October 30, 2018

octoBER 30, 2018 | VoLuME c | IssuE XiiI the first rough draft of history since 1918

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NEWS

CULTURE

Opinion

Science

Sports

Galloway files lawsuit for defamation

Indigenous identities are not costumes

The AMS AGM was weird

UBC is taking on engineering’s gender gap

Transgender athlete policy is a work in progress

THE UBYSSEY

Amid efforts to update ‘clunky’ policy, widespread experiences of racial discrimination at UBC persist

pAge 2

oCtobER 30, 2018 tueSDAY

YoUR GUiDE to UbC EVENtS & PEoPLE

eVeNts

2

our cAmpus

Canine-lover and advocate for the left-handed Dr. Stanley Coren is breaking ground and petting dogs

tUESDaY, oCtobER 30 femAle leAders of ubc 5 to 6:30 P.m. @ SCaRFE 201 (2125 maiN maLL) a roundtable of female-identifying and non-binary UbC leaders!

FREE

thURSDaY, NoVEmbER 1 HAil discordiA! opeNiNg receptioN 7 to 10 P.m. @ hatCh GaLLERY iN thE NESt Celebrate 35 years of Discorder Magazine with CitR. FREE (Exhibit runs until November 22) “i’m certainly not a rockstar. i’m a fat, bald psychologist from Canada.”

cassandra betts Senior Staff Writer

SatURDaY, NoVEmbER 3 bVp X geNerocksity preseNts: 50/50 8 P.m. to 1 a.m. @ ENGiNEERiNG StUDENt CENtRE tWo stages, oNE night and a whole lot of talent. $10 (tickets available online)

oN tHe coVer coVer by Claire Lloyd, Ayesha Diwan, Chelsea Dumasal, Elizabeth Wang

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oCtobER 30, 2018 | VoLUmE C| iSSUE Xii CONTACT

EDITORIAL

STAFF

BUSINESS

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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 (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Dr. Stanley Coren is unlike typical psychologists. Instead of studying people, he studies dogs and the bond they share with humans.

Coren, a professor emeritus in the psychology department at UBC, has won numerous awards for his work, had his own television show called Good Dog!, written books that have topped the bestsellers lists and currently writes the blog “Canine Corner” for Psychology Today.

But when he first started, people were not supportive of his desire to study the human-canine bond.

“We’re talking about [the] 1960s. At that time if you would have said, ‘Hey wait a minute, I want to study the human-animal bond,’ they would have looked at you as though you’d just come off of a flying saucer with a beanie [and] a propeller on the top,” said Coren. “There was no way I was getting any funding for that sort of thing.”

Because of this, Coren had to make a name for himself in another field. “I went into my second love, which, in fact, was a love,” he said.

“You can have many loves in life.”

This love was human sensory processes and neuropsychology.

He studied “handedness” and discovered that people who are left-handed are five times more likely to die in accidents than people who are right-handed.

“A lot of it has to do with the way in which our world is set up, the way machinery is set up,” he explained. “Because of our research, ergonomists and human engineers have started to design equipment which is safe for both left and right-handers, so my hope is ten, fifteen years from now if someone re-runs our studies, they’ll find that many fewer left-handers are dying, which means that we would have done our work.”

In the 1990s, Coren published a book detailing his findings about left-handers. “It made every bestseller list from here to alpha centauri,” he said. “Of course, the publisher immediately wanted to know, ‘What are you going to do next?’ So I mentioned to them that I had spent several years collecting data on the relative intelligence of dogs of different breeds.”

After much convincing, Coren was finally able to work on the subject that had interested him 30 years prior.

“My research showed that the average dog has the mind equivalent to a human twoto-two-and-a-half years-old and the ‘super dogs,’ the ones in the top twenty percent of canine intelligence, have a mind equivalent to a two-and-a-halfto-three-year-old,” said Coren.

“That’s an awful lot of cognition!”

This discovery changed the landscape of psychology.

Studying dog intelligence and the human-canine bond became more acceptable, and Coren’s next book, The Intelligence of Dogs, still remains the top bestselling non-fiction book about dogs with the exception of the standard breed guide.

Even so, Coren says that it was still difficult to run studies with dogs because of concerns from animal welfare groups.

“Things got better when people began to recognize that this research was producing useful and interesting material, and none of it involves harming dogs … You teach a little beagle how to pick out which one of three items is different. He gets a cookie for it and he’s a very happy camper.”

Coren also learned to avoid this obstacle with a little bit of innovation. He conducted a study that found that dogs hate to be hugged by analyzing photos on Flickr and Google. In most of the

UbC/CoURtESY StaNLEY CoREN

pictures, although humans were happy and smiling, the dogs were showing known signs of negative emotion, such as air licking, slicking back their ears and rolling back their eyes.

In another study, Coren used data from Sweden’s national health system to show that people who have a dog are more apt to live longer and less likely to have a heart attack.

Despite these clever ways to avoid lab studies, they are sometimes necessary. Coren recently helped with a study coordinated by UBC Psychology Assistant Professor Dr. Frances Chen that had 250 students come visit therapy dogs in the Nest during exam time.

“We found that not only did you get a reduction in stress levels in the students immediately [after seeing the dogs] but it lasted for ten hours,” said Coren.

“That really means that if you fiddle around with a dog for 20 minutes in the morning and you take that exam in the afternoon, you’re in better shape!”

Because of the groundbreaking nature of his work, Coren has received a lot of attention from the media since his research on handedness.

“It was all craziness,” Coren admitted. “I was on Oprah and Larry King and Good Morning America and Canada AM. If it was a talk show, they dragged me on.”

Now retired, Coren still comes in to UBC to help with studies and to pass on his knowledge to future generations. When not working, he trains his two dogs, Ripley and Ranger, in obedience competitions.

“I’m certainly not a rockstar.

I’m a fat, bald psychologist from Canada,” said Coren.

“You have to learn who you’re talking to and you have to keep your scientific integrity at the same time.” U

NEWS

october 30, 2018 TUeSday

Editors Alex Nguyen + Zak Vescera

3

ANNUAL GENERAL MEeTING //

NON-VIOLENCE //

At rapid-fire AGM, AMS announces new donations for Food Bank and possible progress on fall reading break

“The main thing we’re worried about is any violence.”

FILE ALEX NGUYEN

Campus groups stand against Shapiro talk in unexpected ways — with a teach-in and a party Alex Nguyen & Zak Vescera News Editors

Campus groups are responding to American conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s visit to campus this Halloween in an unexpected way — by choosing not to directly protest.

Hosted by the UBC Free Speech Club, the event has attracted substantial media attention partly over the potential of protests against Shapiro, a hardline conservative who is criticized by many for his views on Muslims, Indigenous peoples and Israeli-Palestinian relations, among other issues.

But campus groups don’t plan to protest in the traditional, confrontational sense.

Instead, the Social Justice Centre (SJC), the Pride Collective, the Progressive Jewish Alliance and other student groups are hosting “Scaridarity” — a Halloween party for their members who are unhappy with Shapiro’s visit.

“The way that I view the event is that resistance is also creating a space for community and celebration, and creating our own space that can be an oasis that really holds our values,” said SJC Co-chair Gabby Doebeli.

But responding to the Shapiro event by partying does not diminish the co-hosts’ criticisms of his views.

“As a student-led organization standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and the atrocities they are targeted by, [Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights] (SPHR) will take a strong stance against the presence of Ben Shapiro on campus-based on the free speech standard to which those communicating legitimate human rights concerns are evaluated against,” reads a statement from SPHR.

Study up Members of the Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice Undergraduate Association (GRSJUA) will also be holding a “teach-in” outside the Chan Centre to discuss free speech as well as its history, implications and boundaries.

According to the GRSJUA’s Arts Undergraduate Society

Representative Kirsten Tarasoff, the association did not initially plan to respond beyond a statement to avoid feeding into the narrative of “angry, yelling feminists” and giving the Shapiro talk more attention.

But they went ahead with a teach-in after a faculty member, who is helping with organizing the teach-in, stressed the need for the GRSJUA to show their solidarity with those who are affected by Shapiro’s discourses.

The event’s organizers, who wish to be anonymous to avoid potential threats or harassment, said that the event will start with a conventional lecture before going into discussionbased activities in small groups.

“It’s not really so much [about] having speeches or having a rally,” said the faculty organizer.

“The reason we chose a teachin is because it has a history with the struggles of marginalized communities, like AfricanAmerican people used to use teach-ins to fight segregation ... It is very non-violent form of resistance that is based on education.”

A student organizer added that the event would establish ground rules before starting in order to maintain the civility of the space.

For instance, they said the event would not entertain discussions that “question people’s humanity.”

“We are holding space for trans people, for people of colour,” they said, referencing recent news about the United States attempting to scale back rights of transgender people.

With their event happening at the same time as the Shapiro talk, organizers hope that those who attend the teach-in will be “genuinely hoping to listen and learn,” limiting safety concerns.

“I always cross my fingers that we’re on UBC campus — everyone here obviously is very smart in some way, shape or form you know, so hopefully we can be smart about how this is actually carried out with some mutual respect,” said Tarasoff.

Avoiding violence Free Speech Club Director Angelo Isidorou said that the club welcomes these peaceful events and is only concerned with preventing violence.

Shapiro’s visit attracted substantial media attention this summer, when a small number

of UBC students wrote letters to Provost and VP Academic Andrew Szeri asking he not be allowed on campus under UBC’s discrimination policy.

