May 28, 2019

may 28, 2019 | VoLuME cI | IssuE i About to pee myself since 1918

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News

Features

SCIENCE

Sports

Ono announces possible ASC relocation

Opinions

Summed Up: Gender inequity in UBC’s faculty

Summer questions, some more answers

Chlorophyll not just for photosynthesizers

T-birds are going international this summer

THE UBYSSEY

Muslim UBC Students on Ramadan: Reflection and connection on campus

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may 28, 2019 TUesday

YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS & PEOPLE

EVENTS

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OUR CAMPUS

SLC Co-Chairs Neema Rimber and Maddy Schulte are leaders in leadership SATURDAY, JUNE 1 A Queer Century, 1869-1969: Rare Books Exhibition 10 a.m. TO 2 P.M. @ IBLC RARE BOOKS, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

This exihibit uses rare books, art and manuscripts from UBC to tell the story of this century in queer cultural history.

SAturday, june 1 Indigenizing digital space: telling the story of the RavenSpace publishing project 9 a.m. TO 5 P.M. @ iblc level 2 foyer This collaborative exhibit showcases the first three digital books to come from RavenSpace publishing.

Sunday, june 9 italian day on the drive 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. @ little italy, commercial drive 120 street participants comprised of partners, vendors and community organizations come together to celebrate Italian culture, heritage and community.

ON THE COVER COVER BY Alex Nguyen “Prayer’s Rug at UBC Interfaith Centre”

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

U The Ubyssey

May 28, 2019 | Volume CI| Issue I

BUSINESs

editorial

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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 xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (TsleilWaututh) Nations.

Both chairs have found friends and mentors in their time with the SLC, offering them the chance to develop professionally.

Anupriya Dasgupta Contributer

Co-Chairs Maddy Schulte and Neema Rimber know the importance of teamwork and communication in their roles as leaders of this year’s Student Leadership Conference (SLC) and how “it has been a huge part of our experience at UBC.” Schulte, a fourth-year marketing student, became involved with the SLC in her first year. It has now become a constant in her university career — and a driving force in the lives of thousands more students. For Rimber, a Mastercard Foundation Scholar and a fourth-year economics and international relations student, this was her first time being a part of the organizational committee of the SLC, wanting to make an impact on the lives of other students.

Although Schulte’s previous involvement had given her a variety of experiences with the organization, it took her being a participant in the conference to finally apply for the co-chair position. “After attending the conference in my third year, I got really excited about seeing myself in the planning committee and seeing what opportunities there were for getting involved in the following year.”

Rimber, an SLC delegate through her previous three years of university, was encouraged by her peers and her involvement in residence life to apply for the co-chair.

Even with their years of involvement, this year’s conference proved special to them both.

“Speaking in front of a large crowd made me nervous, it was quite a large audience,” Schulte said.

“The speech was a big step in terms of how far I had come from when I was in first year when I couldn’t even speak in class discussions. It was phenomenal to see that growth,” added Rimber.

2019’s conference theme was ‘Beyond Your Lines,’ something of great importance to both chairs.

Schulte described the theme as “motivation to push people to try

new things that maybe they’re uncomfortable with [and] see the potential for growth that can come from that. Whether that’s trying something new, talking to someone new or reaching your hand up in class.”

“Speaking in front of that many people was definitely going beyond my lines for me. I think it’s different for everyone. I think it can apply to a lot of different aspects of student life,” she said.

Organizing the conference didn’t come without its complications.

In a team of 20-some students, it was challenging to bring that many people with diverse ideas to work on a singular theme. The main issue concerning members was becoming set on specific ideas and not wanting to change — an obstacle that the cochairs overcame through honest and clear communication.

“Teamwork has been overarching. It’s about looking at what the team wants versus what the individual wants,” Schulte explained.

Rimber remarked on how incredible it was for her to be able to witness the coming together of the team.

“You feel inspired and you feel challenged seeing your fellow student leaders doing these amazing things, showing different approaches to leadership and to handling different situations… Despite all our differences, we all wanted to see our conference be impactful and for it to be able to communicate our values.”

For Rimber, a memorable moment from the conference was being able to see how “everything had seamlessly come together.

Everyone had worked together and this was indicative of that team dynamic.”

Rimber spoke about how she was surprised by the emotional toll of the job. “It is very important to take the time to laugh and acknowledge that the work makes you happy. It is an extra element of mindfulness that really helps create that balance.”

The chairs added how some of the most important lessons they came away with involved knowing how to communicate both professionally and effectively.

ELIZABETH WANG

“When you’re in a team there are benefits of actually communicating when you’re struggling and there’s people around you who want to support you… I’m grateful for the SLC to push me to be more communicative about where I’m at with, what I’m working on,” said Schulte.

“Sometimes you have to speak up and speak up more than once to have your point of view heard and have people understand as well as the patience to allow people to see that and trying to assume that people have the best intentions,” said Rimber.

Both chairs have found friends and mentors in their time with the SLC, something which offered them the chance to develop professionally, allowing them to figure out what they want to do after they graduate.

“I’ve really liked working with the staff members we’ve got to work with. They’re all wonderful.

Students don’t usually get to work with staff that closely and that was definitely one of the benefits of being able to work in that space,” Rimber recounted.

Around 1,200 students participate every year to become involved in making the lives of other students better and to improve their own leadership skills. “It’s inspiring to me that so many students care that much about how the campus is doing,” said Schulte. “I would hope that professionally it offers some sort of direction to students, how they want to use the skills they have in their futures.”

On their hopes for the SLC’s future, Schulte spoke of the benefits for interpersonal connections and Rimber touched on the potential for development, on the part of attendees.

“I hope people meet new people at the event too — meeting people in different faculties and using each other as tools to make things happen,” said Schulte.

“My call to action would be for people to challenge themselves, to seek out different opportunities and to be engaged.” U

NEWS

may 28, 2019 TUESday

Editors Henry Anderson and Emma Livingstone

3

THE LORAX //

Pleas to preserve UBC Bosque cause Ono to explore ‘alternate locations’ for Arts Student Centre consultation on April 2.

The feedback will soon be presented to the Board of Governors for a second approval process on June 13.

REVITALIZING THE BOSQUE

The location for the new Arts Student Centre is facing backlash because it will replace eight mature oak trees from the UBC Bosque.

Oliver Zhang & Henry Anderson Contributor & News Editor

Public concern about the removal of trees for the construction of the Arts Student Centre (ASC) has mounted, causing President Santa Ono to announce that he will consider other locations for the building.

The public pressure was spearheaded by the anonymous Twitter account @BosqueUbc, which was created to represent the eight mature oak trees that would be cut down for the centre.

The account created a change.org petition which reached over 200 signatures in one day.

Ono’s announcement was met with approval online.

“This responsiveness is very much appreciated and helps provide evidence to UBC’s

sustainability goals,” tweeted Anthropology Professor and Board of Governors Faculty Representative Dr. Charles Menzies.

In a statement to The Ubyssey, UBC confirmed that public consultation was a crucial step in the planning process, and during the consultation phase they heard both support for the project and opposition to the building being located in the Bosque.

“The President has directed staff to explore alternative locations to the Bosque in the coming weeks to come up with a solution that delivers the new ASC as expediently as possible,” reads the statement.

UBC also said staff would work with the AMS, the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) and the faculty of arts to identify

The Bosque shortly after it was planted in 1972.

Courtesy Campus and Community Planning

an alternative location for the ASC and maintain financial commitments to the project.

The AUS also released a statement on their Facebook page in response to Ono’s tweet the following evening on May 24.

“Dr. Ono’s remark was made unilaterally from the President’s office – neither the AUS nor any other stakeholders associated with the project were consulted before President Ono published his tweet,” said part of the statement.

“We wish to assure all Arts students that the Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Arts and the Arts Undergraduate Society are committed to the completion of the Arts Student Centre.”

Salomon Micko Benrimoh

Constructing the ASC is part of C+CP’s larger vision to “revitalize” the Bosque.

“Today, the space is failing at its intention of a green outdoor social space and is often dark, damp, uninviting as well as difficult to walk to in the rainy months,” wrote C+CP on its website.

Dr. Cecil C. Konijnendijk, a professor in the urban forestry program, admitted that the Bosque needs work but thinks it can be improved without killing trees.

“You could do more in terms of, for example, having a walkway, planting more undergrove. Some of the students in our UBC forestry program, they’ve also made proposals for that,” said Konijnendijk.

As a part of the revitalization process, C+CP is also running a planting strategy to test the soil at the proposed site in the Bosque. Four understory plots containing communities of plants have been installed in two zones to determine what species will thrive in each area.

But Menzies argued that this kind of ecological repair is not enough to make up for the loss of eight mature oaks.

“What we’re not looking at is the cumulative effects of this kind of incrementalism. So, each year, six [trees] there, two there — individually that’s nothing, but when you start adding them up, it’s a serious impact,” said Menzies.

Konijnendijk agrees.

“It’s too easy to say, okay it doesn’t work. Let’s just take it down,” he said.

“The fact remains that ... with [the removal of ] these big trees, you lose all the benefits that these trees provide.” U

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

SEEDS sustainability program.

He believes removing the trees will have negative implications for the state of urban forestry on campus.

“I was surprised. I get it that development often conflicts with trees, necessitating their removal sometimes, but I’ve never seen a plan like this,” said Sutherland.

“Those oaks are beautiful. They have been cared for by three generations of UBC landscape staff, and pin oaks ... are a species with excellent longevity.

“In another 10 to 15 years, they will form a stately forest of big trees, almost like columns in a cathedral.”

