’s evolution over the decades has become one of its defining features.

As more stories are published on a wider diversity of 2SLGBTQIA+ experiences, OOTS has worked to keep up with the times. It is currently in the process of updating the literature classification system with the goal of being more inclusive and treating different communities equally. This reorganization project has expanded the traditional library classification system to include more identities within the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

Tolentino explained that classification methods like the Dewey Decimal System are limited by their age and can be marginalizing as some communities were never given a place.

“You can see the biases of the people that created the system in the

system,” she said. “When you create a new subject heading, it doesn’t mean that everything else changes. It means that everything going forward goes under the new classification, but you still have 150 years of materials that are classified under the same horrific conditions.”

Tolentino believes a more progressive system of classification helps to maintain the library’s goal of being an accessible and accepting space for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

STAYING CONNECTED After so many years downtown, being on campus at UBC has been a challenge for the librarians.

The original Davie Street location was at the heart of Vancouver’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community, giving it an important role in what was one of the largest 2SLGBTQIA+ havens in Canada. Having moved to a less central location, the library volunteers are concerned that the library’s connection to the Vancouver community is strained.

“I think it’s difficult because we are on campus, and we don’t want to become a library just for people who are on campus, or just for students,” said Anita, a volunteer librarian who requested to be identified by first name. “[We are] trying to be a community-led library.”

The volunteers make a concerted effort to work with the community.

This ranges from outreach projects during the summer to participating in Pride celebrations. Though the library is open to any UBC student who is interested, its ties to the greater Vancouver community is a part of the heritage OOTS’s volunteers are determined to protect.

A COLLECTIVE EFFORT OOTS runs with a collective structure. There is no leader or president — ­ everyone who volunteers is part of the collective and anyone can join. There are currently around 300 members, though the librarians clarify that there are only around 26 active volunteers, which is the most they’ve had since moving to this location.

Though the library has evolved throughout its existence, the current librarians are careful to keep the communal tradition of OOTS alive. For Tolentino,

the library is a symbol of communication that is especially important for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. “[It’s about] making materials available to people … I think libraries are always going to be kind of the centre of information — very anti-censorship. And this library is really perfect for showcasing that,” said Tolentino.

For Anita and Tolentino, the library’s value goes beyond the collection. As students, working in the library has given them invaluable hands-on experience.

“I don’t think people know how difficult it is to get library experience,” Tolentino said, citing unionization and few jobs available as prohibitive for students. OOTS provides students at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, recently renamed the UBC iSchool, with on-campus work experience to supplement their studies.

WHAT’S NEXT? Currently OOTS is still stabilizing in its new location. However, the volunteers who staff the library are always looking to the future.

Tolentino’s biggest hope for the library is to expand the collection of books for children and teens.

It remains one of the bigger gaps in the collection, but she believes it’s essential for creating a safe space for people of all ages in the community.

The librarians are also still figuring out what the concrete identity of the library will be moving forward. Anita expressed that they need to put in “more work to understand where we came from.”

In the future, the librarians hope to embark upon more archival projects to document the history of the library. They are also hoping to expand the social activities at OOTS. Several ideas have been floated — pub nights, knitting parties and dragqueen storytimes, a program implemented by libraries around the world. As of now though, the main concern for OOTS is finding its feet in a new home, while moving onwards and upwards in solidifying its identity.

“We’re always learning — both as librarians and members of the community,” said Tolentino. U

NEWS

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

EDITORS HENRY ANDERSON AND EMMA LIVINGSTONE

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STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES MIDTERM REVIEWS Words by Emma Livingstone, Charlotte Alden, Marissa Birnie, Sarah Zhao, Thea Udwadia, Pawan Minhas and Bailey Martens Design by Alex Vanderput and Lua Presidio File Photos by Elizabeth Wang With a little over five months left in the student representitives’ terms, The Ubyssey news staff checked in with the AMS and the Board of Governors (BoG) student representatives to see how they’re progressing on the goals they were elected on back in March 2019.

While student representatives come and go, their decisions can have impacts well beyond their terms.

The Ubyssey has sat in on nearly every Board and AMS Council meeting — sometimes into the late hours of the night — to listen to every update and presentation within each portfolio.

These reviews were based off of campaign platforms and executive goals, but they are not report cards.

These are intended to be summary check-ins to see what your representatives have been up to so far and what they’re planning for next term. Full reviews can be found online.

Chris Hakim AMS President Chris Hakim hasn’t stopped talking about student consultation since he began campaigning for AMS president last spring. Hakim campaigned on a platform of improving sexual assault support, affordability, Indigenous inclusion, sustainability and increased student consultation throughout all aspects of his work. As of December 2019, he has made considerable progress on those main goals, notably with the passing of the AMS’s standalone sexual assault policy in August, with more to come next term.

Cole Evans AMS VP Administration Cole Evans is ready to continue early successes and close out most of his goals by the end of the year. Having seen both the Norm Theatre and the new Commons in the Nest open their doors this term, Evans is confident that he and his team have implemented the “support, not govern” approach that he campaigned on. He hopes to complete other goals like a new Student Driven Sustainability Strategy and finally bring in a new Nest room bookings system online.

Lucia Liang AMS VP Finance

One of Lucia Liang’s overarching objectives has been bettering communications between her portfolio and the club treasurers and undergraduate society VPs finance, a goal she’s realized with financial literacy workshops and monthly newsletters. Liang has also worked to implement a secure online money transfer system for reimbursements.

The system is now in place, but Liang said she doesn’t yet have the staff or credit limits to handle widespread use by all clubs and constituencies.

Julia Burnham AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Julia Burnham ran her campaign with the promise that she would be a strong voice for students.

She’s focused much of her advocacy around issues like sexual violence and affordability, overseeing campaigns to combat sexual assault myths and promote open educational resources. Some goals — like pushing UBC to change its approach to tuition — have stalled due to the nature of university bureaucracy. She hopes she can keep her momentum going as she tackles her most important project yet: review of UBC Policy 131 on sexual misconduct.

Cristina Ilnitchi AMS VP External In a term dominated by the federal elections cycle, Cristina Ilnitchi has pursued a range of lobbying goals. She described her approach to the election as two-pronged: mobilizing student voices to encourage a high voter turnout and lobbying the government to address student needs. United with other BC schools, she has been lobbying the province to provide up-front financial aid grants, an international student strategy and a sexual assault prevention campaign. She is also working to secure funding for the SkyTrain to UBC.

Max Holmes and Jeanie Malone BoG Student Representatives

As student representatives on UBC’s 21-person BoG, Jeanie Malone and Max Holmes are not directly responsible for the management of their own portfolios, but they have been strong advocates for change. Alongside UBC Okanagan student representative Jassim Naqvi, they have been outspoken in their opposition to tuition increases and have contributed to the university’s sexual assault policy review and the Indigenous Strategic Plan. They were strong proponents for divestment from fossil fuels, a goal that the Board has recently taken significant steps to accomplish. “We’re making progress,” said Malone.

4 | NEWS | TUESDAY DECEMBER 3, 2019 SIGNAL BOOST //

How UBC’s wireless networks collect, use and protect personal data Sam Smart Senior Staff Writer

When on campus, students, faculty, staff and community members are almost always connected to one of UBC’s approximately 8,700 wireless routers. And for the most part, the university’s wireless networks such as ubcsecure and ubcvisitor are fast, convenient and reliable.

But the cost of that convenience is the data UBC collects from every person connected to those wireless networks.

The administrative unit that manages these networks is UBC Information Technology (IT), and it collects data such as CampusWide Login (CWL) usernames, the media access control (MAC) address of user devices and users’ location. Most of the time, this data is collected for the purpose of supporting users who are experiencing issues with the wireless networks.

This data is used internally within UBC IT for troubleshooting technical problems to do with the wireless networks, according to Network Analyst Devin Kettle.

It’s also used to figure out how to improve and maintain the quality of the networks, as well as for recovering stolen devices.

“Any data that is used outside of this context, for example, by UBC Energy & Water Services to

generate building occupancy counts, is anonymized by a function in the wireless control system servers that scrambles username and wireless device MAC address,” said Kettle.

In 2015, a pilot project took place in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre with the help of private company Sensible Building Science (SBS) and its co-founder, Stefan Storey, who holds a Master’s degree and PhD from UBC. Now being used regularly in the library and many other buildings on campus, SBS’s product “the Bridge” uses anonymized occupancy data to change the airflow in a room based on how many people are connected to wireless networks.

While this anonymized information can be given to external sources working with the university, UBC IT still internally stores the non-anonymized data of your CWL username and location.

“The data [collected for use by external services such as UBC Energy & Water Services and SBS] is retained for seven days, and is then destroyed. Data that is retained internally by UBC IT system logs has a one-year horizon,” said Kettle.

This information is only viewable by a limited number of people who are audited regularly, which may put worries about personal information to rest for some. But for others, the fact that this information is being collected at all is a concern because it’s not common knowledge.

Sara Neuert, the executive director of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA), is concerned that UBC does not educate users of their Wi-Fi that this is happening.

“What is the purpose of that collection? There should be a place where the students can ask those questions and try to be informed because the thing is informed consent, which doesn’t sound like it’s really happening.

I think that’s where it becomes problematic,” said Neuert.

She recommended that the university adopt a policy of transparency about how data is stored and accessed.

UBC’s Policy SC14 is the main university policy that governs electronic information, and it has to operate in compliance with BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).

Paul Hancock, UBC legal counsel of information and privacy, explained that any use of personal information is strictly regulated by this legislation.

Under FIPPA, projects involving the use of personal data have to go through a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), according to Hancock.

“What the PIA process does is it looks both at the privacy of the data, are we allowed to use it, but also the security of the data, how’s it going to be protected? So if data was being,

ZUBAIR HIRJI AND LUA PRESIDIO

Students, faculty, staff and community members are almost always connected to one of UBC’s approximately 8,700 wireless routers on campus.

for example, transmitted over email without encryption, that would be a big issue. That would probably not be permitted under the information security standards,” said Hancock.

However, if this personal information were to be compromised, there is legislation to ensure those affected know about it.

“Under FIPPA, if there is a breach of your personal information, they are required to notify the person who’s been impacted by that breach, and they [get a] letter,” said Neuert.

She also said that BC FIPA

has started to advocate for a law that requires mandatory breach notifications to the office of the Information Privacy Commissioner. Such notifications would force UBC to be transparent about the misuse of students’ data.

“If a public body has a breach, and they can happen, then that will be the first step: to contact that office, notify them of the breach and work with that office to actually create a plan for the breach redemption,” said Neuert.

“Because right now, there’s no penalties.” U

RESTRUCTURING //

AMS and GSS formalize complaints to Board of Governors over lack of elected student representative consultation

FILE IYANU OWOLABI

“I hope that my view is correct in seeing this as just a sequence of events that led to this feeling of lack of consultation and this is not really the attitude of the university.”