Since then, concerns have been raised that Shapiro’s presence might precipitate fighting as it did at campuses like Berkeley.

The AMS has also expressed concerns about the impact the event could have on vulnerable community members.

“We think the event will promote hateful and discriminatory views and attitudes on our campus which could make many of our members feel threatened, targeted and marginalized,” said AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Max Holmes in a July interview.

But while many groups oppose the event, Isidorou said he’s not aware of any on-campus groups that plan to formally protest — but added they’re prepared for the worst.

“If it’s something like what the GRSJ are doing, we’re totally down for it … We welcome that,” emphasized Isidorou.

“The main thing we’re worried about is any violence.”

Isidorou said the club is footing “tens of thousands of dollars” to have University RCMP, campus security, private guards, fire fighters and metal detector stations onsite, all on the recommendation of the Chan Centre.

Inside the event, Isidorou said people who disagree with Shapiro will be the first called to ask questions, but any audience members who promote fighting or disruptively heckle speakers will be kicked out.

“I think it does take immense bravery to stand in front of 1,300 who love the person you’re debating,” he said. “... If I hear someone saying something transphobic, or saying something else like to a person of colour, if I hear anything like that I’ll shut it down.”

Overall, Isidorou is optimistic that supporters and detractors of the event will debate in good faith — but said the club is prepared for the worst.

“The way I see it, there’s always going to be one loon whether it’s on our side or their side. We can’t control who shows up, just like they can’t control who shows up.

It’s always one guy who takes it way too far.” U

Shamit RAHMAN

Like last year’s AGM, the AMS reported a “tremendous” year overall in terms of finances.

Henry Anderson Contributor

The 2018 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the AMS recapped the past year’s events and finances, but also broke some surprising news about the year ahead.

Held on October 23 in the Nest, the AGM created a public space for the society to update the student body on the events of its past academic year and provide an annual financial report as required by its bylaws.

Within its less-than-30minute runtime attended by only a smattering of AMS-affiliated students, two particularly notable pieces of news came from VP Academic and University Affairs Max Holmes and Student Services Manager Piers Fleming.

During his report, Holmes announced that “there will be a fall reading break most likely in 2019/2020,” with a town hall on the break coming up next month. This development comes after much debate in the Senate — the body at UBC that oversees academic governance — and years of student advocacy for a break.

But Academic Policy Committee Chair Dr. Paul Harrison does not think a 2019 fall reading break is in the cards, attributing it to a longstanding logistical challenge.

“It’s a thorny issue because with the current constraints that we have in terms of when we start the term, when we end the term towards exams and the holidays that now pop up during the fall term, there are not five days that we could put together for break like we have in second term,” he said in an interview with The Ubyssey.

“The calendar is just constrained in that way.”

Other initiatives that Holmes touched on included a $1 million campaign to fund undergraduate research at UBC, a review of the Excellence Fund and advocacy on a whole range of student issues such as housing, mental health and sexual assault prevention.

A number of reports later, Fleming announced that UBC President Santa Ono has pledged to donate $10,000 annually over the next five years to the AMS Food Bank. “It [will be] really

helpful to help alleviate food insecurity on campus,” he said.

UBC has confirmed that this support is taking place and that its funding is coming from the budget of the President’s Office.

A busy first term Other AMS executives similarly shared accomplishments from their portfolio and plans for the future.

AMS President Marium Hamid, who started the meeting, acknowledged some of the AMS’ accomplishments in the past year, such as the opening of the UBC Life Building, its recent apology to Indigenous peoples and the launch of its new website.

VP Administration Chris Hakim said nine new clubs will be moving into the basement of the UBC Life Building that the AMS manages and he’s hopeful that Sprouts will be ready to reopen sometime in November.

VP External Christina Ilnitchi announced the formation of a coalition group that will advocate for student housing rights — calling it the first of its kind — and reaffirmed the AMS’ support of an expanded night bus service and SkyTrain to UBC. Like last year’s AGM, the AMS also reported a “tremendous” year overall in terms of finances, said Managing Director Keith Hester.

According to VP Finance Kuol Akuechbeny, AMS businesses reeled in slightly under $1.3 million in revenue — about $600,000 more than what was projected. The society spent $700,000 on student government in the past year and $300,000 on its student services such as Food Bank, the Sexual Assault Support Centre, Speakeasy and others.

Hester added that the AMS saw a surplus of about $900,000 — one of the largest profits in the society’s history. This amount will likely go towards paying the AMS’ rolling deficit, though no figures were given for the current status of that debt.

Following a trend from previous years, the meeting did not meet quorum — which needs one per cent of the AMS membership or more than 500 people — despite various offerings of free food and cake. As a result, no motions or questions off the agenda were considered. U

4 | newS | tueSDAY oCtobER 30, 2018 disAdVANtAge //

Vantage College temporarily suspends admission for management stream over low enrolment, retention Andrew Ha Contributor

Vantage College is suspending admissions to its management stream for the 2019/20 academic year due to low enrolment and retention rates. This does not impact current students.

Vantage One is a first-year program for international students who do not meet other UBC programs’ Englishlanguage requirement, which offers multiple streams including the management program. Low enrolment rates have troubled the stream since its creation.

“Our enrolment has ranged from … 20-something to a high of 30-something,” said Vantage College Principal Dr. Joanne Fox, noting that the ideal cohort size is around 60 to 75 students.

In response, Vantage has been trying to emphasize the student voices in their recruiting materials by highlighting student stories, their portfolios and opportunities for students in recruitment messages.

A low retention rate is also another problem to tackle.

While Vantage Management is based out of UBC Okanagan

“We’re pausing and working with our okanagan-based partners to really look at … what is the right model?”

(UBCO), students attend their first two semesters at UBC Vancouver, then transfer to the Okanagan campus. In their second year, they can progress into UBCO’s Bachelor of Management degree program, but few students have done so.

“Enrolment in the Vantage One Management program is low and retention of Vantage One Management students into the Bachelor of Management program at the UBC Okanagan campus

has also been low,” reads a memo submitted to the Senate.

“What we saw is a trend of many students transferring to the faculty of arts,” said Fox. According to her, the arts stream is the most popular choice at Vantage, with over 200 students.

Unlike management, Vantage arts students complete their entire first year in Vancouver and can continue to the faculty of arts at the same campus. Vantage Management is the only program stream which doesn’t

aLiRoD amERi

lead to a UBC Vancouver (UBCV) program, which Fox said may confuse students.

“The challenge … is having prospective students understand that … the rest of your degree program takes place at UBC Okanagan,” she said, adding that Vantage has since introduced trips to UBCO to clarify the program structure for students.

Jessie Zhang, a Vantage engineering student in 2016, had several friends in the management stream who opted to

pursue a bachelor of arts at UBCV instead of a management degree at UBCO. “I think the main reason for that is [management] students have to complete their program in the Okanagan campus for the rest of their three years,” Zhang wrote in a message to The Ubyssey.

“They just simply don’t like that campus or they thought it was unfair for them to get stuck [there].”

Zhang added that some students applied to management only to transfer to other streams later because they feel it is less competitive to get admitted to the management stream.

UBCV Senate, which approved the admission suspension at its October 17 meeting, will revisit the issue in summer 2019.

Until then, Vantage College and UBCO will work together to determine the “right model” for the management stream.

According to Fox, UBCO has already launched a task force to look into the stream’s future, starting with an “environmental scan.”

“We’re pausing and working with our Okanagan-based partners to really look at … what is the right model?” said Fox. U

bureAucrAcy //

Six months after opening, the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre inches toward becoming a formal centre

the proposal now awaits approval from the board of Governors.

bridget chase Culture Editor

Six months after the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre’s (IRSHDC) opening, it is now moving toward becoming a formal university centre.

UBC currently has 130 institutes and centres listed on its online directory. The IRSHDC, whose opening ceremony on April 9 was marked by UBC President Santa Ono’s formal apology for the university’s institutionalized support of the Indian Residential School System, is not yet on that list.

FiLE bRiDGEt ChaSE

This is because UBC Vancouver Senate has just approved the establishment of the IRSHDC as a formal university centre at its October 17 meeting. A similar motion now awaits approval from the Board of Governors.

“Centre status will aid in consideration of the interdisciplinary nature of the IRSHDC’s work and facilitate the ability to attract and retain affiliated faculty members who will work collaboratively in areas of research, teaching, and community outreach,” reads UBC Provost and VP Academic Andrew Szeri’s submission to Senate.

According to the submission, the Centre — as an academic administrative unit — would operate under the college or faculty that its director belongs to. As a result, a change in director could result in a relocation of the Centre accordingly.

During the Senate meeting, Szeri noted that this ability to move the academic unit would allow the university to “make the best possible choice with future directors” — but also that there could be significant continuity with faculty members and students if the Centre stays in one faculty.

As IRSHDC Director Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is currently a law professor, the centre would reside under the Allard School of Law during her term. Turpel-Lafond would then report to both Szeri and Allard Dean Catherine Dauvergne.

“The proposal has full support from the Provost and the Dean of the Peter A. Allard School of Law,” reads the submission.