The ASC plan was approved by the Board of Governors (BoG) in June 2018, and Campus and Community Planning (C+CP) held an open house for public

The UBC Bosque refers to the small forest that stretches north of the Nest to Brock Hall.

Originally built in 1968, campus planners envisioned the Bosque as a space where students could study, mingle and relax.

The red oak trees were planted around the same time that the current UBC Life Building, formerly the Student Union Building, finished construction, making the trees over 50 years old.

The ASC was originally chosen to reside in the Bosque because it met the AUS’s requirements of being a standalone structure close to the main hub of campus, but building there would require the removal of eight trees.

Ira Sutherland, a PhD student studying the history of forests in British Columbia, recently conducted a tree canopy study at UBC for the

Current plan for the Arts Student Centre in the Bosque.

Courtesy Campus and Community Planning

4 | News | tuesDAY May 28, 2019 Data Privacy //

‘Categorical suspicion’: Should UBC continue using Turnitin?

Kristine Ho

Turnitin doesn’t say what it exactly does with student submissions or how long it keeps them in its database.

Andrew Ha Contributor

Using Turnitin in BC is a little different than in most places due to the province’s stringent privacy laws. But concerns for students’ privacy and trust raise the question of whether it should be used at all.

Second-year psychology student Sophie Garcia has taken several courses where professors have required her to use Turnitin, the popular plagiarism detection software used at educational institutions like UBC. Before submitting, she was told to remove all identifying information from her work without being given a reason.

“I think [my professors] said to put a fake name,” she said.

“They told [us] to take out all personal information, but … I don’t remember any of the profs telling me why.”

Turnitin is a website that compares submissions to its proprietary databases of websites, journals, books and previously uploaded student work. Its algorithm then spits out a similarity score. A higher percentage indicates overlap between the student’s submission and Turnitin’s database, a possible marker of plagiarized work.

Many instructors use and support Turnitin because it enforces academic integrity, but some are concerned that it compromises students’ privacy by

storing personal information and intellectual property.

Others believe subjecting students to plagiarism tests creates a culture of distrust.

“If you were just like, ‘I don’t want to submit,’ [professors] are going to be like, ‘Well, you must be plagiarizing,’” said Garcia.

SAFER AT HOME So why can’t uploaded assignments in BC contain identifying information? The answer lies in provincial privacy law.

Section 30.1 of the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) mandates that an organization “must ensure that personal information in its custody or under its control is stored only in Canada and accessed only in Canada.”

In other words, personal information in BC can’t leave the country.

Turnitin is an American company with databases located in the United States and Europe, so it is not obligated to follow Canadian privacy laws. For instance, the US government could request access to student Turnitin submissions under the USA PATRIOT Act, or any other law that wouldn’t normally apply to BC residents.

This means that UBC instructors who want to use the service must comply with section 30.1 by not only removing identifying information inside

submissions but also cleaning metadata attached to documents that could be linked to the student.

According to Mike Larsen, president of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA), a privacy advocacy group, BC and Nova Scotia are the only Canadian provinces that have laws that restrict cross-border data flow like section 30.1.

“It’s a progressive piece of legislation,” he said. “It really does ensure that organizations are held to a higher standard when it comes to the protection of personal information.”

FINDING ANOTHER WAY UBC disagrees. In 2015, UBC and four other universities — collectively the Research Universities Council of British Columbia (RUCBC) — lobbied a provincial legislative committee to loosen BC’s privacy law.

Through a Freedom of Information request, The Ubyssey obtained a transcript of UBC legal counsel Paul Hancock’s 2015 presentation to the BC legislature.

He said that “no section of the FIPPA has caused greater challenges for the post-secondary sector in BC than section 30.1.”

Hancock’s problem with the law? “It erodes our competitiveness,” he said.

Instructors must allow students to use fake names with services

like Turnitin, creating extra work for the instructor who must figure out who the account belongs to. It detracts from UBC’s international image when instructors and students wonder why they must jump through an extra hoop, he explained.

Hancock added that the section in fact hampers data security.

Popular services like Canvas, Google Classroom and Turnitin are based outside of Canada, but when institutions can’t use these, they must find domestic alternatives that might be not as well developed.

“Locally hosted systems are less reliable, and ironically, they are less secure than cloud-based ones,” he said in the presentation.

“We’ve caused untold frustration for our faculty members and bemusement for many of our students who wonder why we can’t use the system as it’s intended.”

The submission recommended that out-of-country data storage be permitted in circumstances where “there should be no reasonable alternative in Canada.”

But according to Larsen, relaxing section 30.1 for the benefit of corporate institutions is worrisome. It would not only weaken the protection given to British Columbians’ personal information, but also feed into broader concerns of surveillance. “[It] makes it … difficult for people to turn around and ask

serious questions about things like suspicionless searches, … searches at borders and the surveillance of data flows by telecoms or social media companies,” Larsen said.

Yet many instructors and students are unaware of the restrictions on cross-border data flow and publish personal information to Turnitin anyway, making it difficult to enforce.

Recent BA graduate in anthropology Aridda Koh used Turnitin in a Korean history class, but she says her professor never informed her of privacy policy.

“They never said that. I just turned it in … name and everything and all,” she said.

Turnitin doesn’t say what it exactly does with student submissions or how long it keeps them in its database, which Garcia finds concerning.

“It’s very cryptic. You have no idea what’s going on on the other side and what they’re doing,” she said.

“NOTHING TO HIDE, NOTHING TO FEAR” Larsen, who is also the co-chair of the criminology department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, also warned that Turnitin creates a “pedagogy … of categorical suspicion” that suggests instructors don’t trust their students. “We’re interested in academic integrity. We’re interested in the pursuit of

May 28, 2019 TUESDAY | News | 5 trust,” he said, “and the way we’ve gone about trying to achieve this, through software like Turnitin, is to simply say that nothing and no one is trustworthy.

“It really is a ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ mentality baked into what should be an institution of critical thinking.”

Garcia echoed that it’s unclear what instructors consider an acceptable or unacceptable score.

“When my profs or TAs go through my Turnitin turn-it-ins … you have no idea what they’re thinking,” said Garcia.

Conventionally, Larsen says, only people who have done something to warrant suspicion are subject to surveillance.

Having every student submit their work to Turnitin regardless of who they are vsends a message that their work will not be trusted as authentic. “ … That’s a foundational relationship between you and the institution that will continue on,” he said. “Watch everything. By collecting the haystack, then you can identify the needle.”

Koh says her high school teachers strongly emphasized the consequences of plagiarism from a young age.

“That was all they told me. If you plagiarize, you’re gone, you’re dead,” she said.

NOT A “PLAGIARISM SCORE” But other educators like Dr. Catherine Rawn, a senior instructor in UBC’s department of psychology, say Turnitin does more help than harm.

“Think about [i]Clicker points,” she said. “You could say there can be very good, pedagogically-sound reasons for incorporating Clickers, [but] they could be used as punitive attendance buttons.”

Garcia has taken Rawn’s classes and says she understands why professors use Turnitin, but she sometimes worries about accidental plagiarism.

Despite not having plagiarized, a student might receive a non-zero Turnitin score. The issue with a numerical score is that it is unclear how instructors interpret it.

Rawn understands that similarities between a student’s work and the Turnitin database are often harmless because the metric is simply representative of overlap, perhaps due to the use of quotations or students referring to the same article.

“I don’t know anybody who looks at that number and says, ‘That’s a plagiarism score,’” she said.

More often than not, Rawn has found that a high Turnitin similarity score means the student has improperly quoted or paraphrased. She tries to treat such situations as learning opportunities.

“The vast majority of conversations that come out of my Turnitin … is about how to write better,” said Rawn.

“The way I usually approach it is, ‘Here’s what I’m seeing. Tell me what’s going on here.’ And, I don’t walk into that conversation saying, ‘You have plagiarized.

You’re gonna fail.’”

Regarding privacy, Rawn says she is “happy” to offer students the workaround of creating Turnitin accounts with a pseudonym, but she has never seen any pushback from students.

“If a student did come to me with serious concerns about their privacy and their data being used in this way, I would be open to a conversation to figure out a different solution … but nobody ever has in my 7,000 students,” she said.

“Watch everything. By collecting the haystack, then you can identify the needle.”

But according to BC law, students’ personal information should not be stored on Turnitin’s servers regardless.

When asked about section 30.1, Rawn said she vaguely remembered being told this when she first started using Turnitin nearly a decade ago.

“It’s a policy that I have in my syllabi that I’ve cut and pasted year over year,” she said.

According to a statement from Dr. Simon Bates, UBC’s associate provost of teaching and learning, “Instructors whose students are required to use Turnitin as part

of their course activities are also clearly informed of student options when they sign up for the service.”

Since the RUCBC submission, there has been little discussion about concerns with Turnitin, but a special legislative committee will review the policy in 2021 as is required every six years.

Despite all these concerns, it is unlikely that UBC and other institutions’ stance on section 30.1 will change. Since 2015, educational technology has been “expanding massively” in high schools as well as post-secondary institutions, says Larsen.

KRISTINE HO

“I guarantee you that we’re going to see lots of pressure [from institutions], probably not just in the research universities,” he said.

Amidst the debate, Garcia says that students are too often forgotten.

“It’s funny that [professors] don’t know much about it because they’re not even the ones submitting,” she said. “It’s their students who mandatorily have to submit. They don’t give the students a choice.”

After three emails over the course of a week, Turnitin did not provide a statement by press time. U

student politics //

AMS revamps Equity Caucus after lack of student involvement

Many students want to make the AMS more equitable, but they don’t know how to get involved.