Charlotte Alden Senior Staff Writer

The AMS and the Graduate Student Society (GSS) have submitted a formal complaint to the Board of Governors (BoG) over a lack of student consultation in the recent reorganization of the VP Students (VPS) portfolio.

The reorganization includes the termination of Janet Teasdale, the managing director of Student Development and Services and the split of her job into two different positions.

In the November 12 submission,

AMS President Chris Hakim and GSS President Nicolas Romualdi voiced their concerns in regards to how UBC has been seeking consultation from students at large instead of elected student leaders.

“We ask that the Board commit the University to engage with elected student representatives and the wider student body on changes that affect students,” reads the submission.

Over the last year, the university has created policy review committees to allow students to voice their concerns on Board policies that directly impact

students. According to Hakim, the selection of those committees has gone on without AMS consultation or appointment.

“This is a clear show [of ] the administration regressing in terms of student consultation by not appointing elected student representatives that are put into their positions through a process that thousands of students engage in, or looking to survey the wider student body to understand what their feedback is on these critical policies that impact students,” he said.

This specific point has been addressed by the university since the submission.

“I’m happy to say at this point that the Board has listened to our concerns because in the draft revision for the Policy Review Committee Policy, there’s a clear statement that moving forward both the GSS and the AMS must be engaged in these policy review committees,” Romualdi said.

The student leaders also emphasized that they don’t take issue with UBC consulting students at large, but noted the importance of engaging those whose have been elected by the general student population.

“I have no opposition of course of the university engaging students at large,” Romualdi said.

“But it is important that the university understands the difference between any student that is in the university that may hold their own opinions to which they are entitled, versus a student leader [who] engages with the broader

community and communicates the perspective that is the consensus perspective of a large group of graduate students.

“That point it seems to have landed.”

CONSULTATION WITHIN THE VP STUDENTS OFFICE Not all reorganizations have been without consultation, according to the AMS executives.

AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Julia Burnham sat on the hiring committee for the new associate VP who will lead a new unit that merges Student Housing and Hospitality Services and University Community Services, along with people who work for the university within VPS and the related departments.

“That process was great. That is an example of how you would go about reorganizing a department that has such an impact on the university community,” she said.

In the submission, Hakim and Romualdi did reference a brief consultation by the VPS office on the addition of a new associate VP for Student Health & Wellbeing.

But Burnham said the addition was “floated to [them] as an idea, not really a concrete example of something that was actually happening.”

“So given that precedent that we had of being consulted by the VP Students, it was quite disappointing and shocking to see that that wasn’t going to be the case for the Student Development Services Department,”

Burnham said.

In a statement to The Ubyssey, VP Students Ainsley Carry described numerous listening sessions, meetings and dinners with individual students, student groups and leaders he has had since beginning his role at UBC in April 2019.

He also emphasized his duty to serve and advocate for all students, as well as elected leaders.

“I fully respect the role of elected student leaders and I regularly meet with them.

However, I equally respect and listen to the voices of those students who do not serve in elected positions,” Carry said.

“It would be an abdication of my duties as the Vice President for Students to restrict access to my office solely to students who have been elected.”

Hakim said he appreciated these initiatives, but still expressed disappointment over the recent event.

“In the past few years, we’ve seen UBC become slowly better at consulting with students on things that are going to affect them. But taking a look at what the current situation looks like now, it’s as if the administration took one step forward and two steps back,” Hakim said.

But Romualdi has higher hopes.

“I hope that my view is correct in seeing this as just a sequence of events that led to this feeling of lack of consultation and this is not really the attitude of the university,” he said. U

CULTURE

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

EDITOR THOMAS O’DONNELL

OLD FICTION //

Hidden Treasures: A life in a day of Malcolm Lowry

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NEW FICTION //

UBC Associate Professor Ian Williams wins Scotiabank Giller Prize Kaila Johnson Staff Writer

TRISTAN WHEELER

Tristan Wheeler Blog & Opinion Editor

I’m sitting in Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC), in the basement of Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, and I hold in my hands a piece of literary history.

It’s browned and faded around the edges of the page, scrawled with faded pencil markings and stained with brown splotches that could be remnants of the author’s dinner. I’m holding the second draft manuscript of a novel called Under the Volcano

by English writer Malcolm Lowry.

Considered one of the best of the 20th century, the novel recounts the story of the last days of a disgraced British consul in Mexico as he poisons himself — and his relationships — with alcohol. The book, published in 1947, was Lowry’s greatest achievement in a life marred, similarly by alcoholism, painful relationships and non-fulfillment.

But the most interesting aspect of this novel — and why its author’s notes, letters and manuscripts are safe-kept in RBSC — is that it was largely written in Dollarton in the Burrard Inlet, just a few kilometres from Vancouver.

The Malcolm Lowry collection at RBSC is expansive.

It not only contains just a collection of Lowry’s letters, notes, manuscripts and photographs, but also those of his wife, friends and professional colleagues. The finding aid, the document that lists all the items in the collection, is over 130 pages

long. There are so many things that it feels as if you’re holding the man’s entire life in your hands — and in a way, you are.

The collection spans from the 1930s to his eventual “death by misadventure” — meaning a potentially accidental death by alcohol and sleeping pills — in 1957.

The wonder of this collection is that it brings the tactile and material aspect of literature and a writer’s life to the reader.

We sometimes see literature as something that is removed from any sort of materiality — words on a page conjuring images in the mind. This collection subverts that: we forget that writing takes lots of paper, pencil and fruitless writing that never sees the light of day, stuff the Malcolm Lowry Collection has in dozens of folders.

Despite the awe of holding the second draft of Under The Volcano, there was also an awe of looking at the little things of a great talent’s life, such as postcards to friends, written reminders and notebooks recounting vacations. Some of the

highlights include letters with the poet, Ubyssey-alum and UBC’s creative writing program founder Earle Birney and famed British poet and writer Christopher Isherwood. One of the most amazing finds was a postcard from the poet Dylan Thomas asking Lowry to meet up when Thomas was next in Vancouver.

Lowry’s life was fraught and booze soaked. It’s hard to have a conversation about the man without considering that he was in fact a legendary alcoholic. It makes it hard to look at some of the undecipherable notes as something not quickly scrawled in a drunken haze never to be understood by anyone else.

It is yet another reminder that this is a collection of a man’s life, a man who never got accolades he wanted in life and a man who was seldom sober.

Some of the banalities in this collection are enchanting. Simple reminders to himself remind you that, as silly as it sounds, that Lowry was just another person

Lowry’s letter to Christopher Isherwood detailing his cat troubles.

Page of the second draft of Under the Volcano.

TRISTAN WHEELER

TRISTAN WHEELER

who had a day to day life. For example, within a folder is a note reminding himself to draft up his letter to Isherwood. The folders are full of these fascinating details — there are dozens of cards and pieces of scrap paper with numbers, dates and other beautifully banal notes.

In a way, we are given the complete works of a great writer.

It’s easy to see this as an extension of Lowry’s literary output during his stay in Dollarton, but it might be something else. It begs the question: are the notes, random thoughts and drafts of a brilliant writer part of their work?

Who knows, but it still remains that there is something magical about holding these pieces of history in your hands.

By and large, most people likely don’t know the name Malcolm Lowry, don’t know why I’m so excited to be looking at patently boring notes with random dates and times and won’t understand why I felt emotional looking at some of these documents. And honestly, that’s fine. Under the Volcano and Lowry are both pretty unknown to the average reader, so it’s understandable for someone to be unaware of an alcoholic writer who completed two published works in his lifetime and died over half a century ago. But, in the case of The Malcolm Lowry Collection, sometimes it feels beautiful just to sit in and absorb the life of a fellow human being, no matter who they are. U

Page of current published edition of of Under the Volcano.

ELIZABETH WANG

The road to the Scotiabank Giller Prize for Associate Professor Ian Williams started in Grade 7.

“The first serious poem that I ever wrote was called ‘A Crystal Tear,’” he said. “It was all about one tear rolling down a woman’s cheek and falling to the ground. Super melodramatic.”

Williams has since gone on to write two poetry books and a collection of short stories as well as winning the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel Reproduction.

The Giller Prize was created in 1994 after the death of journalist Doris Giller to recognize fiction works, long-form and short stories of Canadian authors. Scotiabank first collaborated with the Giller Prize in 2005 and increased the reward from $25,000 to $50,000. This year, the winner received $100,000 and the finalists received $10,000 each.

Past winners include Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood.

To be considered for this award, publishers will send their books to the Giller Prize Foundation. After going through the submissions, judges create a long-list, consisting of about 12 books. The long-list gets cut in half to create a shortlist and judges will pick finalists from this shortlist.

Following the win, “Indigo ordered like 17,000 books the next day. Random [House] has printed tens of thousands of books to keep up with the demand,” said Williams.

Williams teaches poetry at UBC, but won this award for his debut fiction novel Reproduction.

Upon learning of his nomination, he tweeted, “It’s like having eleven brothers and sisters, who are bigger and cooler, and knowing that only five will get the meat in the soup.”

The associate professor further explained, “Not every good book gets attention for whatever reason, it’s not a measure of quality, I can’t help but feel for all of those other writers who didn’t quite get the same play.”

But this is not the case for the university’s creative writing department. UBC’s creative writing Department Chair Alix Ohlin was also shortlisted this year for her novel Dual Citizens. She has been previously nominated for this award in 2012 for her novel Inside.

Other UBC creative writing alumni are also featured on the prize’s long-list and shortlist.

“It’s definitely been a positive for the creative writing program,” said Ohlin.

“Not only did [Williams] win, but one of the other shortlisted finalists, Megan Gail Coles, is a graduate of the [master’s of fine arts] program.

And then on the long-list, we also had another alum, Michael Christie, for his novel.”

“It’s a pretty amazing, amazing department when you think about the concentration of talent in this program,” said Williams, beaming when talking about his colleagues. U

6 | CULTURE | TUESDAY DECEMBER 3, 2019 SHOE FICTION //

Fluevog: 50 Years of Unique Soles for Unique Souls at UBC Library Tiffany Wong Contributor

Vivid colours, unique silhouettes and a generously thick sole are all hallmarks of a Fluevog shoe. John Fluevog has been an integral part of not only the Vancouver business scene, but the international art, fashion and design community for over 50 years. His work is being presented in a new exhibit 50 Years of Sole: A History of Fluevog: Honouring a Vancouver Icon.

If you happen to take an exam stress-reducing walk through either the David Lam Library in the Sauder school of business or Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKB), these brightly coloured gems peek out from behind glass and beckon passersby’ attention.

Coinciding with Fluevog’s 50th anniversary and the release of a book celebrating 50 years of Vancouver shoe history, the exhibition showcases the inspiration behind some of his most iconic shoes and how the Fluevog company grew a small family business into an internationally recognized brand.