Last month, UBC faced criticism for failing to provide adequate staffing and the necessary support for the IRSHDC. The proposal also now clarifies the new executive roles and their governance structures, as well as the number of staff positions. For instance, the director of digital, strategic and Indigenous partnerships would report to both Turpel-Lafond and University Librarian Susan Parker. Under this position, the head of research and engagement

would be “cross appointed” with UBC School of Library, Archival and Information Studies.

There would also be two advisory committees to help with the Centre’s operations: one staffed with experts in records and archival holdings, and one staffed with experts in Indigenous subject matter. Both committees would meet quarterly.

Szeri said during the meeting that they would be the place for the Centre to engage Indigenous communities at an administrative level.

In particular, the second committee would include “up to eight individuals from all regions of B.C. and a variety of community and urban backgrounds,” reads the submission. “Care will be given to gender balance and reflect a range of ages, including a youth member.”

But the submission also notes that these committees are “subject

the proposed governance structure.

to budget,” which is currently $870,000 in total.

“The IRSHDC Director is working with the Provost Office to expand the budget, subject to availability of funding, to develop more programming capacity and cultivate a governance structure that resembles [the proposal],” the submission reads.

With the Senate’s approval, Turpel-Lafond is moving closer to one of her goals coming into the position in June.

“That’s a big piece of my work to try and get the Centre actually set up as a centre within a UBC context, but also within library and archives so that the information we hold can have the privacy protection it needs ... and have the type of tools and systems so that it can be capable of being shared with the community,” she said in a September interview with The Ubyssey. U

SCREENShot UbC SENatE SUbmiSSioN

october 30, 2018 tueSDAY | news | 5 LAWSUIT //

AMS COUNCIL //

Steven Galloway sues UBC AMS executives criticized by councillor for failing to promote AGM, narrowly avoid vote of censure professors and former students for alleged defamatory statements Zak Vescera & Alex Nguyen News Editors

Former UBC Creative Writing Chair Steven Galloway is suing two of his former colleagues and a host of former students for defamatory statements.

The lawsuit follows years of widespread allegations about Galloway’s extramarital affair with a graduate student who claimed he sexually assaulted her.

That student, who until now was known only as the main complainant or “MC” due to a previous publication ban protecting her identity, is named in the lawsuit. Galloway’s legal counsel indicated in an email to The Ubyssey that filing the suit required including MC’s name and her relationship to Galloway.

While MC’s name was already published in The National Post, The Ubyssey is waiting for confirmation from MC’s legal counsel. At the time of publication, MC’s lawyer Joanna Birenbaum said in an email to The Ubyssey that “No client of mine has been served with a Statement of Claim, nor has my office.”

Other defendants include UBC creative writing Professors Keith Maillard and Annabel Lyon; former Discorder Magazine Editor-in-Chief Brit Bachmann, who is included for statements she made on Twitter; and Glynnis Kirchmeier, a former UBC student who launched a human rights complaint against the university over the handling of a different sexual assault case.

Galloway’s claim was filed in the Supreme Court of BC on October 26. None of the present allegations have been proven and defendants had not been served notice at the time of publishing.

The lawsuit seeks damages for what it calls defamatory comments made online and in person about Galloway over the course of a years-long debate about his innocence and the handling of accusations against him by the Canadian literature community.

Among instances listed is the allegation that MC encouraged Maillard and Lyon to repeat defamatory statements on her behalf, and that the two professors told colleagues in the creative writing department that the assault had occurred.

Maillard had not yet received notice when contacted for this article and was unable to comment.

Lyon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The notice also lists numerous examples of former students alleging on Twitter that Galloway had sexually assaulted MC. One of the appellants is named only by their Twitter username @Suzie_BedBug. One of the defendants, Glynnis Kirchmeier, is being sued over a tweet she published in February 2018 that stated that Galloway had committed rape.

Kirchmeier had not received notice at the time of publication

but expressed doubts about the validity of some of the charges.

She noted that she lives in the United States and was not in Canada when she tweeted, which would put her outside the BC Supreme Court’s jurisdiction.

“It could be that I answer [the notice] only to say that this is not the proper venue,” said Kirchmeier.

The suit seeks an injunction “requiring the defendants to remove the defamatory words from the internet and every other public posting.”

Earlier this summer, Discorder was contacted by Galloway’s legal counsel after it published a letter from former creative writing student Keagan Perlette that his counsel considered defamatory. Discorder deleted the piece, and a retraction letter was issued in its place.

Kirchmeier said she believes this is a means of discouraging discussion around Galloway and indicated she does not intend to change her message or behaviour.

“I’m not interested in being quiet about this,” said Kirchmeier. “I do think that a natural effect of litigation like this is for people to shut up or feel like they are not going to speak, and I think that people should never be afraid of speaking the truth and especially truth for which evidence exists or an honest belief exists.”

Three years later UBC suspended Galloway in November 2015 after “serious allegations” surfaced and formally terminated him for “a record of misconduct that resulted in an irreparable breach of the trust” in June 2016.

A special investigation by the Honourable Mary Ellen Boyd in June 2016 found that he had “made increasingly inappropriate sexual comments and advances towards [MC] over a number of months in late 2010 and early 2011,” and that “[MC’s] failure to expressly object to [Galloway’s] behaviour was the byproduct of the power differential between the two parties.”

However, Boyd concluded that the extramarital affair was consensual and said she could not substantiate the allegation of sexual assault on a balance of probabilities.

This summer, an arbitration decision awarded Galloway $167,000 in damages on the grounds that UBC’s communications caused damage to his reputation and breached his privacy. UBC paid Galloway an additional $60,000 after it was determined the school violated the confidentiality agreement of the initial arbitration.

“As a consequence of the defamations set forth herein, the plaintiff continues to suffer grave damage to his reputation, upset and emotional damage, as well as special damages including the destruction of his career, all to be particularized at trial,” reads the notice.

UBC, which was not named in the suit, said that it is reviewing the case with its legal counsel. U

“We should always be striving as an organization to improving.”

Zak Vescera & Alex Nguyen News Editors

A motion of censure against the AMS executives narrowly failed at the October 24 AMS Council after they were criticized for not adequately advertising the society’s annual general meeting (AGM), which failed to meet quorum.

For the AGM to meet quorum, one per cent of all UBC Vancouver students — or more than 500 students — must be present. After 30 minutes, the meeting can begin without quorum, but no motions can be passed beyond reception of the annual financial and president’s reports.

At the October 23 meeting held in the lower atrium of the Nest, only about 20 students were present, most of them affiliated with either the AMS, SASC or The Ubyssey. No attendance appeared to have been taken, and fewer than a hundred chairs were provided.

Law Councillor Dylan Braam — who introduced the motion at the Wednesday meeting — criticized the AMS executives for failing to adequately advertise the event and said that they violated their society bylaws for failing to place a notice about the October 23 event in The Ubyssey or another campus publication.

“Over the course of their reports, it became clear that adequate steps were not taken, in my opinion, to advertise the AGM,” said Braam afterwards.

Following rounds of discussion, the motion narrowly failed, with ten votes in favour and ten votes against. In a previous vote, all Councillors unanimously voted to exclude the executive from voting on the motion, judging that it constituted a conflict of interest.

“While Council itself has not condemned it, it was clear there were a large number of councillors — even those who voted no — who were unhappy with the executive’s inaction.” said Braam after the meeting.

During her remarks earlier that night, AMS President Marium Hamid said that the society published the AGM’s information on its social media, but did not distribute a newsletter or seek other forms of advertising beyond inviting councillors. She also pointed out that not many councillors were at the AGM. Regarding the requirement to place a notice in a publication,

Elizabth Wang

Hamid said that The Ubyssey had sent a request for comment in advance of the AGM on Friday October 19 — but it was not adequate notice to provide comment.

Bylaw 3.2 a) ii) requires the AMS to publish “in the Ubyssey or [an] other campus publication at least fourteen (14) days prior to the annual general or special general meeting.”

An AMS communications employee sent a one-line email to The Ubyssey notifying the paper of the event on October 9 at 5:38 p.m. — which, under the bylaw, would have been past the deadline to publish in The Ubyssey.

The Ubyssey did not preview the event because of a lack of comment from the society, but did live-tweet it and published a summary of it the next day after fact-checking claims made by some executives.

The bylaw was drafted at a time when The Ubyssey was owned by the society, though it operated at arms length from the AMS. In 1995, following a dispute between the paper and the society that led to The Ubyssey’s shutdown the year before, a referendum succeeded in establishing it as an independent non-profit society.

Braam said he did not see any advertisements for the AGM, and noted that the AMS could have placed an advertisement in The Ubyssey’s print issue. Under The Ubyssey’s lease agreement with the AMS, the society is entitled to a free placement every month.

Any UBC community member who pays The Ubyssey’s annual fee is entitled to submit articles or opinion pieces for consideration, with the decision to publish left at the respective editor’s discretion.

The paper has published opinion letters by AMS executives in the past.

In 2017, the AMS mentioned the AGM in a Ubyssey opinion article written by then-Councillor and Student Senator Jakob Gattinger. The paper itself was not contacted to write a piece in that year.

Doing better While Arts Councillor Cole Evans acknowledged Braam’s perspective, he argued that any AMS outreach effort would have inevitably failed because the society “can’t really advertise anything.”

“I’m sorry but we can’t,” he said.

Arts Councillor Jerome Goddard laid the blame collectively, saying that individual councillors should have promoted the event by themselves. He said that voting for Braam’s motion “would not be conducive to the AMS’s PR image.”