Charlotte Alden Contributor

The AMS is taking tangible steps to make the student society more inclusive through a complete renovation of the Equity Caucus, headed by VP External Cristina Ilnitchi.

The Equity Caucus was initially formed in 2016 after

an AMS Governance Review highlighted potential inequity within the society’s structures.

The caucus floundered for two years, struggling with low student engagement before finally being brought under review in 2018.

Ilnitchi believes the original caucus failed because of significant barriers to entry.

Many students want to make the

FILE KOSTA PRODANOVIC

AMS more equitable, but they don’t know how to get involved.

Despite good intentions, the Equity Caucus didn’t make doing so any easier.

“The AMS encountered quite a bit of difficulty and actually populating the Equity Caucus and getting it off the ground,” Ilnitchi said. Applicants had to send in a cover letter and résumé and give a

speech to the advocacy committee.

This time, Ilnitchi wants easy access and the active participation of equity-seeking groups.

“Moving forward, we want to make sure that these groups are a part of the process as early as possible, that their voices are being included at the forefront of this work always and that they’re also engaging their members and the rest of their community to get involved in this process as well,” she said.

Another major flaw of the caucus was its pre-determined structure, resulting in those barriers to entry, that was created without student consultation.

Now the caucus won’t have a fixed structure at all.

“The plan for right now is that this is a blank slate,” Ilnitchi said.

She aims to work with student groups and internal staffers at the AMS to figure out what the gaps are in equity and inclusion. “[Then we] start from all the ideas that are out there to be able to determine what actionable steps [we can] take to address creating more equity in the AMS,” Ilnitchi said.

While UBC’s Equity and Inclusion Office often engages with AMS executives on inclusion- and equity-related matters and was a part of

discussions related to the Equity Caucus, they are not directly involved in the caucus, according to Sara-Jane Finlay, the office’s associate vice-president.

“We hope that the caucus strengthens and elevates diverse student voices and provides leadership on equity and inclusion matters within the AMS and with respect to the student experience at UBC,” Finlay said.

Questions of equity were prevalent in this year’s AMS elections when no femaleidentifying or non-binary people ran for President. Ilnitchi hopes the new Equity Plan will encourage a more diverse group of people to run for executive positions.

“How do we make sure that we have women and non-binary students engaging in our elections, and then feeling like this is a place for them, [and] that leadership positions are for them as well?”

Ilnitchi said. “This plan can definitely tackle that.”

The timeline will begin this summer with the creation of a formal body that will develop plans and ideas to prepare for broader consultation in the fall.

“It’s a really exciting process that the AMS is looking to undertake, and I think it will really possibly transform our organization,” Ilnitchi said. U

CULTURE

march 28, 2019 tuesday

Editor Angela O’Donnell

6

Urban Parks //

City of Dreamers at DOXA highlights women architects

Sophie Galloway Contributor

City of Dreamers, Joseph Hillel’s newest film, arrived at Vancouver’s DOXA Documentary Film Festival.

The documentary tells the story of four prolific women architects in Canada as they reflect on their careers within the context of the male-dominated industry.

The architects profiled included the notable Denise Scott Brown, Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, Phyllis Lambert and Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. The film gathered a warm reception, selling out days before the showing. For good reason too: Hillel’s twinkling, The Royal Tenenbaums-esque documentary is hilarious, warm and pointed, and acts as an excellent blueprint of their pursuit through adversity.

Of the four architects profiled, one story in particular fell close to home for UBC. Oberlander served as the landscape architect for UBC’s often admired Museum of Anthropology building alongside Arthur Erickson, and completed work on many other popular Vancouver locales, such as the Robson Square Law Court’s urban park. Oberlander’s story is remarkable: as a young child, her father passed away in an avalanche, and her mother single-handedly escaped Nazi Germany with

PHOTO COURTESY OF DOXA

Four prolific women architects reflect on their careers in a male dominated industry.

Oberlander and her siblings in tow.

After arriving in England, and later emigrating to Canada. Oberlander gained her BA from Smith College in 1944. In 1947, she was among one of the first woman to graduate from Harvard with a degree in landscape architecture.

As Oberlander recounts her career from her glass-walled Point Grey home studio, her emphasis on the necessity of greenery in urban areas marks a defining feature of her work. Here in Vancouver, we are lucky to enjoy urban parks and access to nature, to which

Oberlander has been central in establishing.

Viewers can expect to see broad skylines, graphics and stunning vintage photographs scattered amongst each woman’s story, illustrating the change affected by development on each architect’s respective city. The film is sprinkled with jazz music and quick, neat transitions giving it an air of regality and poise. The film is both aesthetically pleasing and full of joy. Certainly it was a fun watch.

Despite growing up in a different era to our own, each of the

architect’s stories are progressive and forward thinking even by today’s standards, promoting sustainability, greenery and affordable housing.

Each of the women has become outstanding in their respective fields, with illustrious and rich careers to review.

After watching, I felt a strange mixture of being both humbled and inspired. Each of the architects profiled had to fight tooth and nail to be taken seriously in their field amongst swathes of opposition claiming that there simply wasn’t room for

women in the business. To make a career of architecture in the mid 20th century as a woman was an almost impossible prospect, and the lengths of what they achieved was nothing short of inspiring.

Architecture remains a field dominated by rich white men, and is an example of a saturated industry where breaking into the ranks even if you fall inside the prerequisites is tough. The feats the architects achieved is nothing short of remarkable, and a reminder of the boundaries still yet to break in the future. u

Playlists //

UBC Press goes musical for Vancouverism advertising

This playlist features a lot more than just rain-centric songs about Vancouver.

Bridget Berner Contributor

This may not come as a huge surprise to some of you, given Vancouver’s moniker as the ‘no fun city,’ but Vancouver doesn’t have a colossal library of songs referencing it unlike, say, New York or Los Angeles. One might ask, “What is there to even sing about?

Rain?” And, darn it, you’re kind of right.

Vancouverism is a Spotify playlist curated by Megan

Malashewsky, UBC Press’s agency and digital marketing coordinator, and was created in promotion of Larry Beasley’s new book Vancouverism. This playlist features a lot more than just raincentric songs about Vancouver, and Malashewsky made sure of this.

“I [also] wanted the playlist to reflect my own experiences living here, and I think being curator of the playlist allowed me to make it a bit personal, while also tying it to the themes of the book,”

DIVIJA MADHANI

Malashewsky wrote in an email to The Ubyssey.

Malashewsky’s playlist features classics from heavy hitters in Vancouver’s indie scene such as Said The Whale’s “Big Wave Goodbye” and “Black Day in December” that are, undoubtedly, quintessentially Vancouver and Dan Mangan’s “Pine For Cedars” that focuses on painting a scene of the city’s quiet nooks.

The playlist also includes love songs from Canadian musicians outside the province like Gord

Downie and Leif Vollebekk.

Downie’s “Vancouver Divorce” is a wrenching love song and Vollebekk’s “Vancouver Time” is hauntingly beautiful.

“When I initially thought of a Vancouver-related playlist to celebrate Vancouverism, I had intended it to be Vancouver-based bands and artists,” Malashewsky wrote. “However, when I thought more about the list and how it might parallel the themes in the book, it made more sense to showcase songs about Vancouver.

“Vancouverism is on one hand a celebration of Vancouver and the unique character of the city, and on the other hand an acknowledgment of what’s lacking.”

Beasley, a distinquished practice professor at the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning, is a former cochief city planner with the City of Vancouver and has had a major hand in crafting Vancouver.

“His optimism shines through the pages of Vancouverism, so I knew I needed to capture that through songs that pay homage to Vancouver and its history,” Malashewsky wrote. “On the other hand, Beasley doesn’t shy away from the darker side of Vancouver and the disparate experiences of people living in Vancouver — many struggling to get by in one of the most expensive cities in the world.”

“That’s why I had to include songs like “Vancouver National Anthem” and “Hell,” which clearly point a finger at

Vancouver and say ‘We need to do better,’” Malashewsky wrote.

As to how a Spotify playlist can work as an advertising medium, Malashewsky highlighted the ability of music to enhance literary experiences.

“In the future, and if time permitted, I’d like to reach out to authors to curate their own playlists, as I think music can illuminate and enhance the themes and tone of a book, even a non-fiction urban planning book like Vancouverism.”

Malashewsky found that there’s a lot of creative freedom in making Spotify playlists, as “it allows the playlist creator to be a curator—to put some thought and creativity into it. I didn’t want it to just list a bunch of songs about Vancouver because, as I found out, you can easily find that online.”

Sure, a lot of songs about Vancouver talk about rain or our encounters with boisterous weather or, like in “Vancouver National Anthem” the neverending trials and tribulations of finding parking in the West End. But, there’s more to it. Vancouver is a thoroughly unique city in multiple ways, from how its hair-raising views that have been showcased through strategic mixed-use development to the city’s significant amount of green spaces mixed with sleek, urban architecture. Musicians will likely continue to be inspired

by Vancouver, so as listeners, we certainly have a lot to look forward to. U

May 28, 2019 TuesdAY | culture | 7 Inked //

Notice of Election

Electoral Area A 2019 By-Election PUBLIC NOTICE is hereby given to the electors of Electoral Area A, Metro Vancouver Regional District, that a by-election by voting is necessary to elect an Electoral Area A Director, for the remainder of the 2018-2022 general local election term, and that the persons nominated as candidates and for whom votes will be received are as follows: Electoral Area A Director – One (1) to be elected Surname Usual Names Jurisdiction of Residence DE WEERDT Simon Vancouver GARVIE Elizabeth Alison Vancouver MCCUTCHEON Jen Electoral Area A MOORE Madison Port Coquitlam WONG Sung Yun Vancouver Electoral Area A refers to that part of the Metro Vancouver Regional District (known as Metro Vancouver) not within the boundaries of a City, District, Island, Town, or Village municipality, or any land, foreshore, or land covered by water that may be hereafter incorporated within the boundaries of a municipality (University Endowment Lands, University of British Columbia lands, Bowyer Island, Grebe Islets, Passage Island, Barnston Island, and those areas of Howe Sound, Indian Arm and West Pitt Lake in the regional district not within a municipal corporation).