The IKB display showcases a collaboration between John Fluevog and author Robert Chaplain. Chaplain’s book, The Elves and the Shoemaker, feature a classic tale from 1806 of holiday whimsy of helpful elves paired with stunning Fluevog shoes.

This exhibit is unique for the level of collaboration that it

showcases. Usually exhibitions are curated solely by Rare Books and Special Collections — located in the basement of IKB — but this exhibit was a year long passion project curated in collaboration with Sauder’s David Lam Library staff as well as with the Fluevog team.

Community and cooperation shine in this exhibit — not only throughout the curatorial process, but also in the exhibitions themselves. From studentdesigned labels for each shoe to the ethos of the Fluevog business itself, working collaboratively was important for the curators.

“We have taken a very much a team-based approach to curating this exhibition,” said Katherine Kalsbeek, head of Rare Books and Special Collections.

“We’ve had amazing collaboration from the team at Fluevog. It’s been a really collective effort to put up this display.”

Not only was collaboration crucial to the curators but there are ways for students to get involved in the collaborative spirit as well.

One of the best ways for students who are Fluevog fans to engage with the display is the mood board design contest.

Students have until Monday, December 16 to help design a mood board for the Fluevog autumn-winter 2020 season.

Submissions will be judged by the legend himself, John Fluevog.

And the cherry on top? The winning submission will win a

Fluevog gift card.

Christina Sylka, head of the David Lam Library, and Kalsbeek were in agreement on how this exhibition aligns with the Sauder and wider UBC Strategic Plans.

“UBC Sauder strategic plan has a core principle called the ‘transformative student experience’, which sort of aims at providing students with rich experiences outside of the classroom. I think that this is kind of enhancing their experience in our space,” said Sylka.

Viewing the exhibit leaves students with a sense of how a family business can create and foster community. Kalsbeek and Sylka hope that students can walk away from this exhibition feeling inspired about how their individuality and creativity can make an impact on the world.

“One of the takeaways for me that’s interesting is that when [Fluevog] is starting his business journey, he’s at the same age say you are and sort of thinking about what life holds for him,” said Sylka.

“So I thought it would be really neat for people who are kind of further in their academic journeys but they [are] starting the rest of their life journey.” U The David Lam Library exhibition runs until December 24 and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre exhibition runs until January 13.

ELIZABETH WANG

A display of the Fluevog shoes in IKB.

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A DECADE OF

e c n e i Sc

The Ada-ssey JAMES VOGL One of the most unique science stories The Ubyssey has covered over the past 10 years was the saga of Ada, an autonomous sailbot that was lost in the Atlantic in 2016.

The boat was the pride and joy of UBC SailBot, an engineering design team that was started in 2004 by several students who were looking for a unique capstone project. Over the next 10 years, the team cut its teeth in the autonomous sailing world, competing in a series of international contests.

After becoming the first team in history to get a perfect score at a competition in 2013, the team decided that it needed a more ambitious project to challenge itself. They decided that making an autonomous sailbot capable of crossing the Atlantic from Newfoundland to London would be just the ambitious project.

The team began work in 2014 and the endeavour quickly ballooned into an all-consuming obsession for team members, who put every moment of free time they had into various aspects of the boat’s

Retractions

design. They even had a dedicated channel on the messaging app Slack called #nosleep, with the two rules for posting being that you could only write “no sleep” and could post no earlier than 1 a.m.

After countless late nights and weekends spent hard at work, the team was ready to start the final process of sending their baby out to sea, road tripping across the country in late-July 2016.

Upon arriving in Newfoundland, the team kept up the frenetic pace of their work, reassembling Ada and putting all of the final touches on the design until finally on August 24, 2016, they were ready to launch her into the open ocean.

All was well for the next four days until the team began receiving signals that the boat was heading off course to the south. She drifted farther and farther away from her intended course, until finally the team was forced to conclude that the rudder or rudder linkage had broken and their pride and joy was adrift in the vast Atlantic Ocean.

The team lost Ada’s GPS signal in November and her story appeared to have come to an end.

That was until late 2017, when an American research vessel discovered the stricken craft off the coast of Florida.

Finally, in early 2018, the team was able to return the vessel to UBC, closing the book on what had turned into a four-year odyssey. U

and recognition

ALEX VANDERPUT The Ubyssey has covered both the highs and lows of UBC scientific research over the past decade, reporting on both missteps and major achievements.

In 2011, a scientific paper from UBC seemingly presented a link between aluminum in vaccines and autism in mice. The paper garnered considerable negative attention in the Canadian media amid accusations of being anti-vaccination and containing manipulated data.

Soon after the paper was published, commenters at PubPeer found issues with the data presented.

Data of gel images in several figures were later confirmed to be incorrect and the paper was retracted.

A UBC press release stated that the university “does not endorse any faculty member’s research findings as it is up to the scientific community to

A TRIUMF-ant

evaluate research through the peer review process and to respond to findings with additional research.”

A high point of this decade was the contribution of UBC professor Dr. Gary Hinshaw on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) which was awarded the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Hinshaw was the lead data analyst for the international team.

WMAP measured the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the remnant heat from the Big Bang. The CMB was predicted in 1948 and mapped by previous probes, but WMAP was pivotal to cosmology due to the precision of its measurements.

Mapping out the small-scale temperature fluctuations in the CMB provided evidence for cosmic inflation theory by confirming its predictions.

Stephen Hawking cited the evidence for inflation from WMAP as the most exciting development in

physics during his career.

The findings of WMAP also led to a very precise determination of the age, expansion rate, density and composition of the universe. Notably, it was determined that only about 4.6 per cent of the universe is made up of ordinary matter (baryons), while 24 per cent is made up of dark matter, and dark energy accounts for a staggering 71.4 per cent.

Hinshaw and his WMAP colleague Dr. Mark Halpern — also a UBC professor — are now part of the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment, which is mapping hydrogen in the universe to better understand the nature of dark energy.

UBC is one of the top research schools in the world and there is no doubt that students, professors and alumni will continue to push science forward in the decades to come. U

house for the IAMI. The facility will be almost 3,400 square metres in size, expand TRIUMF’s lab and office space and will feature a new cyclotron. In the article, project manager Anil Vargis slated the centre’s construction for the end of 2020.

In early 2019, The Ubyssey also covered TRIUMF’s 50th anniversary events from the previous year — to mark the occasion, the centre granted the public unprecedented access to see its facilities.

The article featured an interview with Dr. Jens Dilling, associate lab director of physical science and an adjunct professor of physics at UBC. Dilling described the culture of research at TRIUMF as “bottom-up” instead of “top-down,” and this distinct academic approach helps to make the centre a place of groundbreaking discoveries.

The article also touched on funding, what Dilling considers one of TRIUMF’s big challenges, as the centre relies on contributions from the federal government, and what motivates him every day: its unique spirit. “We have a tribe,” Dilling said.

TRIUMF is an ever-expanding centre for nuclear medicine research, materials science, isotope production and many other things. For more information take a look at The Ubyssey ’s

science section and keep reading as the newspaper covers its ongoing expansions in the coming years. U

decade

EDITH COATES TRIUMF is Canada’s particle accelerator, a worldclass physics laboratory, medical research facility, and as of 2019, a 50-year old institution. Now used by 20 universities across the country, the centre was founded in 1968 as a joint venture between Simon Fraser University, UBC and the University of Victoria.

TRIUMF has a long history of enthralling everyone from science students to prime ministers.

When Pierre Trudeau commissioned a type of particle accelerator called a cyclotron for the centre in 1976, the then-prime minister quipped: “I don’t really know what a cyclotron is, but I am certainly very happy Canada has one.”

Over the past 10 years, The Ubyssey has reported on the centre’s major milestone and expansions.

In 2018, The Ubyssey covered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement of a future dedicated nuclear medicine building on the TRIUMF campus, and the federal government’s $10-million contribution to the project. The Institute of Advanced Medical Isotopes (IAMI) will be dedicated to research in nuclear medicine, cancer therapies and producing elements that can be used in medical imaging and cancer diagnosis.

Also in 2018, The Ubyssey reported on an open

A DECADE OF

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Stepping

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SARAH ZHAO By happy coincidence, UBC Theatre began and ended its decade with a Lois Anderson-directed play.

The first play of 2009, Medea, was a play of “conflict and grief” — much like Timothy Findley’s The Wars, adapted by Dennis Garnhum, which Anderson directed as the last production of 2019 and this decade.

After Medea was The Master Builder, which came to the Chan Centre as an “intriguing psychological play.” There seems to be a hint of a pattern forming here, with UBC Theatre putting on productions delving into the psychological background of, well, messed-up white men. The 2010 season ended with a two-night run of Odori: The World of Kabuki Dance, a refreshing step outside the Western world and into a different kind of stage for the Frederic Wood Theatre.

The background moved from Japan to France as the 2010 season opened with The Madwoman of Chaillot, a play that’s basically about a woman who wants to kill a bunch of people. In a step away from the norm, one of the main characters of the play was a deaf woman who participated in the conspiracy to murder. Later that year came Jade in the Coal

in the world premiere for the “chimera of Cantonese opera and Western drama.” The Ubyssey’s coverage memorably described the production by saying, “imagine a weak performance of The Phantom of the Opera with Mandarin subtitles and you’re halfway there.”

The Caucasian Chalk Circle probably won this decade with the most interesting name — both alliterative and a compilation of words that seem to have nothing to do with the plot. It might have also required the most commitment from its actors, with a three hour running time where no one could leave the stage.

Absurdity overran the Frederic Wood Theatre at the end of the 2014 season with Ubu Roi, and the attempt to recreate the “shocking and unique” atmosphere of the play by French absurdist Alfred Jarry. The set of “planned chaos,” which included a kitchen sink and four plastic flamingos, took the crew over 400 hours to create and perfect — indeed shocking, given that most UBC students I know can make a chaotic room in less than a day.

“Game of Thrones the musical” — also known as Triumph of Love — was UBC Theatre’s contribution

Audain,

to musical theatre for the 2010s. Despite comparisons to the historical drama TV show about murder and power, The Ubyssey described the play as “hilarious” and “tongue-in-cheek.”

To continue the musical trend, Love and Information was staged in 2017 as a story that involved “karaoke, discussions about dark matter, and arguments about the secret messages that are hidden in traffic lights.”

She Kills Monsters brought the Dungeons and Dragons world to the stage the following year in a production that included the use of puppetry for the first time. Then Lion in the Streets premiered, a story that tackled “Otherness” and domestic violence last year.

To cap off a decade that started off with fairly classic productions and slowly built up a repertoire of exciting firsts, UBC Theatre put on Timothy Findley’s The Wars in a return to a more traditional story. Time will tell if this production is more of a short break than an extended return to the traditional theatre stories and if we can expect to see more out-of-the-box productions in the next decade. U

aquatics and

ASC,

oh my!