He even pointed out that Evans did not share the AGM’s information on his own personal Facebook feed.

“I think we can all agree there was lack of execution here,” Goddard said.

Evans later responded that he didn’t share anything because he didn’t see any advertising materials for the event.

AMS executives were noticeably displeased with the motion, with AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Max Holmes questioning if it should have been submitted to Council in advance and not brought up as a discussion item during the meeting.

The meeting came to a boiling point when Braam said that an unnamed AMS executive had implied to him that the society did not even want quorum to be met, fearing a disruptive motion from external groups could be passed.

According to the September 19 AMS executive committee meeting’s minutes, Holmes appeared to question if quorum was actually necessary. Hamid appeared to express interest in a well-attended AGM but noted there would have to be logistics in place to make sure only AMS members could vote.

Braam declined to identify the executive.

In a statement to The Ubyssey, Holmes said he was unable to comment on whether he was the executive Braam mentioned.

“I cannot comment on the individual opinions expressed by a councillor, as there is no way for me to know if I was the executive they were implying,” said Holmes.

“I acknowledge my individual responsibility on this matter and look forward to healthy discussions with any AMS councillors if they wish to have them.”

Hamid did not address the accusation, but asked Braam during the meeting to refrain from “bringing up arguments he could [have] misconstrued.”

Braam responded that he was a direct party to the conversation.

Hamid declined to comment on the reasoning behind Braam’s initial motion.

“The AMS does not comment on the individual opinions of AMS Councillors,” said Hamid in a message to The Ubyssey.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Braam encouraged councillors to pursue more ambitious goals and called out an attitude of complacency and apathy in AMS Council.

“There’s often been an attitude in this society of just doing what’s good enough ... I think good enough is not good enough. We should always be striving as an organization to improving,” he said. “Whether or not it’s difficult does not mean it’s impossible.” U

culture

oCtobER 30, 2018 tueSDAY

EDitoR BRIDGET CHASE

6

iNdigeNeity //

Indigenous students speak out on Halloween: We are people, not costumes rebecca Hope gouthro & indigenous community members at ubc Contributors

If someone you know is thinking about dressing up as an Indigenous person for Halloween, this project I’ve created showcases what we actually look like in North America. We are people of many different shapes, sizes and colours who deserve to be respected and acknowledged. We don’t wear our traditional headdresses or clothes often because they are usually only worn during traditional ceremonies. Outside of these ceremonies, Indigenous people like myself wear everyday clothes.

I am incredibly thankful for everyone who has contributed their written work to a project that is more ours than mine.

‘Indigenous’ Halloween costumes are offensive to many people and we hope that our voices can inspire others to think twice about about selling, buying or wearing these costumes.

rebeccA Hope goutHro My name is Rebecca Hope Gouthro and I’m Algonquin from the Pikwàkanagàn First Nation in Ontario, Canada (Turtle Island).

Stores that sell cheap, overpriced and provocative replicas of our traditional clothes in the form of costumes not only produce inaccurate depictions of who we are, but also produce the belief that we are more like Halloween characters than real people. If non-Indigenous people walk into these stores and come to believe that we are Halloween characters, how are we supposed to be taken seriously as real people? How are we supposed to be taken seriously when we have to say, “Please don’t think you’re an Indian just because you’re wearing face paint and feathers”?

Although it’s hard to believe, some people still ignore the fact that Indigenous people and a long history of colonization exists in Canada. Turning Indigenous people into Halloween costumes is a clear display of this ignorance and shows that people still disregard our voices, our personhood and the long history of trauma we have endured because of colonization in Canada.

deNAe petti My name is Denae Petti and I’m Cree and Dene from the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba, Canada (Turtle Island).

When I was growing up Indigenous in a primarily white neighbourhood, I was exposed to a lot of racism. My friends would mock my culture, and kids would swear at me and call me things like “Dirty Indian” while I played hockey. These kinds of experiences led me to carry a lot

of shame for being Indigenous.

When people dress up as “Indians” for Halloween, they are ignoring the fact that they are dressing up in an identity and culture that Indigenous people have been shamed for.

We weren’t always allowed to practice our cultures or to even call ourselves Indians.

Many of our people were sent to residential schools where the government tried to “kill the Indian in the child.” By dressing up as “Indians,” the racism we’ve faced and the cultural genocide of our people is ignored.

Dressing up as a ‘Sexy Indian’ ignores the fact that thousands of Indigenous girls, women and Two-Spirit people have been sexually assaulted, gone missing and been murdered. People who dress up as ‘Sexy Indians’ are doing a lot more than just wearing a costume. They are contributing to our objectification and sexualization. This ongoing violence against us is not okay.

rodNey little mustAcHe My name is Rodney Little Mustache and I’m from the Piikani Niitsitapi First Nation in Alberta, Canada (Turtle Island).

I believe that fashion icons like Anna Wintour, Andre Leon Talley and Karl Lagerfeld could stop non-Indigenous businesses from producing and selling “Indigenousinspired” clothing, but they do not. They do not consider the negative implications that their fashion statements have had on the cultures that they appropriate. “Indigenous” Halloween costumes, for instance, may very well have trickled down from the fashion industry and its promotion of “Indigenous-inspired” clothing as fashionable for everyone.

Halloween shops might only stop selling “Indigenous” costumes when people at the top of the international fashion industry stop appropriating Indigenous cultures in their designs. Whether ill will is intended or not, it is not okay to create, sell, buy or wear “Indigenous” clothes or costumes when you are not an Indigenous person.

leNAyA sAmpsoN My name is Lenaya Sampson and I’m from the N’laka Pamux First Nation in British Columbia, Canada (Turtle Island).

I think the appropriation of Indigenous people continues to happen due to non-Indigenous people selling and profiting off of Indigenous traditions like dream catchers and voyageur canoes. But around Halloween, appropriation of Indigenous cultures is heightened by “Indigenous” costumes. Every year I wonder why and how anyone thinks that it is okay

to make costumes out of other people’s cultures and customs. We Indigenous people have practiced our cultures and customs for millions of years and we have defended them in the face of colonization. People who make us into costumes do not consider the significance of the culture they are “portraying” or the strength and resilience of the people they are “embodying.” If people really took time to understand who we are and what we’ve been through, they would never turn us into cheaply made Halloween costumes and greatly disrespect us by doing so. It is hurtful.

tANNer Neufeld My name is Tanner Neufeld and I am Metis from Ontario, Canada (Turtle Island).

Halloween is a time for us to enjoy ourselves and to dressup in costumes that replicate characters we like. However, Indigenous people are people, not characters, and our traditional clothes reflect Indigenous cultures and customs that are too special and unique to be turned into costumes. We Indigenous people wear our traditional clothes on special occasions only. Therefore, it is extremely inappropriate for non-Indigenous people to wear anything resembling our traditional clothes for Halloween. It is disrespectful and insensitive to think that dressing up in another person’s culture is acceptable.

memegWANs JoHNsoN-oWl My name is Memegwans Johnson-Owl and I’m Sagamok Anishnawbek from Ontario but was raised in Saskatchewan, Canada (Turtle Island).

The appropriation of Indigenous cultures through Halloween costumes is a means of excluding Indigenous people from society. Costumes such as “Indian Warrior” or “Indian Princess” display Indigenous people as only existing in the past, and they hinder our ability to represent ourselves today.

When Indigenous people are seen as objects of the past, our present-day accomplishments, the power of our cultures and everything we have fought to change and are fighting to change is neglected and not recognized.

People want to dress up as “Indians” but they do not want to acknowledge the fact that Indigenous people face currentday issues and that Canada has a very dark history.

cole dAley My name is Cole Daley and I’m from the Chawathil First Nation in British Columbia, Canada (Turtle Island).

The question of whether a costume is offensive can be

boiled down to more fundamental questions in my mind: does the costume reinforce harmful stereotypes and is the individual guilty of cultural appropriation by cheaply imitating another person’s culture with their costume?

The ongoing acts of colonialism perpetuate a power imbalance that makes any costume which mimics or serves to ‘honour’ Indigenous culture a gross act of cultural appropriation and not one of appreciation.

Much of the imagery and regalia that people often choose to add to their costume is divorced from its original context and purpose, losing all manner of meaning and just becoming a prop in every sense of the word.

Within my grandparents lifetime it was a criminal offense in this country for our own people to appreciate the visual and ceremonial elements of our own culture due to the Indian Act. To some, it is just an innocent costume and I get that. But on the other hand, you could dress up as Captain America or Superwoman instead.

Rebecca hope Gouthro

ViCtoR SaUCa

Denae Petti

ViCtoR SaUCa

Rodney Litt le mustache

ViCtoR SaUCa

Lenaya Sampson

ViCtoR SaUCa

tanner Neufeld

ViCtoR SaUCa

memegwans Johnson-owl

ViCtoR SaUCa

Cole Daley

ViCtoR SaUCa

amber Rose

ViCtoR SaUCa

Amber rose My name is Amber Rose and I’m Gitxsan and Indigenous to Northern British Columbia, Canada (Turtle Island).

I’m part of one distinct nation out of many that exist in what is now known as Canada and North America. My nation, like every other, has always had complex and unique forms of kinship, governance, land management, and economic systems. Ongoing colonization enforced by Canada’s legal system, institutionalized education system and many other systemic structures creates systemic oppression and continuously forces Indigenous people to assimilate to the dominant non-Indigenous culture of Canada. This intentional and violent history of colonization has resulted in disparities in every facet of life for Indigenous people, especially in the extreme violence against our native women and girls.