Voting Opportunities General Voting will be on Saturday, June 15, 2019 from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the following locations: • Gleneagles Community Centre, 6262 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, BC • Tetoten Community Centre, Katzie First Nation IR No.3, Barnston Island, BC • Wesbrook Community Centre, 3335 Webber Lane, Vancouver, BC

Skin Deep: Family matters Bridget Chase Contributor

Whether good, bad or ugly, tattoos represent a moment in time, a feeling or sometimes a bit too much alcohol in someone’s system. Getting inked can mean a lot, or very, very little, to the owner of the art. Every tattoo has a story, and UBC students have a breadth of stories to share — all permanently ingrained into their skin. This time on Skin Deep, we look at tattoos with familial meaning. U

The Shepherd

Advance Voting will be on Wednesday, June 5, 2019 and Saturday, June 8, 2019 from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the following locations: Wednesday, June 5, 2019 • Metro Vancouver Head Office (Main Floor Lobby), Metrotower III, 4730 Kingsway, Burnaby, BC • Wesbrook Community Centre, 3335 Webber Lane, Vancouver, BC Saturday, June 8, 2019 • Gleneagles Community Centre, 6262 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, BC • Wesbrook Community Centre, 3335 Webber Lane, Vancouver, BC

Signing Off

Mail Ballot Voting Qualified electors may vote by mail if they: • live in one of the following remote areas: Bowyer Island, Passage Island, Boulder Island, Grebe Islets, Indian Arm North, Indian Arm South, Pitt Lake North, Pitt Lake South, Widgeon Creek, and Carraholly Point, or • have a physical disability, illness or injury and cannot attend a voting place, or • expect to be absent from Electoral Area A on general voting day and at the times of all voting opportunities Mail ballot application forms are available at www.metrovancouver.org (search “election”) or call the Information Centre at 604.432.6200. Requests will be received up to 4:00 p.m. on Monday, June 3, 2019. Completed Mail Ballot Voting Package must be received by the Chief Election Officer no later than 4:00 p.m. on Friday, June 14, 2019.

Elector Qualifications and Registration Registration of all electors for this election will take place at the time of voting.

You will be required to make a solemn declaration that you meet the following requirements: • 18 years of age or older on general voting day (June 15, 2019); • a Canadian citizen; • a resident of British Columbia for at least 6 months immediately before the day of registration; • a resident of, or a registered owner of real property in, Electoral Area A for at least 30 days immediately before the day of registration; and • not disqualified by the Local Government Act or any enactment from voting in an election or otherwise disqualified by law.

If you are a resident elector, bring 2 pieces of identification that prove your identity and residence (1 must have your signature).

LUA PRESIDIO

Getting inked can mean a lot, or very, very little.

“I don’t know if you can call a tattoo a scene, but it’s a scene from a Christmas short story. It’s called ‘The Shepherd’ by Frederick Forsyth. It’s about a young English pilot who is flying home for Christmas and all of his communication and navigational tools go down. … He’s saved by a shepherd plane … and in discussion with the caretaker at the base, he learns that the shepherd plane was a ghost of someone who had crashed their plane 14 years ago that day.

“Every Christmas Eve [my family] sits down and listens to the reading of ‘The Shepherd’ on the CBC and it is the highlight of my year, every year.”

— Ella “When I was a kid this was how my dad always signed off on anything for me for school. I probably have a bunch of grade five planners that have this signature on them somewhere. He passed away just before I turned 13. … I sign my last name pretty similarly.”

— Joella

Being Good and Being Gracious “I wanted to be a gracious person, I thought it would be nice to remind myself of that. And then I told my mom and she reminded me that my grandma used to say goodness gracious all the time. She kind of hopped onto the bandwagon and informed me that we’d both be getting [the tattoos] together.

“I like the words on their own without them being attached to my grandma, and even though I want them to be attached to her I also really like the idea of being good and being gracious.”

— Teaghan

Depression, Siblings and roots

“That’s my sister’s dog and on the left is my cat. It’s a matching tattoo with her. ... She’s a lot older and has always lived away from me so we got it [together].”

If you are a non-resident property elector, bring: • 2 pieces of identification that prove your identity (1 must have your signature); and • proof of property ownership (certificate of title, tax notice, assessment notice or a current title search); and, • if there is more than one owner, written consent from the majority of the owners, including yourself, for you to register as the elector. Consent forms are available at www.metrovancouver.org (search “elections”) or call the Information Centre at 604.432.6200.

“It’s about my depression, basically. It kind of sums it up really nicely.”

Student in Residence If you are a student living in residence at an educational institution in Electoral Area A, such as UBC, and are otherwise qualified to vote, then you can choose to vote in the Electoral Area A election or vote in your usual area of residence, but not both.

Acceptable Pieces of Identification are: BC CareCard or BC Gold CareCard BC Driver’s Licence BC Identification Card BC Services Card (photo or nonphoto) Canadian Passport Citizenship Card Credit card or debit card issued by a savings institution Klara Kutakova, Chief Election Officer

ICBC Owner’s Certificate of Insurance and Vehicle Licence Ministry of Social Development and Economic Security Request for Continued Assistance Form SDES8 Real property tax notice Social Insurance Number Card Student ID Card Utility bill for electricity, natural gas, water, telephone services or coaxial cable services

“This one is by [the same artist] too.”

“On top is the outline of Beijing and if you flip it upside down ... it’s a mountain from Venezuela. I grew up in China but I was born and raised in Venezuela, I lived there for 10 years, and so it’s kind of where I grew up versus my roots.”

— Sofia Photos by Bridget Chase

FEATURES

may 28, 2019 Tuesday

Editor Pawan Minhas

8

Summed Up: It’s a long road to gender equity in UBC’s faculty he posts come each year, every year. Your friends share them in a flood on social media, they’re the Daily Hive articles you actually read and administrators quote them at every university event you attend.

Detailing UBC’s climb in the Times Higher Education rankings, its recognition as the top university on climate action and its initiatives to collaborate with and empower Indigenous communities, these articles paint a picture of an idyllic, forward-thinking university atop a forested hill.

But underneath the posts, the numbers tell a different story — one of an institution struggling to build gender equity among its faculty and administrative leadership. In 2018, just 26 per cent of its full professors were women — compared to the national average of 28 per cent — and only 4 of its 12 faculties had women deans.

The imbalance is nothing new to UBC. Since 2006, the number of full-time tenure-track women faculty has risen less than 5 per cent to just under 35 per cent in 2018.

Of course, there are small increases towards employment equity: an average of about one per cent more UBC staff members are women each year.

The university also has dedicated faculty and administrators working hard on these issues.

Now, with updated data from over a decade, The Ubyssey took a dive into the deep end of UBC’s slow but steady march towards gender equity to see why exactly the university is getting caught in the weeds at its most senior levels of academia.

% of Total Number of Records (regarding faculty gender identity)

For a woman T studying engineering, business, forestry, science or land and food systems, there is only a 21 per cent chance at most that any of her full professors will be a woman.

Written by Moira Wyton Illustration By Lua Presidio

Courtesy UBC PAIR

“Harder work” For a woman studying engineering, business, forestry, science or land and food systems, there is only a 21 per cent chance at most that any of her full professors will be women.

A few hundred metres down Main Mall, that chance increases to 51 per cent in the faculty of education and 32 per cent in arts.

This is a problem because whether students at UBC — over half of whom are women —feel sufficiently represented has a big

impact on their academic success.

“One of the things that we heard loud and clear from the students was if they could see themselves either in the classroom or in the curriculum, that really was key to their inclusion within their their coursework,” said Dr. Sara-Jane Finlay, Associate VP Equity & Inclusion, in a March interview with The Ubyssey.

But there’s a contrast within UBC’s professorship levels that paints a fuller picture.

Representation of women is

significantly better in the assistant and associate professor ranks, at 48 and 43 per cent, respectively.

The same goes for women in sessional lecturing and contract teaching positions, which are much more precarious. Women have slightly outnumbered men almost every year since 2006.

“The number of women full professors is increasing over time, but there’s no way to get too close to 50 per cent in the near future — it’s usually a 0.4 per cent increase per year,” said Dr. Jennifer Love,

May 28, 2019 TuesdAY | features | 9

Courtesy UBC PAIR

senior advisor to the provost on women faculty. “So some people are moving through the ranks, but it’s very slow.”

UBC is focusing its efforts on recruiting more women in junior ranks and building better pathways for them to the tenure track. Unconscious bias training in hiring committees, reforming human resources practices that disadvantage women and chipping away at the culture that sees maledominated faculties as normal are all part of the university’s efforts to promote equity.

“One of the biggest impediments that Western institutions are facing is a normalization of what the status quo looked like in 1920,” said Love, whose role was created in 2016. “Universities are obviously very different now from where they were centuries ago … but that hasn’t

“

translated into a change in faculty.”