TARA OSLER

Over the last decade, UBC’s geography has experienced radical changes, unsurprising given campus’s ever-present construction. Some of the most impactful were the demolition of the old Aquatic Centre to make room for a new parkade and field, the new Audain Art Centre and a revamp of Main Mall.

The end of the 2010s marks almost a decade since Main Mall was revamped. With construction starting in 2011, the project aimed to turn what it described as the “spine of the campus” into a primarily pedestrian thoroughfare. Curbs and as-

phalt were removed to create space for the grassy lawns and diagonal walkways we know today.

Opened in 2013, the Audain Art Centre and Gallery serves as both a learning space for students in the Art History and Visual Art program and a public art gallery hosting exhibitions of their work.

Funded largely by donors, the Audain Arts Centre takes it name from alum Michael Audain — BA’62, BSW’63, MSW’65 — who contributed a major donation during the initial fundraising process.

Situated on West Mall, the Audain Arts Centre is unmistakable with its brightly coloured decorative panels and floor-to-ceiling windows.

The space behind the Nest that the new MacInnes Field will occupy once housed the old Aquatic Centre, which was closed permanently and demolished in 2017, after serving UBC students for 39 years.

The construction of the new parkade began back in August 2018 behind the AMS Nest, after a year of online discourse and townhallmeetings. The project generated controversy — the cost was seen by many students as ridiculous,

and the disruption of the campus’s geography was seen as a ridiculous inconvenience combined with the construction of the new bus loop.

In 2017, when the project was first announced, The Ubyssey published an opinion letter stating that the project was an unnecessary expense.

The letter argued that its location was too focused on commercial activity on campus rather than the benefit of students. It also voiced concerned about the apparent lack of footpaths and bike lanes on the original plan. So far, the MacInnes Field project is still under construction with no official end date or opening in site.

As of writing, Astroturf has been laid on the field, but construction continues on the parkade underneath.

As UBC grows in size and advances technologically, the face of our campus will continue to evolve. In the 2020s, we can — hopefully — expect the completion of the MacInnes Field Parkade, breaking ground on the new Arts Student Centre, and more residential buildings to accommodate our growing student body. U

Book

to the future DANIELLE OLUSANYA

The advancements of UBC Library in this last decade have been monumental. There have been changes in the general makeup of the library system with the increase of library offices and changes in study spaces, but that in many ways just scratches the surface.

In 2010, UBC Library wanted to become a 21st-century research library. This meant not just adapting to rapid technological change but also repurposing space to make the library more user-centred especially in areas of interdisciplinary and graduate research. Despite this being their stated goal, last year The Ubyssey reported on how Koerner library study spaces were being taken over to become library offices.

The decade started with the collection expanding by over 300,000 items, due to the fact that the

Canadian dollar was performing well against the US dollar that year.

The middle of the decade was also UBC Library’s 100-year anniversary. With this came huge shifts in materials being purchased for the use of students. Also introduced that year was the Pay It Forward grant, in which UBC worked in conjunction with several American universities to investigate sustainable methods of processing charges in institutions. This has had direct impacts on the way that open access fees are paid today. 2015 also marked changes in the rare books collections as the library was able to acquire works from Oscar Wilde and pieces of Papal bull.

Today, UBC Library is focused on much of the same things that it focused on 10 years ago. This

year it has especially worked hard on expanding its collections. The LGBTQ+ collection now grants users access to 1.5 million pages of primary source content. In 2018, Rare Books and Special Collections purchased a first-edition copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for $36,500 US. One of the main aims is to make content more accessible, which is why there has also been a greater emphasis on creating open textbook resources and improving libraries’ virtual and augmented reality media labs. Changes in study spaces have also been made with the introduction of active workstations in Irving K. Barber.

Whether UBC Library have been able to make it into the 21st-century is still up in the air, but inarguably over the past 10 years, they have become a different place of mind. U

10 | DECADE IN REVIEW | TUESDAY DECEMBER 3, 2019

A DECADE OF n e w s

PLANNING A PATH OF RECONCILIATION Andrew Ha UBC has taken steps toward Indigenous reconciliation throughout the 2010s, but there’s still room for improvement over the decade to come.

Kicking off the ’teens, Canada officially endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). In 2015 when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released 94 calls to action urging government to implement UNDRIP. A flurry of developments took place in 2018 — across the country with the release of the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and closer to home with BC mandating that UBC create a strategy addressing the TRC. That June, a draft of UBC’s Indigenous Strategic Plan was presented to the Board of Governors (BoG), intending to replace the university’s 2009 Aboriginal Strategic Plan and implement the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action. But when Dr. Sheryl Lightfoot, senior advisor to the president on Indigenous affairs, took the helm from previous advisor Dr. Linc Kesler, she announced May 2019 that the plan would be postponed — not only because of leadership changes, but also due to a shifting landscape of Indigenous affairs.

This shift manifested institutionally in President Santa Ono’s April 2018 apology for the role UBC played in “tacitly accepting the silence” around residential schools.

“While we cannot rewrite this history, we must not deny it either,” he said to a crowd of several hundred people including Indigenous Elders and residential school survivors.

His apology introduced the opening of the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (RSHDC), which the Board of Governors approved in 2016. The centre

underwent a name change in the fall of 2018 — the word “Indian” was dropped to be more inclusive of Inuit and Métis peoples, noted RSHDC Director Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond.

Despite being understaffed, underprepared and, as Turpel-Lafond said, “far from ready to open” with incomplete systems, in 2019, the space now hosts dialogue sessions and displays about the centre’s origins.

In student governance, 2018 was also the year where the AMS apologized half a year after UBC for failing to make “serious efforts to advance reconciliation.” It launched its Indigenous Committee in November.

Indigenous spaces have appeared in other places on campus, from the 2015 launch of the Institute of Critical Indigenous Studies to the First Nation House of Learning (FNHL) opening the Indigenous Student Collegium in October 2019 and the FNHL’s relaunching weekly smudging ceremonies the following month.

On language, the Musqueam gifted the name c̓ əsnaʔəm to Totem Park residence’s newest building in fall 2017 and, with UBC, unveiled hən̓q̓ əmin̓əm̓ -language street signs in spring 2018.

In March 2019, the Haida Reconciliation Pole was vandalized just shy of the second anniversary of its installation, prompting an open letter from FNHL Director Dr. Margaret Moss and Lightfoot. “ … This condemnable act profoundly disrespects everything the pole represents,” they wrote, “from the voices of the survivors of the schools, the memories of the children who died in them, the hopes of Indigenous peoples, to the honour of all Canadians who are striving to shake free from the darkness of the past to embrace a brighter future together.” U

AMS ANTICS Charlotte Alden The last decade of the AMS has been full of successes, mistakes and bizarre moments.

The decade began with two AMS execs narrowly avoiding impeachment, after filing a human rights complaint to the UN about access to education on behalf of the AMS, without consulting AMS Council. Towards the end of the decade in 2017, Alan Ehrenholz ran for President as a joke candidate on behalf of “The Engineer’s Cairn.” He won.

The physical buildings of the AMS have changed with the renovation of the new Student Union Building (SUB) to become the AMS Student Nest (almost named the AMS Student Hub). It opened to student use in 2015. The old SUB became the Life Building, with construction beginning in 2016 and opening to student use in 2018. The Norm Theatre closed during those renovations, only recently re-opening.

Internal changes to AMS structure have also characterized the last decade. The AMS has restructured their committees in 2009-10 and 201617. The Academic Experience Survey was created in 2012, in order to help the AMS better advocate for student needs and wants. The year 2014 saw the only time the AMS Annual General Meeting (AGM) met quorum in the last 40 years. Five hundred students attended to oppose housing and tuition increases.

The AMS also began giving territorial acknowledgements at AMS Council.

External advocacy has also been an essential part of the AMS’s work over the last decade. Advocacy regarding student loan interest resulted in the elimination of provincial student loan interest this February. The AMS has also lobbied to extend the Sky-

Train out to UBC, but this likely won’t be a reality until at least 2028. The U-Pass has also been a main aspect of the AMS’s advocacy, in order to reduce transit costs for students.

The fight for divestment has persisted throughout the decade in both the AMS and the university. In 2018, the AMS divested their $16.2 million portfolio and saw a triple in returns the following year. Their partnership with student climate activist group UBCC350 has also moved the university closer to full divestment.

The AMS has worked on making the campus a safer place for students, especially in regards to sexual assault prevention. Safewalk use increased eightfold between 2012 and 2015, likely due to a series of alleged sexual assaults that occurred on campus in 2013. Changes to the service throughout the decade curbed misuse and allowed it to serve more students. The policy working group was created in 2017, with the final version recently adopted as the Sexual Violence Prevention and Respectful Community and Workplace Policy.

The AMS’s relationship with The Sexual Assault Support Centre (SASC), founded in, 2002, has been rocky over the last decade, with a sudden cut to support services for the Centre in 2018, which was quickly reversed. In early 2019, a referendum passed to nearly triple the student fee for SASC. Most recently, SASC workers unionized.

Looking towards the next decade, the AMS is now working on developing a strategic plan that will shape the values and mission of the society for the next five years. U

— With files from AMS Archivist Sheldon Goldfarb

THE LONG AND SHORT OF BROADBASED ADMISSIONS Emma Livingstone The year 2012 marked the first time UBC implemented their broad-based admissions process, meaning applicants would now have to write a personal profile in addition to sending the university their high school grades.

UBC said this change was made to ensure the university was accepting well-rounded candidates who could perform well academically and get involved on campus.

According to UBC’s enrolment services, 12 per cent of those accepted in 2012/13 would not have been admitted to UBC without the broadbased admissions system.

In 2013, The Ubyssey filed a freedom of information (FOI) request to see the broadbased admissions rubric used by the university, an institution run by the provincial government. This became the start of a four-year legal battle between the university and the student paper.

UBC refused the FOI, arguing the disclosure of the information would be “harmful to the financial interests or economic interests of a public body,” whereby if students knew the grading rubric they would be able to tailor their answers and become less genuine.

The Ubyssey asked the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) of BC to review UBC’s decision to withhold the information.

In 2014 the parties went to mediation, which failed.

The OIPC released their decision in 2015 and ordered the university to release the documents. This led the university to sue the OIPC in the BC Supreme Court over the decision, where The Ubyssey’s case won again.

UBC then decided to appeal in the BC Court of Appeals, where they ruled in favour of the university.

The next legal action would have been for The Ubyssey to appeal the decision and take the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which the paper did not have the money for.

But by that time a whistleblower had leaked the rubric to The Ubyssey, which was published online in 2016.

Since then the university has also released the rubric themselves.

The rubric showed that graders were looking for attributes including: “a sense of self and community, problem solving and resilience.” The rubric also instructed graders to flag applications if they indicated a student that might need more support. According to Andrew Arida, director of undergraduate admissions, flagging an application had no chances on whether a student would get in.