We do not deserve this systemic oppression, this racism, or this violence. We do not deserve to be made into costumes.

A lack of knowledge about and compassion for Indigenous people is evident when these costumes are sold and worn. This year, please be mindful of what costume you choose to wear.

fiNAl tHougHts Thanks to Victor Sauca for following my creative direction and for taking incredible portraits of all those who contributed.

Last but never least, thank you to everyone who truly listens to Indigenous voices. We need more people like you standing with us. Meegwetch and happy Halloween! U

oCtobER 30, 2018 tueSDAY | CuLture | 7 do be do be do //

loVe it or list it //

UBC Jazz Café Club unifies musicians and jazz-lovers alike Jasmine mani Contributor

The UBC Jazz Café Club is not just an exclusive club for jazz musicians — it’s a welcoming space where jazz players and appreciators alike can meet on campus to enjoy the groovy genre together.

A background in jazz music is hardly a prerequisite to getting involved — even the president of the club himself, Roberto Tanaka, began listening to the genre just two years ago.

“I’m just an appreciator,” Tanaka says. “I don’t play jazz, I just listen to it!”

The Jazz Café Club hosts weekly jam sessions on Tuesday nights in the Nest where all are welcome to participate and listen.

For musicians wanting to get involved, “it’s kind of like a lowcommitment band,” says the club’s VP of music, Matthew Cam. “It’s an alternative for people who want an introduction to jazz, or want to play something, but don’t have the time to join the full jazz orchestra.”

The jam sessions range anywhere from five to over 30 people and feature a combination of instruments such as drums, bass, keys, trumpet, trombone, violin, clarinet, flute, the recorder and even singers.

In addition to their jam sessions, the UBC Jazz Café

moiRa WYtoN

i was soon left with three buttons i loved and three i could bear to part with.

moira Wyton Features Editor

the Jazz Café Club hosts weekly jam sessions on tuesday nights in the Nest.

Club is hosting a variety of social events this year in collaboration with other UBC groups. Next semester, the club executives plan on collaborating with UBC Brazilian Club BRASA for a bossa nova themed jazz evening with

Brazilian food and activities.

For many of its members, the Jazz Café Club “is kind of a way to unify musicians who are superbly talented, with the people who love seeing them [play] live,” VP Marketing Kevin Li explained.

CoURtESY UbC Jazz CaFÉ CLUb

“We provide the venue, and the venue is important; but it’s also secondary to the community that it brings together.”

Attend the UBC Jazz Café Club’s next event by checking updates posted on their Facebook group. U

Word oN tHe street //

24th annual Word Vancouver showcases a collective adoration for literature

Literary arts festivals are part of a niche community and for some avid bookworms, these events might be recent discoveries.

carol eugene park Contributor

In Library Square at the corner of Homer and Robson, authors, publishers and editors found themselves with an overcast sky and the persistent beating of Vancouver rain. Despite the grim weather, readers and literary arts lovers gathered around their favourite authors and conversed with advocacy groups while kids ran in flocks toward the children’s literary booths.

This year marked the 24th annual Word Vancouver event.

Like many local literary arts festivals, Word Vancouver created a space in which curious

Hot One Inch Action proves size doesn’t matter when it comes to wearable art

passersby could wander into booths casually, browsing through the diverse array of organizations seated under the vibrant red tents.

Walking around, an attendee could spend a generous amount of time at each booth engaging in literary discussions or casual conversations and still lack enough hours in the day to gain a full experience of the festival.

Local author J.C. McKenzie sat behind one of the long tables, showcasing her collection of paranormal romance novels, encased in ziplock bags to protect them from the rain.

This year’s event was McKenzie’s first, after moving back to Vancouver from living

in Saskatchewan for three years.

Despite the dark covers of her books, McKenzie’s inviting smile and visible passion for her craft drew attendees to her booth.

“I’m not expecting to sell a lot of books with this beautiful weather,” she said, laughing. “But everyone who walks by is going to see our banner. They’re going to see my covers and maybe later, they will see it again and be like ‘Oh yeah, I saw something about that,’ and just kind of triggers that familiarity as something that they might want to check out.”

Literary arts festivals are part of a niche community and for some avid bookworms, these events might be recent discoveries.

CaRoL EUGENE PaRK

“I didn’t know these things existed. I think that I lived in a little isolated world,” McKenzie confessed. “You don’t get together with buddies to read a good book.

I always read on my own and just devoured books on my own. I never thought there’d be events like this.”

Being in the presence of talented literary figures, you can feel the excitement of a shared collective adoration for literature, for the act of writing and for a community of storytellers.

“Talk to other like-minded people, talk to other authors, see what’s out there,” McKenzie said.

“It’s quite a neat community to be a part of.” U

Last Saturday night, in a warehouse just off Main Street, a red carpet rolled out onto the street. Two dogs laid at the entrance and children ran around bar tables covered in handbills for an upcoming art show titled “Boobies and Wieners.”

Against many odds, I was in the right place.

The 15th and final edition of Hot One Inch Action saw dozens of Vancouver art-lovers gather to appreciate the little things.

Fifty works of art by artists from Vancouver and beyond got miniature makeovers for the event, each of them printed on one-inch buttons to be bought via a random assortment and traded by attendees.

I started my bartering adventure by pulling a bag of buttons out of a fuzzy hot pink box at the end of the gallery — at $5 per bag, it was tempting to get more than one, and many others did. I started small, but some enthusiasts with dozens of buttons for trade roamed the gallery with their wares.

While intimidating at first, trading with others is why Hot One Inch Action thrives where traditional art shows stop short.

People of all ages and backgrounds — including a baby in a tiny beanie covered in pins — were eager to discuss their favourite designs and make conversation.

Strategy quickly became key when I realized I had some soughtafter designs. Even still, I couldn’t resist making a bad trade so a little girl could have a banana design for her stuffed monkey. I was soon left with three buttons I loved and two I could bear to part with.

Jim Hoehnle, who co-founded the annual event in 2004 with Chris Bentzen, pointed out that buttons have become both art and accessory.

“When we first did the show, we were more angled towards where the intersection is between where the buttons fit in pop culture,” said Hoehnle.

“People like buttons, because the image is on them — it’s a really visible expression of who they are and what they care about.”

As Hot One Inch Action and its sister event, Carded!, wind down this year, they leave plenty of room for future events to learn from what has made them great — affordability, accessibility and the art of making a deal you can wear home. U

FEATURES

october 30, 2018 Tuesday

Editor moira wyton

8

In 2018, 38 per cent of students experienced racial discrimination at UBC In Dezy Nair’s first year, a professor’s comments about her family background rubbed her the wrong way.

The course focused on linguistic identity and the professor made Nair feel pressured into writing on her Malaysian heritage.

The professor, a white woman, often made an example of Nair in class as one of the few students of colour in the smaller tutorial. She often asked her “Why don’t you know the language?” that her parents had grown up speaking.

But where Nair’s family originated in Malaysia, one could get by speaking English.

“She was like, ‘Oh, it’s such a shame that you don’t know all of those languages,’ and that was frustrating to me,” said Nair, “Because it just shows this kind of misunderstanding of hers, of how hard it is to keep culture when you come here.

“I felt like she was kind of trying to vouch for this ethnicity that wasn’t there.”

In the 2018 AMS Academic Experience Survey (AES), 38 per cent of UBC students reported experiencing racial discrimination at UBC in the 2017/18 academic year. Many of these students carry stories of being forced to defend their heritage, being singled-out by professors to speak on behalf of entire ethnicities and hearing racial slurs.

But the data collected in the 2018 AMS Academic Experience Survey (AES) is hardly a blip.

In fact, the numbers are a slight improvement from 2017,

when 42 per cent of students reported discrimination on the basis of race. The number hovered at 36 in 2015 and jumped to 39 per cent the next year indicating that a stubborn baseline of racial discrimination at UBC persists.

“That is alarming to us obviously, the rate of discrimination that students are experiencing from their instructors, but even more alarming to see the discrimination that’s coming from students,” said AMS VP Academic and University Affairs Max Holmes.

This baseline figure may exist to an extent because policy hasn’t been effective at addressing it. Policy 3 on Discrimination and Harassment, under which racial discrimination and harassment may be addressed by the university, was last approved in 1995, nearly 23 years ago — a time when UBC’s student population was much less international and much less diverse. In 2018, 42 per cent of students identified as Asian, 2 per cent as Black and 3 per cent as Latin American, according to the AES.

These policies were not made to accommodate the world we see today — they did not have extensive definitions of what we consider certain things to be.

– AMS President Marium Hamid

Now student leaders like Holmes and AMS President Marium Hamid are working with the university to update and improve a policy they say wasn’t built for the reality students see today.

“This is probably one of the most important policy reviews that’s going to be happening this year,” said Holmes.

Campus has changed a lot since 1993. So has its student body.

The highest rate of discrimination at UBC is reported by Asian students — 51 per cent of Chinese students and 52 per cent of South Asian students have

Ariel Qi

experienced racial discrimination at least once in the last year according to the AES, with 10 and 11 per cent respectively experiencing it “often” or “frequently.”

While numbers are slightly higher for undergraduates than for graduate students, both groups are more than twice as likely to report experiencing racism from other students than from a faculty member.