That’s why an inclusion action plan, Finlay hopes, will help take the university beyond diversity.

“I think we’re more comfortable talking about diversity,” said Finlay, noting that diversity is about the presence of many different people in an institution. “But when we talk about inclusion, we’re actually talking about changing the culture of the institution.

“That’s a lot harder work.”

reported to Equity & Inclusion is not yet public.

The numbers of Indigenous and racialized faculty, faculty with disabilities and diverse sexual orientations and gender identities is collected through the Employment Equity survey, where faculty can self-identify in any of these categories. The only reason that such detailed data exists of the proportion of women and men who teach at UBC is the necessary signification of sex when an employee is hired and insured.

Busting the binary “We’re working on moving beyond that,” said Love of the If good data is the currency of change, UBC doesn’t have much in gender binary, noting that there the bank beyond the gender binary. are important data and personal privacy concerns that have to be There is no fulsome data on how many trans, non-binary and gender considered when doing so.

In addition to looking at how non-conforming people work or self-reporting can be done without teach at UBC because it must be infringing on a faculty member’s self-reported. What has been self-

Courtesy UBC PAIR

privacy, Love and Finlay are working with Dr. Minelle Mahtani, senior advisor to the provost on racialized faculty, to find the points and importance of intersecting sexualities and gender and race identities.

One option, although Love said it hasn’t been pursued yet, could be to seek exemptions from the BC Human Rights Tribunal to make “targeted hires” of underrepresented groups.

“We’re not good at hiring people who are different from ourselves,” said Love. “Conscious and unconscious biases really prevent people from making change.”

Both Finlay and Love know that simply hiring women and marginalized individuals is not going to solve the problem.

The gender gap between junior

and senior academic positions is a product of decades of bias operating at UBC and in academia as a whole that won’t be undone in a single term.

Some Canadian schools have taken more deliberate action.

Recently, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and Guelph increased salaries for female professors to address pay inequity between women and men faculty.

Love sees this as necessary — once she’s crunched the numbers — for UBC as well.

“You have to shake things up in order to get that diversity and you have to support people [who] are there in those positions,” said Love. “You cannot keep the status quo [because] that sets you up for a very monolithic identity.

“And it doesn’t work in the twenty-first century.” U

One of the biggest impediments that Western institutions are facing is a normalization of what the status quo looked like in 1920. Universities are obviously very different now from where they were centuries ago… but that hasn’t translated into a change in faculty.

— Dr. Jennifer Love

”

10 | Culture | TUESDAY May 28, 2019 A time to reflect //

Muslim UBC Students on Ramadan: Reflection and connection on campus Nour Youssef, Hira Khan, Hira Rizwan, Khadijah Bhatti, Areej Fatima, Aasma Heban, Rehmatullah Sheikh, Azlina Islam Contributors

Every year, 1.8 billion Muslims around the world join each other to celebrate the onset of the most sacred month in the Muslim calendar: Ramadan. From May 6 to June 4 this year and most commonly known as the month of fasting, Ramadan also serves to help individuals along their personal spiritual journeys. By refraining from consuming any food or drinks (yes, even water) from sunrise to sunset, Muslims are able to redirect their focus from worldly pleasures to their inner soul and relationship with God. However, Ramadan also has a large social component to it.

Many people take advantage of the month to reconnect with family and friends over Iftaar (an evening meal at sunset), and every community tends to have particular traditions associated with this time of year. Ramadan can be a very different experience depending on where you live in the world, who you are surrounded with, and your own personal goals and values. Putting aside the main principles of Ramadan, many of us have specific goals we would like to achieve during the month, as well as individual ways of partaking in its festivities.

Thus, Ramadan often means something unique for each Muslim.

– Nour Youssef

Nour Youssef To me, Ramadan is like one huge reset button. Life can be so hectic and chaotic sometimes that it can be easy to forget the things that are most important to us. It can be easy for us to stray away from our values, our internal moral compass.

But Ramadan gives me some much needed time to sit with myself and reflect on how I spend my time, and the things I value most.

By giving up things that usually seem so essential to us – food and water being the biggest – we are encouraged to replace the time we used to spend on these things with things that are more beneficial to our inner spiritual state. Things that make us better family members, better friends, better worshippers and better humans.

It allows me to take note of the different ways my ego plays a role in my life, and ways to manage it. It gives me a chance to start fresh, to continue the rest of the year feeling motivated and recharged.

Hira Khan For me, Ramadan is a time to get closer to God and also a time for families to come closer together.

Being the holiest month in Islam, it is taken very seriously in my family and I have been fasting voluntarily since I was in Grade 2.

There was a change in atmosphere in the house when it was Ramadan, there was always this excitement surrounding it – especially because the best food is generally made during this time.

But it brought our family closer together because we would all wake

up before sunrise to eat (Suhoor), broke our fast together (Iftaar) and then went for the Ramadan specific prayers together to the mosque (Taraweeh). This was the only time my mom and I also went to the mosque.

Ramadan has never just been about not eating or drinking during the day, but it has also been about reflection, trying to make myself a better person and making a stronger spiritual connection with God. Growing up in South Africa, Ramadan was also a time to do a lot of explanations, including telling classmates that they shouldn’t feel bad for me, that they can eat in front of me and that this was a blessing for me and not a punishment.

Practising Ramadan on campus has been challenging for me, and there are a couple of reasons for that. The days in Canada are generally long during this time of the year, with fasts ranging from 16-18 hours, which is something I am not used to because fasts in South Africa were 12-13 hours.

Additionally, because I associate Ramadan with family, not having them around during this month is particularly difficult as I have always relied on their support.

Although the reason to wake up for Suhoor is not family, having someone there definitely makes it easier, so waking up in the morning has been difficult. Having Iftaar also tends to leave me a little sad because there is this feeling of loneliness.

Lastly, I have had a difficult time finding my own place within the Muslim community at UBC, adding to the challenges.

However, over the last two years, this has gotten better. I am grateful that the Muslim Student Association (MSA) hosts Iftaars a couple of days in the week. This has helped me meet other Muslims, helped with feelings of sadness and loneliness, and brought people together in a space where we can also pray. I try my best to seek out the different opportunities on campus relating to Ramadan, which are generally limited.

Hira Rizwan Ramadan is a really different and fun month back home so I have that kind of attachment to it.

It’s also a great time to be both spiritual and religious, the latter of which I tend to not do justice for the rest of the year.

Back home, it’s amazing because literally our whole routines change based on Ramadan. In UBC, it’s very difficult actually to ‘celebrate’ per se. It doesn’t help that the facilities are not very accommodating. Residence cafeterias don’t account for our early Sehri times or late Iftari times, so there are no good food options and it can be difficult to maintain my typical strenuous routine of classes/work/ homework and a semblance of a social life. It’s also difficult to complete five daily prayers when you’re all over campus with only one prayer room in Brock Hall. The good thing about commemorating Ramadan here is that it makes me really grateful for family and everything else back home. It’s also a great time

to start a daily Iftaar thing with other Muslim friends where each person can make the evening meal in turns. So, in a way, it’s still a great community-building exercise.

Khadijah Bhatti Ramadan is extremely special to me because it’s a time where Muslims come together and work on bettering themselves. A common theme I see before the month of Ramadan is people asking for forgiveness if they have ever hurt anyone. People make up, forgive each other and try to be as nice as possible. When it comes time to break the fast, people often get together to eat. On usual days, my family and I don’t really eat together. However, during the month of Ramadan, we always sit together and eat. So, for me, Ramadan is a time where I can get closer to God while being the best version of myself and getting closer to the people around me. I practice fasting around my family and friends. With my family, I take these days as a time to bond and learn good manners from each other. At the UBC campus, a few religious organizations host community Iftars. I go to these in order to meet friends and break my fast with others. A lot of students at UBC don’t have a family to break their fasts with, so these community Iftars are all they have.

Areej Fatima Ramadan is the time of year that’s all about improvement. It’s a month where I devote myself to being the best Muslim and person possible.

For me, Ramadan signifies opportunities and new beginnings.

It’s a time of the year for reflection and creating long-lasting change in oneself. Ramadan allows me to connect with my family, my community, myself and God. At least when I’m not thinking about all the food I’ll eat when I break my fast!

I celebrate Ramadan on campus in a quiet way. I come to campus, go to class and do everything any other student would do. The only difference is I’m fasting. Allowing myself to do it on campus lets me connect different aspects of my identity to one another. It’s nice to be able to practice my faith somewhere where I spend so much time (sadly this speaks to my lack of social life)!

Ramadan is an important time of the year and I count myself lucky to have the chance to improve.

Asmaa Heban As iconic as it is for the oft-repeated double-barrel of a question, “No food? Not even water?”, Ramadan is a time of cleansing (of all sorts) and deep spiritual reflection.

During this month, I feel a heightened connection to the ideal version of myself, to God, to the spiritual fabric of Islam and to other Muslims. There is something sublime about quiet, sincere striving during the day that culminates in communal worship – typically, breaking your fast with others and praying in congregation.

In many ways, Ramadan serves as a check-point. Who am I? Where

am I in my personal growth? Where do I want to be? And maybe most importantly, how can I get there?

As a commuter student, I’m tempted to think that much of my engagement with Ramadan happens off campus. Which to a certain extent it does, but the reality is that practising/celebrating Ramadan is a 24-hour affair and so by exercising the restraint and self-awareness that Ramadan calls for while on campus, I am actively interacting with my faith in an intentional manner unique to this month.