The article explaining the rubric continues to be one of the most read articles on The Ubyssey’s website. U

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY | DECADE IN REVIEW | 11

TUITION ESCALATION

GUPTAGATE

Dorothy Settles

Thea Udwadia

UBC tuition has increased substantially in the past decade, especially for international students. This has been a major source of contention throughout the years, hashed out by students, the Board of Governors (BoG) and the AMS. While the university justifies these increases by saying they go towards student programs and financial aid such as the Excellence Fund, they have been criticized for commodifying UBC degrees and targeting international students and students of lower socio-economic status.

Tensions surrounding tuition hikes escalated in 2014 and 2015, culminating in the birth of the #IAmAStudent movement. In the fall of 2014, over 500 students protested at the AMS Annual General Meeting, voicing their gripes with rising housing and tuition costs.

This meeting was also the first in over 40 years to meet quorum.

In October 2015, BoG approved a 48.6 per cent increase in international tuition for most programs to be implemented over three years. According to the 2015 BoG agenda, the increased tuition would “support the mission and excellence of the University and should be comparable to those at peer institutions.”

High tuition rates are also seen as a source of prestige for UBC, as they seek to stay on par with rival schools University of Toronto and McGill. By the university’s logic, high tuition would attract prestigious faculty members who increase UBC’s research output, thereby increasing UBC’s status in various university ranking systems.

In 2018, BoG approved a four per cent increase for international students and a two per cent increase for domestic students. This amounts to a $1,521.90 increase over 30 credits for international students.

The BoG voted in favour of increases by a historically slim margin in 2018, with eight out of twenty-one governors voting against the increases. This year was also the first year provincially appointed governors voted against tuition hikes.

This year, BoG is voting on tuition increases again with a proposed two per cent increase for domestic students, three per cent for continuing international students and a four per cent increase for new international students.

Increased funding risks decreasing the socio-economic diversity of the student body. A 2014 report from the Canadian Federation of Students found that “international tuition fees at Canadian universities are usually more than the annual wage of most families in developing countries.” U

Of all the years this past decade, perhaps none has been as tumultuous for UBC as 2015, when Dr. Arvind Gupta stepped down from his position as president and vice-chancellor of the university.

Gupta resigned from his position in August 2015, following conflict and in-fighting with the Board of Governors (BoG). Having only served 13 months of his presidency at the time, his resignation came as a shock for much of the UBC community.

It was later revealed — through documents both accidentally leaked and officially obtained from a freedom of information (FOI) request — that this was the result of a crisis in leadership.

A CAMPUS IN CHAOS

The circumstances leading to Gupta’s sudden resignation were not immediately disclosed by the university.

The university later released a 861-page, heavily redacted document in response to FOI requests searching for more details about the process that led up to Gupta’s resignation.

However, files that were attached to this document — which revealed much more information than was originally intended — were not redacted, and were thus accidentally leaked by UBC. In fact, it was Reddit users in the r/UBC subreddit who cracked the code and discovered that these attached files were accessible by the public.

Following Gupta’s resignation, speculation about what happened and the subsequently leaked documents, UBC was faced with criticism from the Faculty Association (FA), the AMS, elected Board members and Gupta himself, on the secretive way in which the situation was handled.

The FA also called for an external review of the Board, after the FOI documents were released.

Several faculty members individually spoke out against the Board’s secretive handling of the situation, calling for more transparency.

When tenured Sauder Professor Dr. Jennifer Berdahl published a blog post about the departure of President Gupta, she received a phone call from Montalbano expressing concern over its contents. Berdahl, who specializes in the impact of race, gender and sexuality, argued in her post that Gupta lost the “masculinity contest” that exists in higher levels of leadership.

This sparked a campus-wide debate and an official investigation conducted

by Justice Lynn Smith into whether Montalbano infringed on Berdahl’s academic freedom.

Although Montalbano was found to have acted in good faith, he officially resigned from his position in October 2015.

SECRET FIGHTING

WHAT FOLLOWED?

According to the documents, Gupta’s resignation stemmed from troubles and conflict with the UBC BoG, specifically its then-Chair John Montalbano.

Email correspondences released by UBC reveal that their relationship started out amicable when Gupta commenced his term, but deteriorated significantly over time.

The redacted documents reveal a growing lack of confidence in Gupta’s abilities

by Montalbano, alongside increasing hostility.

According to meeting notes from an email in May 2015, written by Montalbano, “The Board has noted that [Gupta’s] year as leader of The University of British Columbia has been an unsettled one. Relationships with key stakeholder groups … are not at functional levels to allow [Gupta] to move forward in a confident manner.”

‘Guptagate,’ as it is now known, left a stain on UBC’s institutional history — one defined by secrecy and a lack of transparency in upper levels of administration.

President Gupta was followed by interim President Martha Piper — who also served as president two terms before Gupta — who helped weather the storm after the events of 2015.

Piper was followed by President Santa Ono in 2016.

Following his resignation, Gupta stayed on at UBC as a computer science professor. In 2017, he announced that he was moving to the University of Toronto to accept a full-time role in their computer science department.

Many faculty expressed sadness and warm wishes to Gupta following the announcement of his departure. U

REDDIT CRACKS THE CASE

THE LIFE AND DEVELOPMENT OF POLICY 131 Bailey Martens With Policy 131, UBC’s sexual violence policy, up for review next year, all eyes are looking to see how the university will continue to address sexual violence.

The policy came into effect after Martha Piper, former UBC president and vice chancellor, announced the university would begin working on a sexual violence policy following a CBC investigation into the mishandling of more than six claims against Dmitry Mordvinov, a former history TA and PhD candidate. The investigation was released in 2015 but the instances dated back to 2013.

Glynnis Kirchmeier, a UBC alum, said her reports about Mordvinov were stuck in limbo for 22 months while in talks with the university over their case.

In emails obtained by CBC, Mordvinov admitted to knowing that the sexual acts were non-consensual.

Still, the university tried to silence students.

Kaitlin Russell, a former executive in the history graduate students’ association, said, “The takeaway message from this whole thing has been that one male student is somehow more valuable to this institution than a handful or a dozen or however many women.”

A 2015 Board of Governors document stated that Policy 3, which formally collected all types of discrimination including sexual based offences, only formally investigated 6 of 273 files.

On May 19, 2016, shortly after Piper’s announcement, the provincial government mandated all public universities to create a standalone sexual violence policy within a year. UBC’s Policy 131 came into effect May 18, 2017.

UBC was also under fire after multiple Human Rights Tribunal complaints, including Kirchmeier’s, surfaced in response to alleged instances of sexualized violence. UBC does not publish sexual violence statistics but it is believed to follow the national averages of one in five women being impacted. These complaints were eventually investigated by the RCMP. One of those survivors wrote a letter to The Ubyssey.

“An attack like this one is personal,” she wrote. “I feel violated as I walk around campus overhearing conversations about ‘that girl who was attacked,’ or sitting in class within earshot of classmates discussing my attack.”

THE GALLOWAY SCANDAL Steven Galloway, former creative writing department chair, lost his job for what UBC called an “irreparable breach of trust.” This came after Judge Mary Ellen Boyd’s investigation, commissioned by the university, found that Galloway had made repeated inappropriate advances towards the plaintiff, writing that “the [main complainant’s (MC)] failure to expressly object to his behaviour was the byproduct of the power differential between the two parties.”

Judge Boyd also concluded that her investigation could not substantiate MC’s allegations of sexual assault.

Two years after Judge Boyd’s investigation concluded, Galloway filed defamation suits against MC, multiple professors and former students.

Galloway’s defamation cases against those alum and faculty is still ongoing, with a BC Supreme Court judge recently ruling that Galloway could access to the defendants’ emails and online posts, something a later judge ruled the defendants could appeal.

In a separate instance, Galloway was awarded $167,000 in damages in mid-2018 as a result of the findings by an independent arbitrator, who wrote “certain communications by the University contravened [Galloway’s] privacy rights and caused harm to his reputation.”

POLICY 131: ONE YEAR LATER A year after Policy 131 was released, The Ubyssey investigated its effectiveness only to find that while a step in the right direction, the policy severely missed the mark.

The UBC community was left without a clear picture of how to report instances of sexual violence.

“It really is a failure that we are now a year into this policy, and I don’t think that we’re better off from when we passed the policy,” former AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Max Holmes told The Ubyssey.

This year, the provincial government has pushed to better address sexual violence on post-secondary campuses by launching a prevention campaign. The university and AMS claim it complements their existing internal efforts.

AMS VP External Cristina Ilnitchi told The Ubyssey, “A lot of the work that’s happening now, to be honest, is catch up.” U

12 | decade in review | TUESDAY DECEMBER 3, 2019

A DECADE OF

Salomon Micko Benrimoh

An

spo rt s

olympic experience at home

WINTER OLYMPICS The Olympics and UBC have always had a special relationship — 224 Olympians having called the University Endowment Lands home. But it was in the last decade that we’ve seen an even more special relationship develop between UBC and the Olympic Games.

First and foremost, the decade began with the Winter Olympic Games coming to campus. Vancouver 2010 changed the face of the city and the campus to a certain extent. As with a number of

T-Birds

other venues built for the games, Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Arena was built as a secondary to Rogers Arena for men’s and women’s ice hockey as well as sledge hockey during the subsequent Paralympics.

The venue, built adjacent to the much older Father David Bauer Arena, played host to a Team Canada game during the 2010 Olympics — a 13–1 blowout win against Sweden. Since its use in the Olympics, the 7,500 seat arena has become a

staple on campus and one of the biggest university-hockey-dedicated arenas on the continent. U

on the podium

SUMMER OLYMPICS The 2010s also saw a number of T-Birds represent Canada at the Summer Olympics, with a few even stepping onto the podium. Current varsity swimmer Emily Overholt helped the Canadian 4x200-metre freestyle relay to a bronze-medal finish ahead of powerhouse countries like China and Russia at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Four years before that at the London 2012 Olympics, former T-Birds swimmer Brent Hayden

From

added more metal to his 2007 world title and 2010 Commonwealth Games gold. Hayden won a bronze medal in the 100-metre freestyle, swimming against current world record holder César Cielo and five other Olympic medalists.

But with glory comes a little heartbreak. The 2016 Olympics had the stage set for race walker and Thunderbird athlete Evan Dunfee to build off his gold-medal performance at the 2015 Pan Amer-

ican Games in Toronto.

At the finish of the men’s 50km-race walk event, Dunfee was fourth but got upgraded to a bronze medal after Japan’s Hirooki Arai was disqualified for having made contact with Dunfee in the race. While Dunfee was briefly an Olympic medalist, the ruling was overturned on appeal and Arai regained his bronze-medal finish. U

cross-town dismay to national glory

FOOTBALL The decade began with the last Shrum Bowl. The Shrum Bowl was an annual football game played between the Thunderbirds and crosstown rivals the Simon Fraser University Clan.