And since Policy 3 was last updated, UBC’s student population has nearly doubled and rapidly diversified.

International enrolment at UBC is increasing exponentially. Over 4,400 students from China alone were enrolled at UBC in 2017/18, an increase of 147 per cent from 2013/14. Numbers for students from India, the third-largest country of origin for international students after China and the United States are smaller but growing at an even faster rate. In 2017/18, 726 students from India were enrolled, an increase of 263 per cent from 2013/14.

“These policies were not made to accommodate the world we see today — they did not have extensive definitions of what we consider certain things to be,” said AMS President Marium Hamid. She noted that Policy 3 had a minor update in 2016 to include “gender identity and expression” as protected grounds from discrimination and harassment to reflect changing federal law.

UBC itself has actively championed the change these demographics and policy challenges reflect. In “Shaping the Next Century,” UBC’s new strategic plan, fostering diversity and inclusion is listed as the fourth of ten major goals of the plan.

Dr. Sara-Jane Finlay, associate vicepresident of equity and inclusion, sees this commitment as core to UBC’s role in mitigating discrimination and harassment.

“UBC is really committed to be inquisitive to creating an inclusive campus and they’re responding when issues are brought to our attention in an appropriate way,” said Finlay.

But UBC has also seen an increase in complaints filed against individuals in the university community for discrimination and harassment as it relates to race. In 2016/17, the Equity & Inclusion Office received 24 complaints of racial discrimination or harassment over nine months; in 2017/18, the office responded to 59 complaints — more than double the year before.

Finlay noted that these figures don’t account for people who may pursue grievances through the university ombudsperson or student non-academic misconduct procedures.

And while the uptick is clear, both Finlay and Holmes were hesitant to point fingers at which factors may have caused the spike in reports of discrimination and harassment in 2017.

“I think it’s really hard to put a finger on why that is, whether it’s about people be more aware of the kinds of services that we can offer or the issues that we can respond to,” said Finlay.

Holmes called the political climate in 2017 around race “exceptional” in a previous interview with The Ubyssey.

“I think if you ask anyone, 2016/17 was a polarizing year when it came to the issues of discrimination,” said Holmes.

With an increasingly diverse student body and growing urgency of racial discrimination on campus, Hamid highlighted that changing Policy 3 to reflect current challenges will be essential to its success.

“It’s not always about trying to change a student to fit what our policies look like, but changing our policies to look what the student looks like,” she said.

As it currently stands, Policy 3 reflects the BC Human Rights Code, which generally remains unchanged since the policy was last updated.

Finlay sees the challenges, however, in clarifying what the policy does and who may access it.

“It’s a bit of a clunky policy,” said Finlay. “And I think the work that the policy committee is doing is to make it clearer and give people a better sense of what the process is and to understand how we deal with concerns of race and discrimination at the university.”

Finlay, Holmes and Hamid believe that taking a holistic approach to the review will be essential. Hamid wants to see a commitment to embedding all units at UBC into the updated version of Policy 3.

“Whether it is their address with academic advising, whether it is their interaction with the student service, or

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october 30, 2018 tueSDAY | features | 9

Words Moira Wyton Design Chelsea Dumasal

C. That figure is hardly a blip.

rolment service, or their and their eraction with the AMS, all of these ngs need to start accommodating ery kind of student,” said Hamid.

“I think a lot of work [with this policy iew] is being done in different rooms understand how this changing face of university is not reflected within the titution.”

The policy will also have to reflect w developments at the university — luding Policy 131 (Sexual Assault and her Sexual Misconduct), which came o effect in May 2017. A recent Ubyssey estigation revealed that policy’s plementation was less than smooth, d Finlay hopes the updated version l be able to clarify how the two icies work together as well as with icy 95 (Formal Investigations).

“It’s timely with the creation of Policy ,” said Finlay. “We needed to create me clarification and update the policy that it works a little bit more smoothly h Policy 131.”

While Holmes, Hamid and Finlay student consultation as key to ermining what in Policy 3 needs change, the “looming threat” of aliation for filing a complaint is one a of the policy that Finlay is looking more broadly. The Vice-President’s ategic Implementation Committee Equity and Diversity (VPICED) is rking on guidelines for deterring d dealing with retaliation across the versity which Finlay sees helping to engthen the objectives of Policy 3.

[Students] seeing themselves in the classrooms, seeing themselves in the curriculum and really seeing their diversity reflected there s really a key to their success and to their sense of inclusion at the institution.

– Dr. Sara-Jane Finlay, associate vice-president of equity and inclusion

“I do feel a bit uncomfortable allenging anything that a professor s if it sort of makes me feel that less at e because I know that there’s a power balance at play, and I don’t want that negatively affect my performance,” d Esther Schmidt-Brown, a fourth-

year history student at the time of her interview.

For Holmes, curbing retaliation is an important part of empowering students to bring their concerns forward, particularly in graduate programs where one’s entire degree and funding could depend on the support of a single faculty supervisor.

“It’s going to be important to make sure that we have something set-up [for retaliation] that doesn’t just work for undergraduate students, that doesn’t just work for faculty members, but also works especially for the unique relationship that graduate students have with the university,” said Holmes, stressing that the AMS will be working closely with the Graduate Students Society to consult on this and other aspects of the review. “We have an obligation to our members first to advocate for policy that will not tolerate discrimination and will not tolerate retaliation.”

Policy 3 can only take UBC so far.

Hamid and Finlay believe that education and curricula play an essential role in combating discrimination — and that starts with their work on the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Academic Diversity and Inclusion.

“The classroom is a place where these issues matter,” said Hamid, who chairs the Committee. “When we talk about education that is inclusive, having courses that are labeled as ‘Women in the Economy’ is not quite enough.”

Schmidt-Brown knows this well — and she feels the problem could be improved if curricula placed emphasis on communities and populations that have been marginalized.

“I’ve written courses where a professor has brought up the 1940s and Eastern Europe, and they don’t even mention the Nazi invasion or the Holocaust ... It’s so strange to leave out,” said Schmidt-Brown, a Jewish student. “So even in curricula, you see these implicit curricular emissions, and I would almost say, a failure to contextualize topics from an equity standpoint.”

Finlay, a member of the Senate committee, sees diversifying curricula as part of not only combatting discrimination but making sure that diversity flourishes at UBC. “[Students] seeing themselves in the classrooms, seeing themselves in the curriculum and really seeing their diversity reflected there is really a key to their success and to their sense of inclusion at the institution,” said Finlay. In collaboration with Equity & Inclusion, the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology also has two full-time staff supporting professors in developing inclusive teaching practices.

Finlay is also working with VPICED to develop an “inclusion action plan,” in order to operationalize the strategic plan and define “what inclusion means on our campus, what it looks like, how it can be demonstrated, and how we can ensure the success of our faculty, staff and students.”

Hamid and Holmes agree that supporting diversity and inclusion must go beyond a reactive capacity in order for the student experience as a whole to reflect the diversity UBC prides itself in.

“We like to talk about the student experience as a singular experience that is separate from academic experience to an average student, but there’s only one experience — the university experience,” said Hamid. “It seems like there’s a lot that students are suffering through with their quality of experience — a lot of positives, a lot of negatives as well.

“A lot of work has been done, but it takes a lot of time to meander through that.”

“That’s one of my big hopes for Policy 3 … that people feel comfortable bringing forward complaints and concerns when they have them, and don’t get lost in the policy and not proceed.”

Nair hopes that a revised policy could help students in vulnerable positions like hers vocalize and address their experiences.

“I just didn’t have the vocabulary to understand what happened,” she said, “and that makes me think about other, younger students who maybe experience similar things and don’t have the vocabulary I have now.”

Holmes and Hamid see the review as an opportunity for the university to renew its commitment to fostering respectful and productive discussions — and a challenge as it seeks to use these conflicts as a chance to propel the university forward.

“I think UBC has grown at a rate that is amazing — what makes UBC special is the fact that we can have all these different identities,” said Hamid. “But it doesn’t stop us or stagnate us from going forward. U

In 2019, UBC will have a shiny new Policy 3, and with it new ways of measuring racial discrimination on campus.

But Finlay urges the community to look beyond the numbers.

“Please don’t assume that a sign of success is a decrease in the concerns and complaints around harassment and discrimination,” stressed Finlay. “In fact, if we have a well-functioning system and a strong policy, we will probably see an increase, because people will feel more confident that the institution will be able to support them in their concerns and complaints.”

Aki Ota

Ayesha Diwan

OPINIONS

october 30, 2018 TUesday

Editor TRISTAN WHEELER

10

awareness //

Mental health //

Last Words: If the AMS doesn’t care about the AGM, why should students?

It does not seem like UBC is making it a priority.

FILE CHERIHAN HASSUN

Last Words: We shouldn’t have to say this, but UBC needs a fall reading break The Ubyssey Editorial Board

We know we’ve said this before and that this is not a controversial opinion, but UBC is in dire need of a fall reading break.

The reason it’s been a talking point for so many student politicians and newspaper editors, that it’s been advocated for in letters, campaigns and campus discourse for years, is because a fall reading break should already exist.

Fall reading break, which is already in place at most major Canadian universities (except for some like UBC and McGill) has been one of the most prominently requested concessions among students. Yet despite the thousands of students whose mental and physical health suffer during the late October and early November season, it does not seem like UBC is making it a priority.