Nour Youssef

Rehmatullah Sheikh Ramadan is like a necessary pause to the frenetic 11 months we usually spend. It’s an opportunity to reflect — on the spiritual end, you try to reinvigorate your link with God; on the secular side, you reevaluate some of your habits and behaviour and try to refine yourself. Prayer’s a part of daily life for Muslims, but Ramadan’s like the wild card month where your prayers take on more meaning. It’s also a chance for me to educate people about my faith and my life choices. Since eating’s such an integral part of one’s social life, you’re bound to end up answering questions about why you’re abstaining from food and water. Ramadan is also a personal reminder that I suck at sticking to commitments — I always try to cut down on social media this month and I fail.

We have Iftars organized by the MSA on campus. So I sometimes attend that to eat a (FREE!) meal and catch up with some friends.

Later at night, there are special prayers organized at the family student housing on campus.

Hira Khan

Hira Rizwan

Khadijah Bhatti

Azlina Islam While Ramadan is a time for me to personally engage with my faith, it is also a time for me to engage with the Muslim community wherever I am based at the time. As someone who has spent a lot of my life in communities where I am part of the minority, Ramadan is a time where I really get to find my place within the Muslim community and become more of an active member. The heightened sense of community is what really makes Ramadan special in comparison to the rest of the year; it’s not every day when I can just pass by another Muslim and instantly feel that strong connection.

Ramadan at UBC has been marked by the first term of summer courses, so I’m usually tied up with coursework. That being said, it’s always great to break my fast with familiar faces at the daily Iftars held by the MSA. I also attend the Taraweeh held at Acadia Park, and sometimes even end up at Eid prayers on campus.

An informal ritual, but so important regardless, it’s always great to bump into friends at the McDonald’s at the Village during the post-Taraweeh cravings run! U The Ubyssey would like to thank all of those who shared their stories with us. We would also like to thank Riya Talitha for coordinating this project.

Areej Fatima

Asmaa Heban

Rehmatullah Sheikh

Azlina Islam photos by ZUBAIR HIRIJI

OPINIONS

may 28, 2019 Tuesday

Editor Tristan Wheeler

11

Head, shoulders, knees and toes //

Mind Your Mind: A whole body scan to practice gratitude Daphnée Lévesque Columnist

The other day, I decided to take a bath and took the opportunity to practice gratitude. This is an exercise I like to do whenever I get stuck thinking that the whole world is against me, and that life isn’t fair. A whole-body scan to practice gratitude is one way of being thankful for simply being a human being. The exercise is simple, with either your eyes open or closed. As you scan your body in your mind from head to toe, you pause and say thank you for the different parts of your body. For me, this meditative exercise went like this.

First, I grounded myself in the present moment. I became mindfulness of the hot water under my skin, and said thank you because taking a shower with warm water is a privilege that not everyone gets to have — let’s be real, taking cold showers when all you want is warmth is frustrating.

I ran my fingers through my hair, splashed water on my face and

“Thank you, heart, for keeping me alive, day after day.”

held the scented soap bar in my hands, feeling the softness and roundness of the soap bar. As I washed and rinsed each body part, I took a few seconds to say thank you.

“Thank you, feet, for allowing me to run barefoot on the beach

and thank you, toes, for being able to wiggle in the sand.”

“Thank you, legs, for allowing me to walk, run, climb and travel wherever I want to go.”

“Thank you, hips, for loosening up when shaking and allowing me to dance all night long.”

File Stephanie Wu

“Thank you, belly, for digesting the food I eat and even though you hurt when I laugh too hard.”

“Thank you, hands, for the ability to write.”

“Thank you, neck, because you give me the opportunity to wear beautiful necklaces, which allows

me to feel good about myself.”

“Thank you, eyes, for helping me see all the wonderful things surrounding me like sunsets, snow, the blue sky and so much more.”

“Thank you, mouth, for allowing me to communicate with my loved ones.”

“Thank you, ears, because without you I would never hear the birds chirping or the songs on the radio.”

“Thank you, brain and mind, for your creativity, intelligence, ability to think and feel.”

“Thank you, heart, for keeping me alive, day after day.”

There are so many things to be grateful for in the world, and it is easy to take our bodies for granted.

But as they say, the human body is a miracle. Let’s take a moment to appreciate that. U The authors of this column are not mental health professionals. If you need additional support, please contact Student Health Services, Sexual Assault Support Centre and/or the Wellness Centre. In case of an emergency, call 911.

Summer bummer //

Ask Pawan: I’m stuck in the UBC bubble this summer

“I know how you might be feeling: Vancouver is huge, teeming with people and feels like it’s catered to all residents, besides you.”

Pawan Minhas Advice Columnist

From interviews to adverts, UBC students and administration alike love to talk about just how much of a “small city” the campus is, with a daytime population of close to 70,000. What isn’t as widely known is the distinctly different feeling campus takes on once April ends. Study spaces hollow, Main Mall empties, Martha Piper Fountain woefully un-Instagrammed. It’s a weird vibe and it’s common to ask yourself, “What do I even do between April and September?”

“Dear Pawan, I’m embarrassed to say it but I miss school. Summer is so boring and I miss classes because it gave me something to do! Please help.”

It seems you’ve found yourself in a spot similar to where our

recent grads are — suddenly and intensely aware of a world outside of UBC and a lot of trepidation on how to jump in. Luckily for you, the mini-city you’ve snuggled safely within is itself ensconced in a lively, breathing metropolis! Big tasks are best done in small parts, so how about we start small.

Breaking Through Blanca I know how you might be feeling: Vancouver is huge, teeming with people and feels like it’s catered to all residents, besides you. If that’s how you feel about the city, chances are you’ve felt that before and, if you think back far enough, it’s probably how you felt as you passed Blanca going west to UBC. Coming to a campus known for its expansive beauty only to be met with confusing streets, apathetic pedestrians and a penchant for getting honked at, your first few months placed you well on your way to becoming a regular

Vancouverite! It’s just a matter of getting out there and putting your theories to work.

Viewing Vancouver’s Varieties You zip up your brightly coloured rain slicker, you shoulder your heavily stocked backpack and you switch on Google Maps’ comforting blue line. Dismount the 99 — pausing to commend the driver for their good work — and you find yourself in the middle of a kinda-residential, maybecommercial, definitely-gentrified area of town that promises you the world but only sells coffee. You’re on Main Street, kid, now hop along before someone shoulders you and murmurs an expletive… or was that an apology?

As you weave your way about the Lower Mainland, taking in the parks, the waterfront and the inexplicable smell, you’ll start noticing the things UBC

file maged

fails to offer. A bar where the patrons look not as worn down as the wood-grain tabletops, a boutique’s aroma of a hundred fabric softeners and a barber shop run by a guy so sharp he up-sold you on the hot shave before you heard the bell chime. You won’t find experiences like that if you keep yourself caged to the few square kilometres we call a campus. Sure, UBC is comfortable and you’ve likely got a routine to your afternoons, but there’s no reason you can’t replace that local Starbucks with another indie rock-loving cafe, 10 minutes east from there.

There’s a bit of fun to be had when you walk into a shop or bar or diner and see a variety of people UBC doesn’t play host to. There are older folks, kids, parents and just about anyone not hovering around uppermiddle class. That last bit is an important one to keep in mind, as gentrification is something

that can sound fun and exciting for the affluent few, but has real consequences for a lot of folks who depend on those establishments you’re visiting.

That shouldn’t stop you from wandering in to give an old diner some new clientele, but just stay mindful of the area’s goings-on and be respectful of the regulars and the community.

Finding a neighbourhood you like and getting familiar with the residents, hotspots and points of interest that aren’t Yelp-certified is an undertaking, but it’s also a way to see things through a lens that varies a good bit from what yours used to be. It might take a while but the sun’s high and the weather’s warm, so give it a go and find a home away from home. U Summer questions? Some more answers! Send all your summerlovin’ questions to advice@ ubyssey.ca or anonymously at ubyssey.ca/advice.

FROM THE BLOG

may 28, 2019 Tuesday

Editor Tristan Wheeler

12

BURNIN’ UP //

automation //

How to keep your dorm from becoming a greenhouse this summer

Courtesy moomoo1234509876/ reddit

“This is against some UBC policy.”

They did surgery on an iClicker Anupriya Dasgupta Contributor

Watch out Elon Musk, reddit user moomoo1234509876 can now put your Teslas to shame.

Explore their Reddit post from May 9 and open yourself up to a world of evil potential by creating an automated iClicker. The only snag is that you’ll have to get your engineering friends to help you because none of us arts/science/ LFS scum really know what “DDOS the basestation” means.

How does this work? Reddit user AgreeableLandscape3 explains, “they’re using a very simple computer called an Arduino to automatically click the buttons on the iClicker.”

This allows the user to remotely send in iClicker responses and potentially skip lectures and still acquire participation points and/or quiz points.

But how does it know the correct quiz answers, you might ask? The device cannot yet do this, but apparently it can be engineered to pick up on the most popular answer choice and have the ability to then transmit a signal so the iClicker will also send in the same answer. Another more advanced version of this, called an iSkipper, has been created by two Cornell University students who even explain how to reverse engineer an iClicker for these purposes.

The automated iClicker has raised questions about an “iClicker arms race” in the 21st century, as pointed out by Reddit user cynber_mankei. Imagine ongoing Cold War tensions taking place within the confines of your EOSC class. You could tell your grandkids: “I remember when there were warring factions within the engineering

department and there was a very real threat of mutually assured destruction. Our civilization was on the brink of collapse.” “Oh no!