It was an exhibition series that started back in 1967, built off the sheer rivalry between the two schools.

2010 saw the last game before the Clan joined the National Collegiate Athletic Association and put an end to the series due to scheduling conflicts. A packed Thunderbird Stadium saw the T-Birds lose by one touchdown at 27–20 to the Clan.

While the Clan entered the 2010s with Shrum Bowl glory, the T-Birds reached the top of U Sports

football in 2015.

Led by quarterback Michael O’Connor, all-star wide receiver and head coach Blake Nill in just his first season with the ’Birds, UBC marched past an undefeated University of Calgary Dinos team to book a meeting with the Université de Montréal Carabins in the 51st Vanier Cup. With no time left in the fourth quarter, Quinn van Gylswyk sent a 20-yard field goal straight through the uprights and into U Sports history, giving the Thunderbirds a 26–23 victory and their first Vanier Cup win since 1997.

Meanwhile, the Clan went three-and-a-half seasons without a single win. U

a decade of dominance on the court VOLLEYBALL The decade started with the UBC Thunderbirds women’s volleyball team in the midst of an unprecedented feat: six straight U Sports National Championships. An incredible feat for a team that, before then, hadn’t won a championship since 1978.

2010’s victory came from a 3–1 win over the University of Manitoba Bison and capped off a 27–0, undefeated season.

Just

keep swimming

…

Champions until the 2014 season, the Thunderbirds owed it to their top offensive threat in outside-hitter Shanice Marcelle. The Victoria-born Marcelle would be crowned player of the year with the Mary Lyons trophy in 2011 and left a sizable hole in the UBC roster when she graduated in 2013.

It didn’t stop the T-Birds from making the trip out to the U Sports championships in each year

and winning

SWIMMING It’s easier to look at the last two decades and count the years that the UBC Thunderbirds haven’t won both the men’s and women’s national championships. The women’s team were national champions for 11-straight years — from 1998 to 2009 — and their dominance didn’t end with the turn of the decade.

Save for a brief period at the start of the 2010s and a close loss to the University of Toronto Varsity Blues in 2016, the women’s squad won the U Sports National Championship seven times. The decade of absolute control is shared by the men’s squad as

well, who’ve won each year the women’s team has, apart from 2013 and 2014.

The teams have showed no sign of slowing down and have only gotten better and faster across the board. This decade’s squads have featured over a dozen Olympians, World Championship and Commonwealth Games swimmer and medalists.

But perhaps the biggest story to cap off the decade: the return of a T-Bird legend in London 2012 bronze-medalist Brent Hayden coming out of retirement to try his luck at making one more Olympic swim at Tokyo 2020. U

of the 2010s, but the recent rise of star players like Danielle Brisebois and Kiera Van Ryk saw the ’Birds return to championship form in 2017.

A sensational, come-from-behind win against the Ryerson Rams in 2019’s final capped off the most memorable championship run of the decade, with Van Ryk winning U Sports Athlete of the Year and moving to go pro in Italy. U

OPINIONS

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

EDITOR TRISTAN WHEELER

13

FINANCES //

Letter: Why we do not support the proposed tuition increases

FILE GEOFF LISTER

“The lack of a cohesive, strategic approach has left serious gaps in our support systems.”

Max Holmes, Jeanie Malone and Jassim Naqvi Contributors

We will be voting against these tuition increases. We understand that tuition is critical to the university’s function — it represents a plurality of the revenues in our discretionary operating budget. We also thank the administration for the optimizations they have made to the process. However, we cannot support this proposal for several reasons.

Firstly, we still do not believe there has been a sufficient case built that these increases are necessary. As governors, we understand the need to keep up with inflationary pressures. We have only been shown the potential impact on the university’s total surplus and the revenue forgone by

voting against this increase.

We thank the administration for having provided models on a number of tuition increase scenarios, but we note that the further information we requested in September, such as an updated Tuition Allocation Model, is not still included in the materials for this discussion. Because of this, we are concerned that we still don’t have enough information on whether this proposal is in the best interest of the university.

Secondly, we have received no details on how such an increase would be necessary for the individual faculties. We have requested during this process to see faculty spending breakdowns and the tuition allocation model, neither has been provided today.

Simply stating in the consultation that faculties will invest in a generic list of priorities is not

respectful to the over 5,000 students who engaged in this consultation. There are multiple comments from students in the consultation report requesting to see more information on how this would impact their faculty.

Our students recognize that the majority of tuition — 69 per cent at UBC Vancouver, 55 per cent UBC Okanagan — is allocated to their respective faculties and rightfully point out the need to understand that component to make an informed decision. We do not see how governors can responsibly make a similar decision without this information.

Thirdly, we and past student governors have raised a number of concerns about the university’s approach to affordability. The university undertakes many important initiatives that help address affordability like Student Financial Aid, the Blue & Gold Campaign for Students, Open Educational Resources, Below Market Student Housing and more.

However, the university still lacks any comprehensive plan to address the affordability crisis that is faced by students on this campus.

The lack of a cohesive, strategic approach has left serious gaps in our support systems which actively harms our most vulnerable students. Increasing tuition without a systematic plan to address the affordability crisis that we have

pushed our students towards is careless. Our students are clear on this: we have students highlighting how the financial pressures of attending this university have led them to self-harm, food insecurity, reduced academic performance and delayed graduation.

We understand the “taxation” argument that the revenue from increasing tuition will be used to fund support services — but we cannot support that approach if our support services are flawed as a system. As one student put it, “this tuition increase will unduly harm students, and the proposed benefits will not be applicable to most students.”

Fourthly, this proposal will severely affect both graduate and international students. We still have graduate students who live below the poverty line, many of whom need to pay their tuition on top of living from stipends of the minimum guaranteed $18,000/year. And, since we increase tuition annually and not stipends, today’s vote will effectively put more graduate students below that poverty line.

While we are presently contemplating changes to stipend and tuition waiver models, we do not have a clear path forward at this time. We are not comforted by the thought that we may do something, when it is clear what impact this will have on students. UBC prides itself on being one of the most

international universities in the world and that wouldn’t be possible without our international students.

Yet, international students have very limited forms of financial aid and research scholarships available to them. International students not only have to contend with far higher tuition costs, they also have to deal with a higher annual increase.

Lastly, we would like to recognize the joint AMS, GSS and Student Union Okanagan submission and the 5,562 students who submitted comments. We also recognize the significant participation of both graduate and international students who are deeply affected by these increases.

We believe the frustration that our students demonstrated in the consultation has two root causes: the lack of a clear strategic vision tied to these proposed increases and the lack of a strategy to address financial pressures. We request that the next proposal for tuition increases be a multi-year plan, paired with a demonstrated, effective approach to affordability. U Jeanie Malone is a PhD student in biomedical engineering and a Board of Governors member.

Max Holmes is an arts student and a Board of Governors member.

Jassim Naqvi is a medical biochemistry and economics student and a Board of Governors member.

ACCOUNTABILITY //

Last Words: The Board of Governors makes a step toward transparency The Ubyssey Editorial Board

To our pleasant surprise, UBC Board of Governors (BoG) has taken a step toward increasing its own transparency.

Too often, The Ubyssey has had to write news articles and editorials questioning this university’s commitment to transparency and

accountability. Most recently, we published an editorial on November 17 calling for the dismissal of a motion that would have banned recordings of Board meetings by everyone, except for the Board secretariat, if passed.

But at its November 22 meeting, the BoG governance committee not only dismissed this

This is a good step towards more transparency.

WWW.REGENTDENTALCENTRE.COM 2681 W BROADWAY, VANCOUCER, BC V6K 2G2

proposal, but also voted to record and livestream all open Board meetings.

Given the Board’s track record, this was truly a breath of fresh air.

More importantly, this will make the highest body of governance at UBC much more accessible.

While the BoG already live-streams the full meetings, committee meetings — where most of the detailed policy discussions take place — will now be available to community members whenever they want, wherever they are.

For instance, some important discussions would take place at 8:30 a.m. And unless it’s part of your job requirements to livetweet Board meetings like that

of our news editors, not many people have the time or energy to attend them.

Other times, there is simply not enough space in the Robert H. Lee Family Boardroom to fit all interested viewers, like was the case when the Board’s Endowment Responsible Investment Policy Committee voted on November 22 to consider divesting over $300 million of UBC’s endowment.

Of course, there is always the option of following along with live-tweets from The Ubyssey news team — and please continue to do so!

But we ourselves recognize the benefit of having the full recording of these meetings, given the fact that they are usually full

FILE JOSHUA MEDICOFF

of bureaucratic lingo and complex discussions.

In fact, we emphasized its importance in our November 17 editorial, noting that much of our coverage of important topics at this university has relied on our own meeting recordings. After all, you can only capture so much nuance in 280 characters.

Ultimately, as UBC manages a $2.1 billion operating budget, a $1.71 billion endowment fund and over 70,000 students, staff and faculty over both campuses, there is always room for improvement when it comes to good governance.

But this is a good step — no matter how small or belated it can feel to some — and The Ubyssey would like to give credit where credit is due. U

FROM THE BLOG

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

EDITOR TRISTAN WHEELER

14

ENVIRONMENTALISM //

The Dingbat: Day 476 of the new 2046 Sustainable Waste Management Initiative

FILE PATRICK GILLIN

I’ve lost too many friends to the tyranny of UBC’s sustainability initiatives.

Thomas McLeod Contributor

Today, they almost got me. Ike’s had given me my bolognese in a plastic container — prime recycling material. At the last moment, just before I placed it in the grey recycling slot, I saw the manufacturer: Ecoproducts.

It was a compostable. I recoiled and — looking around me— carefully placed the container in the compost bin. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of UBC’s sustainability enforcers whisper something into his lapel.

I’ve lost too many friends to the tyranny of UBC’s sustainability initiatives. Kyle, my roommate

— ex-roommate — put one of the brown compostable napkins in the paper bin. That night, I woke up to screaming.

Kyle was gone and his room was covered in dirt and blood.

I never saw him again. Another friend put recyclable plastic in the green slot. The next day, he found his car papered with that poster

of the two worms saying, “We love UBC compost — but not when it has plastic in it,” like hellish pink demons bent on reducing the campus’s contribution to climate crisis. Then his car burst into flames, puffing cosmic irony.

I’ve heard they’re even making compostable iClickers.

It’s impossible to tell what’s real

anymore. What’s compostable now? Chopsticks? Steel? Me? What’s the difference between this plastic bowl from Bento and the one from The Delly? They look more and more identical each day. They’re learning too fast for me to keep up. I fear that I will soon be swallowed by a wholly compostable campus.