The call for a fall reading

break has woefully become nothing but a buzzword on campus, an uncontroversial rallying cry for student leadership hopefuls to gain widespread appeal. It remains something none have been able to deliver.

There was yet another false start at the AMS’ recent Annual General Meeting, where VP Academic and University Affairs Max Holmes said that a fall reading break was likely for the 2019/2020 academic year.

Unfortunately, this statement was refuted by Academic Policy Chair Dr. Paul Harrison.

It’s not hard to see the very real, physical toll that this time of year takes on students — all you need to do is walk down Main Mall to see the hundreds of students in shambles stumbling from class to class just trying to stay afloat. Ask anyone how many assignments, midterms or labs that they have due with no time to sleep.

UBC can’t hide behind its heming and haw-ing that a break would shorten the exam period, force us to have exams on Sundays or cause the semester to start before the September long weekend anymore.

The antidote to ubiquitous midterm anxiety and stress is something that many other schools — including almost every other major Canadian university — have figured out, and none of them have burned to the ground yet.

If UBC were to institute a break, it would be a step towards demonstrating to its students that the university takes mental health and student well-being seriously.

All we’re asking for is a few days to rest, catch up on sleep and, momentarily, not have to worry about the grind of classes.

At the risk of using a buzzword, sounding cliché or screaming into a silent void — we need a fall reading break. U

ILLUSTRATION BY ROAN SHANKARUK

SILENT NIGHT

Kevin Puts

November 3, 8, 9 — 7:30 p.m. | November 4 — 2:00 p.m.

THE OLD AUDITORIUM

Robert Wood | Conductor Nancy Hermiston | Director Vancouver Opera Orchestra

Student Tickets from $15 Phone: 604.822.6725 Online: ubcoperatickets.com

Silent Night, based on the screenplay by Christian Carion for the motion picture Joyeux Nöel produced by Nord‑Ouest Production. Commissioned by Minnesota Opera. A Minnesota Opera New Works Initiative Production. By arrangement with Aperto Press, Publisher Bill Holab Music: Sole Agent.

No attendance was taken.

The Ubyssey Editorial Board

The last AMS Council meeting was, in a word, weird.

Infuriated by low turnout at the society’s annual general meeting (AGM), Law Councillor Dylan Braam took the executive to task for failing to publicize the event.

The executive responded largely by pinning the blame on The Ubyssey, complaining that the paper had not run an article in advance.

AMS AGMs, which have a quorum of one per cent of all UBC Vancouver students, don’t traditionally draw a crowd.

But this time was especially bad.

The meeting happened in the middle of the lower atrium of the Nest, fighting for volume with club booths blasting music and hundreds of students who just wanted to grab a bite to eat.

There were nowhere near enough seats laid out for quorum.

There was no explanation to confused onlookers that this was, in theory, the single most important public meeting the AMS holds all year and that huge motions could be passed if enough students mobilized to attend. No attendance was taken.

Instead, after waiting the required 30 minutes before they can begin without quorum, the AMS then rushed through a huge series of reports while students helped themselves to the free food.

Announcements made included the society’s $900,000 budget surplus; a possible success in the long fight for a fall reading break; AMS VP External Cristina Ilnitchi’s work on advocating for

SHAMIT RAHMAN

a subway expansion to UBC; and at least $50,000 in donations from President Santa Ono’s office for the AMS Food Bank over the next five years.

You’d figure it’s the kind of thing the society would want to promote. Under the society’s bylaws, they have to publish the agenda of the AGM in The Ubyssey at least two weeks before the meeting takes place.

Mind you, that was written back when The Ubyssey was owned by the society. We still would have been happy to do it.

But the only thing we heard from the AMS was a one-line email notifying us the event was happening. We reached out on the Friday before the meeting asking for a statement so we could write a quick PSA. At Council, President Marium Hamid said that was too short notice.

They could have written a letter, as they have done in the past. They could have taken out an ad in the paper — they get a full-page one every month as part of our lease agreement to be in the Nest.

Instead, they spent the better part of an hour arguing over whether Councillors had done enough to promote the event on their personal Facebook feeds.

We care quite a bit about decreasing student apathy towards student politics. We know it takes Herculean effort just to get people to spend two minutes to vote in the annual AMS elections, let alone sacrifice an hour to attend an AGM. But if the AMS doesn’t care about the AGM, what student will? U

FROM THE BLOG tutoring //

11

THEY DID THE MASH //

Supplement your learning with these education resources on campus

Plan ahead if you can.

october 30, 2018 Tuesday

Editor Tristan Wheeler

FILE GEOFF LISTER

Olivia Johnson Staff writer

In high school, concepts are taught with thorough explanation. In university though, students can find themselves in a whirlwind of assignments, with ideas being thrown in your face without any guidance. Sometimes you need a little help — and for this midterm season, here are the best tutoring resources available.

The AMS offers a great and wide range of tutoring options available to students. Though their website, AMS Tutoring “provides students with a readily available and always up to date schedule for their dropin group sessions,” according to Saurav Acharya, the AMS tutoring coordinator. There are multiple on-campus locations as well, but the Nest room 2528 is the most popular.

These sessions are free and currently do not suffer from the dread of waitlists. There is even the possibility that these free groupsessions will become one-on-one aids. During midterm season, this tutoring centre naturally gets a bit busier, so plan ahead if you can.

“The earlier you come [in] before an assignment is due, the better [help may be],” Acharya said.

AMS Tutoring is more guided towards the science faculty, but help for commerce and math courses is also a huge part of their program. These types of classes also open the possibility of branching out to further faculties and covering a wider demographic of students in need of help too.

If you prefer having one-onone tutoring from the comfort of your home, the online forum of HelpHub.com is available. This online resource offers tutoring on a variety of subjects, but students will be charged a fee that can be paid through the website itself. Students pay before the session starts but by using the website, the risk of credit card scamming is mitigated.

Finally, there is always the Learning Commons Help Centre.

Through their website, students can personalize what kind of help they need. This option is great for students who don’t have heavy workloads full of calculations and graphs but require more attention to their writing and grammar. The Writing Centre, located in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, can help you conquer that next essay. U

What the Halloween club crawl should actually be Anupriya Dasgupta Contributor

I don’t know about you, but when I first saw the orange Halloween Club Crawl flyers, I expected a night of ghouls, spookings and Shane and Ryan from Buzzfeed Unsolved — not another reason to go club-hopping and getting blackout drunk.

So if you’re like me, I have taken the mightily important job of event planner and come up with a classic ghostly Halloween crawl including events in Vancouver that you can actually attend as well as a few that I, an aspiring Halloween party planner, wish existed.

First things first — costumes!

If you’ve paid any attention to the orange flyers, you’d see that costumes are mandatory — as they should be. Spend the entire weekend in a costume; go to class in costume; go on the bus in costume; sit by the fountain in costume; do a cool Spice Girls group costume or a creepy Annabelle costume or maybe go as a moth and a lamp with your significant other.

Forbidden Vancouver Tours These Halloween special tours include “The Lost Souls of Gastown” and “Secrets of Stanley

Park.” Explore murder mysteries, secret cemeteries and the Great Fire of Gastown with professional storytellers.

Vancouver Mysteries Think escape room, but better. Team up with your friends and satisfy your dreams of being a homicide detective by signing up with Vancouver Mysteries for Halloween Mystery Nights in Gastown between October 13 and 31.

Horror Movie Screenings These are happening all over UBC and Vancouver this month! UBC FilmSoc is screening Martin and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night on October 31, so go for a community spooking experience!

Spooky Stories at Wreck Beach Go down past midnight with some Halloween candy and a flashlight and share some spine-tingling local legends with your friends, even though sometimes Wreck Beach in broad daylight is scarier than any other time of day.

Halloween Dance Marathon If nothing else, I suggest having a 24-hour dance marathon outside the

I expected a night of ghouls.

Nest with the likes of “Psycho Killer” and “This Is Halloween” instead of EDM. Whoever wins this marathon, I expect you to run around the fountain with a jack-o-lantern on your head.

ZUBAIR HIRJI

And if all else fails and you just want to spend the night in, plug in your earphones and watch a Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural marathon with the Ghoul Boys. U

THEY DID THE MONSTER MASH //

The spookiest places on campus to test your bravery at this Halloween Visit the Nest on a weekend

Stroll Main Mall after dark

The Nest is an energetic hub of student life during the weekdays, but come Fridays at 5 p.m., the building becomes eerily quiet.

You’ll feel disoriented, confused and afraid as your brain tries to remedy the quiet ambiance with what you know to be the usual life and energy of the space.

Wait till the tourists are gone and Tim’s is closed, while the Canadian flag in the Flagpole Plaza stands tall in the chill of the night. Devoid of students, Main Mall turns ghostly. Walking through it alone will give you the heebie-jeebies.

Pause at any construction site on campus Currently, there are 10 construction sites on the UBC campus. A late-night excursion to any one will be a haunting experience, as your eyes distort cranes and pipes into menacing ghouls and monsters and you consider how construction might affect your shortcuts to class. And who even knows what they’re building.

Attend your prof’s office hours

Main Mall turns ghostly.

Anupriya Dasgupta & Tait Gamble Contributor and Staff Writer

With Halloween coming up, you might find yourself looking off

FILE GEOFF LISTER

campus for spooky events that make this time of year so fun. But fear not! There are plenty of spooky sites right here on campus that will help you get in the Halloween spirit.