Nuclear Armageddon?” “Yes. My 10 per cent worth of participation points were at stake. Do you realize what that could’ve done to my grades?”

This could also mean that an increase in the use of such devices in the classroom could actually lead to professors discontinuing iClickers and possibly using other online tools such as Kahoot or Tophat. If automated iClickers are actually a tiny cog in the larger, much more elaborate scheme of students not having to buy new 22-karat iClickers every year, then maybe it’s not all bad.

However, as moomoo1234509876 puts it themselves, “this is against some UBC policy,” so use this device at your own risk. U

AGRICULTURE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT //

FILE The UBYSSEY

The best preventative measure to keeping the heat is to keep your blinds closed.

Sammy Smart Contributor

Every summer, we’re welcomed by the glorious sun we haven’t seen since September and cursed by the heat and humidity. Thanks to climate change, everything gets hotter and hotter each summer and it can make your room feel like a greenhouse by the time the sun sets. No more tossing and turning in a pool of your own sweat as you try to sleep! Here are some tips to keeping your room cool through the tormenting months of summer.

Keep your blinds closed I know you want to see the beauty of the great outdoors, but the best preventative measure to keeping the heat out of your room is to keep your blinds closed when the sun is facing into your window. If you have a south-facing window, I’m so sorry — you may not see the view until it’s over.

Place your fan strategically in front of the window If any cooler air is coming in from outside — especially at night and at sunset — placing your fan near or in the window (securely)

George Tan/ FLICKR

Happy harvesting!

It’s time to harvest the onions you drunkenly planted in the middle of Main Mall last fall Johann Cooper Contributor

Remember when you got super drunk on your first night of uni and you were walking back to your residence and you pulled out a bag of onion bulbs and said “hey wouldn’t it be crazy if I just, like, planted these things here in the middle of Main Mall?” and your new first-year friends said “Don’t even joke about that man, like, we can’t afford to get busted on our first night,” but you went and did it anyways and then found out that

literally every first-year does this and felt a little less badass?

Well those babies rooted and mother nature turned your little “agricultural social experiment” into the best onion yield this campus has seen in 10 years!

The annual harvest can be a great time to make new friends who also enjoy drunk hobby farming and discuss all the other funny things you’ve planted before. Some of the smaller clubs on campus will even be hosting caramel-covered onion-cooking seminars as people dig!

WARNING! During the annual harvest, it is extremely common for people to sell some of their onion yield as viable bulbs for the next growing season. While this is completely acceptable behaviour, a large number of scammers on Facebook have been identified and are known to be selling horseradish in place of real onions.

UBC is a strict “horseradish-free campus” and will not tolerate any students planting these disgusting “culinary pieces of shit” anywhere on campus grounds.

Happy harvesting! U

can help propel that colder air at you, so that your fan isn’t just circulating hot air.

Consider getting an air conditioner Portable and window air conditioners can be pricey, but if your room is a tragic greenhouse, it might be worth the money. If you can’t afford that, try putting a bowl of ice water in front of your fan for a similar effect.

Use the stove as little as possible That excess hot air is going to make everything worse. If you can, eat foods that don’t require cooking, or use heat sparingly.

Heck, eating something cold that doesn’t require cooking might help you cool down even more!

Put a fan near your feet or head while you sleep Your body releases excess heat at your feet and your head, and I’ve found that when you have a fan at your extremities helps when you’re trying to cool down. When I’ve had troubles sleeping in a hot room, letting my feet peek out from under the blanket to get that cool air really helps. U

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SCIENCE

may 28, 2019 Tuesday

Editor James vogl

13

mars colony //

UBC engineering team behind Canada-wide airlock design competition Cecilia Lee Contributor

While science fiction movies have had us earthlings dreaming of life on Mars for the last century, projects from private companies and international space agencies could have humans on the Red Planet as early as 2024— and a team of UBC students have been preparing for that day.

UBC Mars Colony, a multidisciplinary engineering student team, is putting the finishing touches on their airlock project, an endeavour that they have been working on since 2016.

Commonly used in aviation and submarines, an airlock is a structure consisting of two doors and a pressure vessel that facilitates the transition of people or objects between internal and external environments of different pressures. In space, airlocks allow for astronauts to leave their spacecrafts and venture into their low-pressure, low-nitrogen surroundings without comprising the air in the spacecraft.

“In the beginning I thought, ‘This is just four walls and two doors, how hard could this be?’” remarked Kyle Marquis, founder and captain of UBC Mars Colony and a fifth-year mechanical engineering student.

As it turned out, Mars’ unique atmospheric conditions posed several design challenges to the team. In addition to being functional for the unique pressure conditions of Mars, the airlock also had to withstand

Courtesy UBC Mars Colony

“There’s so much to be explored, and so much we don’t know.”

temperatures as low as -100˚C while maintaining its flexibility.

After researching and testing various materials, the team came across multilayered metallocene polyethylene — a durable and low-cost plastic often used in the agricultural industry — for the membrane of their airlock. The team was able to present their design at the 2018 International Astronautical Space Congress (IAC) in Bremen, Germany this previous October.

“We’re doing something that very few companies, let alone universities, have ever done before,” Marquis said.

After encountering success with their own airlock project last year, Marquis and former vice-captain Han Zhang decided to establish an intercollegiate design competition to give other students the opportunity to undertake the same challenge.

Schools participating in the competition, known as Project Airlock, will present their designs at UBC to a panel of judges for the chance to win prizes, building their technical skills along the way. Project Airlock began in 2018, and is anticipated to conclude in 2020.

Between Saturday, May 18 to Monday, May 20, UBC Mars Colony will be hosting the first phase of their competition in the Fred Kaiser Building.

Teams from the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo, University of Regina and Memorial University of Newfoundland will also be presenting papers outlining their current design plans for their own airlocks.

In addition to the airlock, new sub-teams within UBC Mars Colony are currently tackling two new projects that look into

resources that would make interplanetary life sustainable.

Their Sabatier fuel plant project, which began in September 2018, seeks to develop a prototype

of a fuel reactor that converts carbon dioxide and hydrogen into methane, which can be used as fuel for rockets once on Mars.

Their other current undertaking, Project HELIOS, will investigate the economic feasibility of resource extractions on the moon. Specifically, they will be looking at the cost efficiency of extracting Helium-3, a special isotope of helium that is abundant on the moon and could provide potential colonies with energy through a process known as nuclear fusion.

“There’s so much to be explored, and so much we don’t know,” said Yash Adnani, a team lead at UBC Mars Colony and a third-year materials engineering student. “That’s what attracted me to space exploration. I’d like to help us … become a multiplanetary species.” U

COURTESY UBC MARS COLONY

PATRICK KEELING LAB //

‘It’s a big mystery’: UBC botanists discover new organisms in coral

Alan Levine/Flickr

It is unknown why corallicolids still possess the genes for other parts of the photosynthetic pathway, such as the production of chlorophyll.

Clare Skillman Contributor

A new group of organisms have been discovered by researchers in the Patrick Keeling Lab at UBC. Unofficially these new organisms are referred to as corallicolids.

The name merges the term “coral”, the host organism, with coli, the Latin generative term for “living within.”

“Well this is one of the interesting things about our study, we show that, yes, this is a brand-new lineage, but it branches within a group of other organisms known as apicomplexans,” said Dr. Waldan Kwong, a postdoctoral fellow in the Keeling Lab. Apicomplexans are a group of parasites that live within host tissues, many of which

cause diseases in humans. The apicomplexan Toxoplasma gondii is one of the closest relatives to the newly-discovered corallicolids. T. gondii is responsible for the parasitic disease toxoplasmosis, which can be contracted from eating undercooked meat.

“We found that there was something unexpected in the evolution, we’re seeing that

these apicomplexans evolved from photosynthetic ancestors,” said Kwong. The parasites are no longer photosynthetic, however, the corallicolids still possess the genes that code for photosynthesis products such as chlorophyll.

“We’re seeing that [corallicolids] seem to be a mix of both. They’re not completely free-living because they don’t have all the photosynthetic machinery that goes along with enabling photosynthesis, but they have a number of genes that remain from that photosynthetic pathway. So, we call [corallicolids] an evolutionary intermediate between the photosynthetic algae and the parasites,” said Kwong.

In order for photosynthesis to work, specific proteins are needed to shuttle energy in the form of electrons within both the chloroplast and the mitochondria.

Otherwise, the energy captured from the chlorophyll cannot be used by the organism. Corallicolids do not have these proteins.

It is unknown why corallicolids still possess the genes for other parts of the photosynthetic pathway, such as the production of chlorophyll. It is also unknown how the corallicolid handles the extra energy captured by the chlorophyll, as well as whether

the pathway is actually still active but using a different set of proteins to shuttle the electrons through the pathway.

The last possibility is highly unlikely, however, given that when organisms lose genes it is usually because they are no longer being used and the organisms do not fluoresce under the microscope in the same way that would be expected of an organism using traditional photosynthesis. The most likely explanation for the lack of proteins is that the organisms are no longer photosynthetic.

“It’s a big mystery and almost everybody that we’ve talked to, even photosynthesis experts who only work on photosynthesis, they’re all scratching their heads as well. It’s unclear what this organism could be doing with these genes. It’s definitely something new and unusual,” said Kwong.

Corallicolids are an omnipresent part of coral physiology worldwide and found in around 70 per cent of the coral tissues examined by the Keeling Lab. Better understanding corallicolids could have far reaching implications from the evolutionary history of apicomplexans to coral reef health.