What Blade Runner didn’t tell us about infiltrative manufacturing is that the first spies aren’t your enemies, but your friends. I feel my neighbours watching me each time I take out the trash. But the resistance is still strong.

The other day I saw a regular trash can, remnant of a dead age, placed on the corner of Main Mall and University Blvd. It was a show of defiance, a demonstration by the ordinary people who didn’t have the brain capacity to do basic waste sorting — people who longed for a simpler time. This will be my last entry, as I’m sure I will be taken by nightfall. The dirt will not swallow us. The resistance will rise.

Long live the landfill. U The Dingbat is The Ubyssey’s humour column. You can pitches or submit completed pieces to blog@ubyssey.ca.

BUYERS-FIGS //

Your UBC Enneagram personality test planned out their degree in a Google Sheets three years prior. They are very detail oriented and are great study buddies who will keep you on track.

them in a difficult course they decided to take as an elective or people watching on transit.

TYPE 2: THE HELPER

Type 6 is reliable and responsible but can let self-doubt cloud their decision making. On campus, you can find them rubbing their temples over a true or false question on a Canvas quiz. However, this is the type you turn to when you spend all your meal dollars.

A Type 2 is the kind of person to go to Save On and ask you if you need anything. They’ll save you a seat if you are running late to lecture. If you try to return the favour… good luck.

You will be bombarded with “I don’t need anything” or “Let me do it.”

TYPE 3: THE ACHIEVER This type can stay in the library for hours on end and could be someone that is more susceptible to burnout.

Success is very valuable to them and are concerned about what others think of them. Keep an eye on these ones and remind them to stay humble.

TYPE 4: THE INDIVIDUALIST

test for you!

A Type 4 spends money on Redbubble stickers for their Nalgene. You may find them in the faculty of arts, pouring their souls into an assignment worth 10 per cent of their mark. This type is also most likely to post on UBC Crushes about someone that made eye contact with them once.

TYPE 1: THE REFORMER

TYPE 5: THE INVESTIGATOR

As a UBC student, the Reformer would probably be checking Degree Navigator to ensure they are on track, even though they already

This type is the most likely to read this very article. They are very inquisitive and want to learn more about themselves. You could find

FILE ARIEL QI

This type is most likely to be a member of the AMS Council.

Kaila Johnson Staff Writer

You’ve heard of the Myers-Briggs test and zodiac signs, but there is a new personality test on the rise.

The Enneagram Test categorizes individuals into nine types. It has

recently become popularized because of this generation’s constant need for validation from online quizzes. With finals season approaching, we could all use something else to stress about. If you want to get called out on your deepest insecurities, then this is the

TYPE 6: THE LOYALIST

TYPE 7: THE ENTHUSIAST A Type 7 is the friend who forces you out of your dorm or skateboards down the hallway after quiet hours.

You may find them changing their routes to class more often than you would think. Impulse buying tickets to AMS events on campus may be their downfall.

TYPE 8: THE CHALLENGER They are strong, decisive and may come off as intimidating at first.

Type 8’s want to challenge their learning and may be in the thick of heated class discussions. And while this is no guarantee, this type is most likely to be a member of the AMS Council.

TYPE 9: THE PEACEMAKER If you need a pick-me-up, having a type 9 around will be sure to cheer you up. They can talk to you about how they turn that frown upside down and treat you to Rain or Shine (if you’re lucky). U

PHOTOS

EDITOR ELIZABETH WANG

THE POLAR BEAR SWIM BY LUA PRESIDIO AND DIEGO LOZANO

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

15

SCIENCE SCIENCE

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

EDITOR JAMES VOGL

16

DRONIN’ ALONG //

Researchers take to the skies to study northern resident orcas Myla White Staff Writer

Researchers at UBC are getting a rare glimpse of the social behaviours and hunting habits of resident killer whales with the help of aerial drones.

For three weeks from late August to early September, UBC researchers in partnership with the Hakai Institute used drones to monitor northern killer whales in the Salish Sea and off the central coast of BC. In using the drones, the research team lead by Director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit (MMRU) at UBC’s Institute for Oceans and Fisheries Andrew Trites seeks to determine if there is a shortage of prey for southern resident killer whales.

This study marks the first time that aerial drones were used in collaboration with multi-frequency echo sounders — sophisticated fish finders similar to those found on any commercial or recreational fishing boat — to collect data on the whales. In using these two technologies, the depths and abundance of fish in an area are able to be measured in unison with the whales’ diving behaviours and any hunting or successful prey capture events.

The footage gathered includes scenes of two killer whales diving underwater, a pod in Blackfish Sound and a mother with her female calf.

The results from this study will be used to better inform conservation efforts for the endangered southern resident killer whales, whose population has dwindled to under 75 individuals.

The northern killer whales seen in the footage have an apparently healthy population of over 300 individuals. The study was designed to be comparative in nature, with the northern residents being the control for the southern whale population, who are in worse condition overall.

“By simultaneously recording information about their feeding behaviour and their foraging successes, we can answer the question about whether southern residents are less successful at feeding compared to northern residents,” said postdoctoral fellow at MMRU and leader of the drone portion of the study Sarah Fortune. “And if they are less successful than the northern residents, is that a function of the prey that’s available to them?

Are there fewer fish available to them than the northern residents, or are the fish found at deeper depths and so they become less accessible for foraging?”

Research associate at MMRU Mei Sato has previously been mapping the prey field of northern and southern residents using multifrequency echo sounders and has successfully mapped where salmon ­­— particularly Chinook salmon, the

The results from this study will be used to better inform conservation efforts.

whales’ preferred prey — are found and in what abundances. What has been missing is information on the whales’ behaviour relative to the prey fields.

“An interesting observation that we made for southern residents was that the whales were actively foraging on surface aggregations of salmon and they had confirmed

captures of Chinook salmon at the surface,” said Fortune. In using both drone technology and sonar equipment, the research team garnered a more informed understanding of what salmon abundances and prey conditions are required to support successful feeding for the southern residents.

The project is part of the

COURTESY KEITH HOLMES/HAKAI INSTITUTE

federally-funded Whale Science for Tomorrow initiative. The collaboration provides funding to university-based research on the health and stressors affecting endangered whales in Canadian waters and will be used to better inform decision making in regards to fisheries management and whale conservation. U

WEED SCIENCE //

Cannabis use associated with improvement in PTSD symptoms

This study is the first of its kind to look at the association between cannabis use, PTSD and mental distress at a population level.

Phuong Nguyen Contributor

Seeing a lack of large-scale epidemiological research exploring the link between cannabis usage and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment, Stephanie Lake, a PhD student at UBC and a research associate at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, set out to answer these unexplored questions along with other researchers in a recent study.

In recent years, there has been a great surge in media coverage documenting patient reports of benefits of cannabis in PTSD treatment.

The strong correlation between PTSD and experiencing major depressive episodes and suicidal ideation has been well-established in previous studies. “But what we don’t know is how cannabis might affect that relationship,” said Lake.

Data for this study was taken from the Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health 2012, with a total of 24,089 respondents.

Among them, 420 reported a diagnosis of PTSD. Overall, 11.2 per cent of people without PTSD reported cannabis use, compared to 28.2 per cent of those with PTSD. This data demonstrates the prevalence of cannabis use in people with PTSD compared to

those without, which has been well-established. From this data, the research team then built statistical models that relate the effect of cannabis on the relationship between PTSD and experiencing major depressive episodes and suicidal ideation.

Among the population of non-cannabis users with PTSD, the researchers found a strong statistical correlation between having PTSD and experiencing depression and suicidality.

However, the same association between having PTSD and experiencing these mental symptoms was not found among cannabis users with PTSD.

FILE ALEX NGUYEN

“What this result suggests is that cannabis might be interacting with PTSD to change the course of PTSD on these indicators of mental distress,” said Lake.

Lake explained that, before this study, research done on the relationship between PTSD and cannabis use had been conducted in small patient samples. This study is the first of its kind to look at the association between cannabis use, PTSD and mental distress at a population level.

However, Lake emphasized that using survey data for a study poses many limitations.

Two important drawbacks, said Lake, are that the survey questions

were not designed by the researchers and that survey data only provides a “snapshot of the population.”

Thus, pertinent information such as cannabis usage patterns was lacking.

“We don’t know for example, if cannabis was used before PTSD or after, or [if ] the suicidal ideation occurred before cannabis use or before PTSD,” she explained. “We cannot interpret our data as causal in any way. You can just say it’s a correlation.”

It’s common to have only to be able to claim causality. But it’s definitely grounds for future work to explore this in a way that maybe we could get closer to being able to make causal claims.”

“There’s a signal here, [in] terms of the epidemiological association between cannabis and PTSD, in terms of producing potential therapeutic effects. And so it really sets up a justification for future clinical research,” Lake continued.

While their findings show potential benefits of cannabis on mitigating mental health symptoms such as depression and suicidal ideation in a population level, Lake stressed that it is hard to translate this result to an individual patient level. “It’s still important to consult with a medical practitioner about the use of cannabis to manage PTSD. And it can be misused despite the signal that that it could be therapeutic in the context of PTSD.” That being said, the results from this study could provide grounds for future work. “As an epidemiologist, it is reassuring that sometimes the data can really tell us a really important story and it can help drive future research.” U

SPORTS+REC

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY

EDITOR SALOMON MICKO BENRIMOH

FINA L-TER M R EPORT It’s been one hell of a season for a bunch of Thunderbird teams. From comeback wins to huge upsets and big crowds, some teams are riding on a high note into the winter break. Some others need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what needs to change if there is any hope of making the Canada West playoffs in 2020.

TEAM

GRADE

COMMENT

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

The Thunderbirds women’s basketball team are halfway into their Canada West season and currently sit in fourth place with a 7–3 overall record. A good result but the T-Birds also lost two consecutive games against University of Calgary Dinos, currently placed second in Canada West. But after winning one of the two games against University of Northern British Columbia Timberwolves, they are on a five-game winning streak and seem to have picked up their momentum. If the T-Birds can keep the momentum going, they could pose a challenge to the top-three ranked teams

MEN’S BASKETBALL

The men’s basketball team will head into the new decade with an 8–2 conference record and an 11–5 overall record. It isn’t a bad place to be but the team knows there are still key areas they need to improve their game in. The only Canada West losses the team has this year came back-to-back against the Calgary Dinos. The undefeated Dinos, along with the University of Alberta Golden Bears sit at the peak of Canada West with the Thunderbirds at third. To avoid an early playoff exit, the team will need to be even more dominant than they are now.

SWIMMING

The UBC Thunderbirds swim team have time and time again proven themselves to be the best not just in Canada West but in all of U Sports. At this year’s conference championships in Lethbridge, Alberta, the T-Birds showed off their depth by taking both the men’s and women’s Canada West titles without star swimmers Markus Thormeyer and Emily Overholt taking part. The women’s squad have the dominant edge over the men’s team, taking the conference crown by 100 points while the men went to the wire with the University of Calgary Dinos and came out on top by just 5 points.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY

The UBC women’s hockey team went on a six-game winning streak starting late in October.