They are a completely novel organism. U

SPORTS+REC

MAy 28, 2019 TUesday

Editor Salomon Micko Benrimoh

14

NAMES TO NOTE //

Bringing the thunder: The voice behind the Thunderbirds hype man Brendan Smith Contributor

The first time Nico McEown stepped onto the court at War Memorial Gymnasium, he was trying out for the men’s basketball team. While he wouldn’t make the team, the experience would still provide him with an opportunity to get involved with UBC athletics.

He approached Kevin Hanson, the men’s basketball coach, to see if the team needed an announcer for their home games. Although the role was filled at the time, Hanson did put him in contact with the athletics director who arranged another tryout for McEown. This one would prove to be much more successful.

“I wasn’t exactly sure what to do,” McEown recalled. “But then when I was at the stadium doing the audition it just came out.” The tone of his voice quickly changes to a deep bellowing sound as he recites the familiar phrase: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome...”

Seated in the lobby of War Memorial, five years after that basketball tryout and audition for PA announcer, things seem to have come full circle for Nico McEown. He’s graduated with a degree in creative writing, yet he’s still a regular sight at War Memorial Gym, hyping up the home crowd with classics like the T-Bird t-shirt contest.

A proud alumni of Magee Secondary School in Kerrisdale, McEown initially chose UBC because it was close to home.

He started in the acting program before switching to creative writing, yet his experience from

the former would pay dividends when he eventually became the ‘Birds hype man’.

“I [did] film and television but I also did theater so no stage was nerve wracking for me, so that was a huge bonus,” he says.

It also helped that he was a sports enthusiast.

“My background is as an actor so I always liked performing,” he said. “And I love sports, so once I found out that this was an actual [ job] I could do I was like ‘that’s literally all the things that I like.’”

Although he would start out as the announcer for soccer games, when the season was over he was asked if he could do ‘hype stuff ’ for other sporting events on campus. Always “happy to have a microphone,” McEown jumped at the opportunity and quickly became a regular at Thunderbird home games across a multitude of sports.

There was still, as McEown admits, a significant learning curve to the new job. Whereas an announcer is responsible for informing the crowd about who scored or got penalized, a hype man is supposed to energize the crowd whenever there are breaks in the game.

While many college students may think that they could also do ‘hype stuff ’ at games, the role as hype man is a lot more nuanced and there are a lot of details that the average fan might not notice.

For one thing, microphone etiquette is critical. In order to avoid any slip-ups, a script is written that includes mentioning sponsors of the team as well as chants to engage the crowd. But microphone etiquette can still be difficult, especially when you

McEown in action during a Thunderbirds basketball game at War Memorial Gym

are in front of raucous fans of all different ages.

In addition to that, the daily schedule of a hype person also varies depending on the team.

While you may not recognize McEown by name, you’ll know him by things like the T-Bird t-shirt toss

FILE SALOMON MICKO BENRIMOH

With McEown having worked for both UBC and the newly rebranded Vancouver Warriors professional lacrosse team at the Rogers Arena downtown.

“Here [at UBC], we arrive with all the other event staff at about two hours before the game and we’ll go over a bit of the script, we’ll set up like our outdoor lobby area and then we’ll kind of get into it,” he said.

“Whereas with the Warriors, we have a production meeting about four, five hours before the game.

We go over like the entire game script — we usually have a lot more in regards to sponsorship aspects and the key things. Then from there I would go onto the pre-tape, which we do at the team store, and then from the pre-tape we go onto dress rehearsal then we go to a dinner break and then it’s pretty much time to get ready for the opening of the game.”

Yet if one can handle the workload, there are also many benefits to this position. The job helps establish connections within the sports media circle that can lead to working at higher profile events.

For instance, working at UBC allowed McEown to work not only with the Warriors, but also work at the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Junior Championships in Vancouver this past winter.

“One of my co-workers at UBC messaged me on Facebook and was like ‘Hey, do you know that the Warriors are looking for a hype man?’ I was like ‘No I didn’t know that.’ I applied, I

COURTESY NICO MCEOWN

got that gig and then only after one game, which I didn’t do great for the Warriors, they were like ‘Would you want to do some of the hockey championships?’ and I was like ‘Yeah!’

“I was only supposed to do like, I think, three games but I ended up doing the whole tournament except for one day,” he says smiling while shaking his head.

“I got to see the gold medal game and it was just like a oncein-a-lifetime experience.”

The good news for McEown, as he transitions from UBC into the workforce, is that hype men are seemingly becoming more prevalent in professional sports across North America.

As a result, the role of hype man is expanding and more responsibilities are being given to this job.

For instance, it is now commonplace to see player introductions in the National Basketball Association (NBA) being done by hype men instead of an announcer because hype men tend to provide the crowd with more energy.

“The crowd likes being able to see somebody,” McEwon said when describing the effect of hype men.

“It’s cool to have that voice in the sky — really important for key announcements and logistical stuff, but the crowd wants that person they can draw energy from and bring it back to.”

“I’m really excited that it’s becoming more and more of a thing.” U

May 28, 2019 tuesday | Sport+Rec | 15 worldwide //

As summer kicks off, many Thunderbirds are going international Salomon Micko Benrimoh Sports Editor

With the men’s baseball and women’s softball seasons wrapped up, the Thunderbirds are officially on summer break.

But just because there won’t be any U Sports action until September doesn’t mean that any of the Thunderbirds will be competing in their respective sports.

The academic break makes way for an international calendar filled with a variety of events from world championships to international games like the Pan American Games and the International University Sports Federation (FISU) Universiade.

Spread out from June to September, many of the international events will feature a number of UBC Thunderbirds competing across a multitude of disciplines, ranging from swimming to field hockey.

FINA World Aquatic Championships July 12–28 To say that the UBC Thunderbirds swim team are going to be busy would be an understatement.

With a total 15 current and recently graduated swimmers competing across the world for either Canada or their nation of birth, there is no shortage of blue and gold hitting the international stage.

The most important event in international swimming, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) World Aquatic

ALEX VANDERPUT

With a number of international sporting events spread out across multiple continents, it’s gonna be a busy summer for some Thunderbirds.

Championships will take place in Gwangju, South Korea for its 18th edition. Racing for Team Canada will be veterans Emily Overholt and Markus Thormeyer, both fresh off some stellar U Sports seasons.

Along with them will be recently graduated sprint freestyler Carson Olafson and butterflyer Josiah Binnema, each of whom are starting to solidify

their place on the national squad after competing at either the 2017 FINA World Championships in Budapest, Hungary or the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia — both in the case of Olafson.

Making his international debut will be Alexander Pratt. The 19-year-old rookie holding his own against veteran swimmers to earn a spot on the Canadian

4×200m freestyle relay along with Thormeyer and Olafson.

Former Thunderbird Yuri Kisil, who left UBC early to go pro, will also be competing in Gwangju in an effort to add to his FINA medal tally.

Distance swimmer Hau Li Fan also qualified as part of the open water squad after finishing second at the Ligue Européenne de Natation (LEN) Open Water Swimming Cup in Lac du Causse in Brive, France.

FISU Universiade July 3-14

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FISU Universiade, held every two years, will showcase the world’s best university athletes in Naples, Italy this year. The multi-sport event will again feature a plethora of UBC swimmers.

It will be the first major international competition for Hillary Metcalfe, Olivia Ellard, Megan Dalke, Jaren LeFranc and Dima Lim while Ingrid Wilm, who competed at the 2018 FINA World Short Course Championships in Hangzhou, China, will be making a second appearance for the Canadian national team.

Hoi Lam (Karen) Tam will be at the games as well, representing Hong Kong, having already represented her place of birth at the 2018 Asian Games in JakartaPalembang, Indonesia.

Kieran Lumb of the Thunderbirds athletics team will also travel to Italy to compete in the 5000m event. Along with Courtney Hufsmith of the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, they are the only two Canada West athletes to make the cut for the 2019 Universiade.

Open water swimmer Hau Li Fan will be pulling off a double, competing first in Naples in the open water events before jumping quickly to Gwangju to compete in the same events at the FINA World Championships.

Pan American Games July 26 - August 11 Four years after Toronto hosted the 2015 Pan American Games, the event will travel to the Peruvian capital of Lima.

Like the previously listed events, the Thunderbirds swim team will be represented thanks to the participation of recent graduate and 2016 Olympian Erika Seltenreich-Hodgson.

Kristina Walker and Jessica Sevick of the Thunderbirds Rowing team will have a chance to compete at the Pan Ams pending their result at the 2019 RCA Speed Orders/National team selection regatta which is being held in June.

Men’s field hockey should also be well-represented, with James Wallace, Fin Boothroyd and Balraj Panesar having been previously named to the national roster in Olympic qualifiers earlier in May. Veterans Rowan Harris and Margaret Pham are also part of the women’s national field hockey squad and should be competing in Lima.

Other Events The 2019 International Basketball Federation (FIBA) World Cup and 2019 Rugby World Cup are not technically in the summer, with the FIBA World Cup starting August 31 in China and the 2019 Rugby World Cup later in September in Japan, but they will still feature past and present Thunderbird athletes.

Going to Japan will be veterans centre Ben LeSage and scrum-half Will Percillier.

Meanwhile Conor Morgan, who was a former guard for the UBC Thunderbirds from 2012 to 2018, should be in uniform once more for the men’s national basketball team after helping to lead the team through the earlier qualifying stages.U

16 | GAmes | TUesdAY May 28, 2019

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did you know that . . .

UBC no longer has the tallest wooden building in the world. Tallwood Brock Commons lost its place to Mjøstårnet in Norway.

— Zubair H.

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