The run was broken by an overtime loss against Mount Royal on November 22. Since this heartbreaker the women’s team has failed to rally, and their successful month of November has turned sour with their newest record featuring a four-game losing stretch. With that said their most recent series against the University of Alberta, this Friday and Saturday, demonstrates a great deal of improvement to their meeting in the season opener where the T-Birds were outscored 14–1.

MEN’S HOCKEY

The Thunderbirds men’s hockey team needs to figure something out during the winter break.

Currently at 4–9–3, the ’Birds are riding a four-game losing streak with back-to-back losses against the University of Alberta Golden Bears and Mount Royal University Cougars. The biggest issue has to be the lack of scoring, with the ’Birds being either shut out or held to a single goal throughout the majority of the season. With injuries to key players, it’s somewhat understandable but the ’Birds will need to adapt if they have any hope of making the Canada West playoffs.

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

The first half for the UBC women’s volleyball team has been consistently streaky. Three straight wins to begin the season was followed by three straight losses, which was followed by another set of three straight wins then three straight losses. Odds are that this pattern will not happen in the second half, as games against MacEwan and Trinity Western are the only daunting matchups that remain on the schedule. One standout player has been Laura Worsley, who has taken over admirably as the libero for the team. Her steady play so far this season has given her young teammates time to develop, and should pay dividends going forward.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL

The UBC Thunderbirds Men’s Volleyball team have taken flight after a slightly rough patch at the start of the season, going undefeated in their last nine games and sweeping aside the University of Alberta in two back-to-back shutout wins. Currently sitting third in the CanWest standings, the T-Birds look to continue their strong forward momentum all the way through the rest of the season and deep into the playoffs. Look for Matt Neaves and Coltyn Liu to provide further offence, with the two ranking 2nd and 10th respectively for total kills in Canada West play.

WRITTEN BY SPORTS STAFF DESIGN BY LUA PRESIDIO AND ALEX VANDERPUT

17

18 | Sports+Rec | TUESDAY DECEMBER 3, 2019 COLD RESULT //

Thunderbirds drop Winter Thunderland to Alberta Pandas

ELIZABETH WANG

Brendan Smith Senior Staff Writer

Just like the weather outside, the offence for the UBC women’s hockey team has gone cold in recent weeks.

In their last three games, the team has scored only once and was entering Saturday’s game on a three-game losing streak.

Their last loss happened the previous night to the Alberta Pandas, a team that had outscored UBC 15–1 this season.

So as they headed into the final home game of 2019, you could say that the T-Birds wanted to close out the year on a high note, especially since it was the inaugural Winter Thunderland game.

Similar to the Winter Classic for the men’s hockey team, Winter Thunderland was planned as a festival for the women’s hockey, and was created in part because the women’s team did not have a festival game.

The festivities began early, as there was a public skate before the game and also a ceremonial puck drop by former UBC women’s hockey player Julie Hamilton.

As for his thoughts on the first Winter Thunderland, UBC head coach Graham Thomas said that his team really appreciated the event.

He mentioned that during the public skate his players were even asking him about doing similar events more often in the future.

“We’re really thankful,” he added.

The excitement of the event did look like it helped energize the T-Birds in the opening minutes.

But as the first period came

to an end, the Pandas started to dictate the play with their speed and skill, which lead to penalty trouble for UBC. While on the powerplay, an errant deflection by Alberta forward Autumn MacDougall gave the Pandas a one-goal lead, which they would take into the first intermission.

The T-Birds looked to regain their energy, as they came out in the second period with a tight forecheck.

Yet that forecheck was sometimes too tight and led to more penalty trouble for UBC. Midway through the second period, two straight penalties against the T-Birds put them on the penalty kill again.

With the 5-on-3 advantage, the Pandas put pressure on UBC goaltender Tory Micklash and a favourable rebound was put away

by Alberta forward Alex Poznikoff to make it 2–0.

Although down 2–0 entering the third, the T-Birds continued to generate quality scoring chances.

Yet none of them made it past Alberta goalie Kirsten Chamberlin, who had only let in one goal against the T-Birds this season.

In the final minutes of the game, with goalie Micklash pulled from the net, UBC was still trying to solve Chamberlin.

But a giveaway sent Poznikoff alone on a breakaway and would score her second goal on the night, ending any hopes for a comeback as Alberta would go on to win 3–0. “[Alberta is] one [of ] the best [teams] in the country,” Thomas said after the game. “They slipped a little bit just after the first few weekends and [now] they’re right back to [where] they should be.”

Although the previous two weekends saw the T-Birds only manage one goal in four losses, Thomas was more encouraged by the team’s performance this weekend as they head into the winter break.

“We’re going through a little bit of a scoring drought right now, [but] I was really impressed how we played [not only] in the third [period], but how we played overall this weekend versus last weekend,” he said after the game.

We’re excited about the second half and what it will bring.”

The Thunderbirds will try to regroup over the winter break before facing the University of Calgary Dinos in 2020. U

Notice of Development Permit Application - DP 19036

Public Open House The Conservatory

Join us on December 10, 2019 to review plans for The Conservatory - a proposed residential tower and townhouse development at the corner of Berton Avenue and Binning Road in Wesbrook Place.

Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2019 Time: 4:30 - 6:00 PM Place: Multi-Purpose Room, Wesbrook Community Centre, 3335 Webber Lane Plans will be displayed for a 20-storey market residential tower and 3-storey townhouse development with one level of underground parking and a courtyard amenity space.

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

For further information: Please direct questions to Karen Russell, Manager, Development Services karen.russell@ubc.ca 604-822-1586 Can’t attend in person?

Online feedback on The Conservatory will be accepted until December 17, 2019.

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

DECEMBER 3, 2019 TUESDAY | Sports+Rec | 19

WEEKEND RUNDOWN Men’s basketball sweep Lethbridge Pronghorns back to back Diana Hong Staff Writer

Friday night at War Memorial Gym, the UBC men’s basketball team came away with their fifth consecutive win.

The Thunderbirds came into the game with the historical upper hand, leading the Pronghorns 13–3 in the all-time series. Opening the score with a layup in the paint was Thunderbird guard Jadon Cohee.

The match was back and forth within the first quarter with both teams finding ways to put themselves on the scoreboard.

After trading leads, the T-Birds came out on top at the end of the quarter 31–23. The game remained close for the next three quarters.

The T-Birds began to pull away and entered the fourth quarter with the score in their favour at 84–70.

A key to UBC being able to maintain a lead was by subduing Pronghorn’s leading offensive threat Kyle Peterson.

This defensive success was not met by Lethbridge. They struggled to shut down the Thunderbirds offensive force who consistently found shot success from the field and beyond the arc.

The Thunderbirds biggest offensive threats of the night were Cohee with 23 points and 7 assists and Manroop Clair with 22 points.

Third-year arts student Grant Audu also reached the 20-point marker with 20 points himself as the Thunderbirds took the game 109–86.

Audu led the T-Birds in Saturday’s game with 19 points as the ’Birds took home a sixth-straight win 88–80. They’ll be back in action against the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades on January 3. U

FILE SALOMON MICKO BENRIMOH

Jadon Cohee was one of UBC’s most potent offensive threats over the weekend.

T-Birds rugby earn hard-fought win over Vancouver Rowing Club Robert Ford Contributor

A cold day didn’t keep the game between UBC and Vancouver Rowing Club (VRC) from getting heated.

The Thunderbirds came out of the gate strong when a missed penalty kick by UBC translated into a forced return by VRC, giving the T-Birds possession once more.

UBC’s Owain Ruttan ran too hard for his first defender, a strength that seemed to convince a further defender not to attempt a tackle.

Ruttan continued with impressive speed, powering into the opposition tryzone and drawing first blood for the ‘Birds.

A successful conversion from Jack Scher made the game 7–0 within the first four minutes.

Despite good play, including some very impressive offload work from the T-Birds, they would not score another try in the first half.

However, Scher would slot two penalty kicks for a total of six points and the score at half time read 13–0 for UBC. Vancouver Rowing wasn’t prepared to roll over. Whatever was said to the team in the locker rooms worked wonders as the team was immediately dominant in the second half. Vancouver Rowing got onto the scoreboard about two minutes into the second half.

After UBC seemed to regain possession off of a Vancouver Rowing lineout, the opposing team recovered the ball.

An impressive fake pass from Vancouver Rowing’s scrum-half saw him fool his defender to score his team’s first try. A successful

conversion saw UBC’s lead narrow to 13–7.

Vancouver Rowing kept applying pressure. A ruck infraction inside their 30 saw UBC give up a penalty which would then be successfully kicked bringing the score to 13-10 for UBC. Only three points behind, Vancouver Rowing attempted to draw penalties from the ’Birds, opting to kick into UBC’s end whenever possible.

This tactic saw VRC equalize the game at 13–13 after a UBC scrum infraction occurred within VRC’s kicking range.

The ’Birds would be the next to strike as strong running, offloads and an excellent recovery

by UBC’s Callum Botchar of a dropped ball saw the player score in the corner.

UBC would put up yet another unconverted try in the same corner. A well-placed kick

by UBC’s John Jubenvill saw a teammate ground the ball in the VRC end, making the score 23–13 After a UBC yellow card, Vancouver Rowing was dominant in the scrums and drew 4 penalties on UBC’s 10-metre line in quick succession.

Despite their best attempts to draw a further yellow, tempers in the game finally boiled over with Vancouver Rowings fullback being sent off the pitch for verbally abusing the assistant referee.

Despite a prolonged period of play deep in UBC’s end, VRC would not score. UBC’s defensive unity came up strong when it counted, eventually running out of their own end. The game ended 23–13 for the Thunderbirds. U

This weekend’s game between the Thunderbirds and the Vancouver Rowing Club was a heated battle

FILE SALOMON MICKO BENRIMOH

SCORE BOX Sport

Home

Score

Away

UBC

0–1

Alberta

Alberta

5–3

Alberta

Women’s Basketball

UBC

76–54

Lethbridge

Men’s Basketball

UBC

109–86

Lethbridge

Women’s Volleyball

Alberta

3–1

UBC

Men’s Volleyball

Alberta

0–3

UBC

Friday, November 29

Women’s Hockey Men’s Hockey

Saturday, November 30

UBC

0–3

Alberta

Alberta

5–1

UBC

Women’s Basketball

UBC

58–55

Lethbridge

Men’s Basketball

UBC

88–80

Lethbridge

Women’s Volleyball

Alberta

3–0

UBC

Men’s Volleyball

Alberta

0–3

UBC

Women’s Hockey Men’s Hockey

20 | GAMES | TUESDAY DECEMBER 3, 2019

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