Office hours, be they student-less or crowded with the panicked and confused, offer you the perfect opportunity to experience either the haunting feelings of neglect and abandonment or the frenzy of panic amongst your peers.

Attend office hours, get your questions answered and yourself frightened!

Take the forest walk past Hawthorne Place If you’ve ever taken the scenic route to Thunderbird Stadium through Main Mall, you might have walked through Hawthorne Place.

Walk further down towards the large and looming trees on a dark, foggy night alone or with your boo — pun intended.

Patrol Marine Drive searching for the Vanishing Hitchhiker Legend says that on October nights, a young woman hitchhikes along the drive and asks those who pick her up to drive her home.

Rescuers drive to her address, only to discover upon arrival that she has disappeared! She is, according to legend, the ghost of a young UBC student killed many years ago on her way home from a Halloween party. Take a jaunt along Marine Drive in search of the hitchhiker and see for yourself if the stories are true. U

scieNce

oCtobER 30, 2018 tueSDAY

EDitoR JAMES VOGL

12

diVersity //

UBC engineering aims to tackle gender imbalance by building community micah killjoy Contributor

Historically underrepresented in STEM, women and gender minorities are now a top priority for UBC engineering faculty as they work towards balanced representation — and the enrollment numbers are starting to show it.

The rate of women entering the engineering program at UBC has risen from 19 per cent in 2007 to 26 per cent in 2017.

The current national average is around 23 per cent.

Much of the initiative at UBC to encourage women to pursue engineering started with West Coast Women in Engineering, Science and Technology (WWEST), a program that has encouraged diversity in STEM since 2010. That program, once led by a UBC professor, has since shifted its leadership to SFU. Even with the program’s move, Sheryl Staub-French, advisor on equity, diversity and inclusion for the faculty of applied sciences, stated that the impetus from WWEST to encourage women into engineering has become a part of the structure at UBC. “We believe that [the] engineering profession should reflect the society that it serves. Our goal is

50/50 … we’ve really shown that you can move the dial, that if you invite girls and young women to come, they do come.”

French-Staub believes that the main obstacles for women’s engineering recruitment are twofold. On the one hand, unlike other male-dominated fields like law or medicine, few people outside the engineering field really understand what the career entails. The other problem she identified plagues all STEM fields: a lack of representation in both the classroom and work force.

To work on the former, UBC holds workshops to educate middle school teachers and parents about engineering and get the word out early so students can understand the details of what engineers do in their day-to-day.

Lack of representation is harder to tackle because of its cyclical nature. When minorities see few role models from their demographic, it is difficult to stay in the field — perpetuating fewer role models. This problem is being approached by UBC in a multitude of ways, almost all of which focus on overcoming imposter syndrome and contributing to a student’s sense of belonging.

“The single biggest thing we can do to help [a new female

FiLE GEoFF LiStER

“We believe that engineering profession should reflect the society that it serves,” said French-Staub.

engineering student] is to help them feel that they’re a part of the community,” said French-Staub.

This plays out in a few ways at UBC. One community-building element is an active Women in Engineering group that supports events ranging from resumewriting workshops to womenin-engineering themed costume parties, to a commemoration of

the École Polytechnique massacre.

Other techniques to encourage a sense of community involve bringing in senior students to discuss and normalize the struggles of being a first-year, as well as working to make sure faculty are aware of their own biases.

During their first-year, the 800+ new engineering students also work in smaller groups on

applied projects that give them a sense of larger positive impact.

Through this work, FrenchStaub hopes to help students understand that, despite the rigorous coursework, “the work that we do as engineers [is] a helping profession. [We’re] trying to make people’s lives better [and] communities better.”

Beyond faculty-led initiatives, students have also started programs aimed at improving representation in engineering as well. Veronica Knott, 2014 president of the UBC engineering undergraduate society, worked with WWEST and UBC WWEST to create a ceremony at the beginning of the year where firstyears pledge to uphold engineering ethics and to show respect and integrity in the workplace.

French-Staub said this shows the desire that students have to continue pushing the culture towards inclusivity. “I think the new students aren’t going tolerate inappropriate behaviour or any of those other things that can really act as barriers to people staying in the profession.”

If these and other initiatives keep working as intended, the rate of women entering engineering programs should continue to climb, hopefully one day reaching the goal of 50 per cent. U

geNetics //

Study: Child abuse can affect DNA of survivors

ELLa ChaN

the implications of the study have launched a discussion that is not only scientific, but also social.

phoebe chong Contributor

Trauma is said to leave invisible scars on those who experience it. This adage refers to the psychological impact of traumatic events, but a new study suggests those scars can form on an even deeper level.

Researchers at UBC and Harvard have discovered that child abuse can leave a mark on DNA. Their recently published study compared the sperm cells of 34 men, finding a difference in the methylation of the DNA of those who experienced child abuse and those who have not.

DNA methylation is one of the processes which define the

function of a cell. The DNA in each cell of the body is composed of the same genes, but not all cells have the same function. The function of the cell is determined by how the genes are expressed. Nicole Gladish, one of the study authors and a UBC PhD candidate in the department of medical genetics, offered an analogy of genes as “light bulbs” which can be turned on or off, where the function of the cell is determined by the pattern of the light bulbs which are on or off.

The study looks at methyl groups that are attached or “tagged” to genes during a person’s life and act as a “dimmer switch” to affect how the gene is expressed.

The Kobor Lab at UBC was responsible for analyzing these tags.

Recent studies have shown that these tags track the things we are exposed to in our environment, such as pollution or stress. In one study, the sperm of two groups of rats were examined for DNA methylation. The sperm of the group of rats that was exposed to stress displayed a different pattern of methylation than that of the control group of rats which wasn’t exposed to any stress. Furthermore, the offspring of the rats exposed to stress displayed the same pattern and change in behaviour associated with exposure to stress.

“This is where our collaborators got interested,” said Gladish.

“There have been several studies trying to address transgenerational inheritance … we know that with childhood abuse the people that are exposed to it suffer a lot of adverse health outcomes later in life such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.”

“We are very interested in seeing if these types of health disparities can be reflected in the difference of these tags and if these tags can be passed on to the kids as well.”

Unfortunately, it is infeasible to replicate the study with women as it requires hundreds of egg cells to isolate and measure the tags. The potential subjects of further research would be the children of the men in the study, who could provide evidence of trans-generational inheritance. Interestingly, the men in the study were the offspring of subjects from another study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, which is an ongoing long-term women’s health

study that was established in 1989.

“It’s an amazing data set,” Gladish said. “This is in its very early days and it’s really exciting.”

The implications of the study have launched a discussion that is not only scientific, but also social as the study’s findings can inform people’s understanding about

child abuse. Gladish is excited about the response to the study.

“I’ve had a lot of people personally email me about their experience and it really validates them,” Gladish said. “[Child abuse] is greater than just an event that happened and it’s not just something in their heads.” U

68% OF

BRITISH COLUMBIANS AGREE:

IT’S TIME TO ELIMINATE INTEREST ON STUDENT LOANS Aran Armutlu, Chairperson, BC Federation of Students

EMAIL FINANCE MINISTER CAROLE JAMES

TO URGE HER TO ELIMINATE INTEREST IN BUDGET 2019

WWW.WEAREBCSTUDENTS.CA/INTEREST WATCH THE VIDEO

@theBCFS

sports+rec

oCtobER 30, 2018 tueSDAY

EDitoR LUCY FOX

14

footbAll //

iNclusiVe AtHletics //

The Blitz: Resilient U Sports to accompany Thunderbirds secure transgender policy implementation home-field advantage with document on best practices for playoff semifinal ‘A living and breathing document’:

in a short time, UbC football’s season has fl ipped right side up.

ryan Neale Senior Staff Writer

to foster a respectful competition environment. “[There are] little things like scripts for your public address announcer to reiterate that heckling has no place [in sport] … There’s a difference between cheering on your team and harassing a member of another team,” said Goldstein.

He then stressed that the U Sports’ guidance document would evolve as schools roll out the policy and learn from the process.

“To be clear, it’s going to be a living and breathing document that is going to change over time,” he said.

“This will just be the first iteration of it, and as we learn more, it will develop and grow over time.”

Thunderbirds running-back Ben Cummings caught a 2-yard touchdown pass in overtime to complete a 21-point comeback against the Manitoba Bisons on Saturday. With the 38-34 win, UBC secured themselves home field advantage for the first round of the Hardy Cup playoffs next week against Saskatchewan.

The ‘Big Three’ on offense collectively came alive Saturday afternoon. Quarterback Michael O’Connor passed for a whopping 467 yards, 4 touchdowns against 1 interception on 73 per cent accuracy. Wideout Trivel Pinto picked up where he left off last week, catching 12 passes for 184 yards and a pair of scores.

Cummings rushed for 97 yards on 17 carries (5.4 yards per rush), added 3 catches out of the backfield for 20 yards and the walk-off touchdown.

AN eVolViNg issue

A tAle of tWo HAlVes

The question of what genders are explicitly recognized in sports will not be resolved by the implementation of this policy.

For instance, its current language does not address student-athletes, who don’t identify with the gender binary.

Goldstein pointed out that U Sports are still divided by gender, so the immediate solution is simply to allow student-athletes to change team between academic years — though not within an academic year.

Melia acknowledged that the CCES will continue exploring the topic of gender in sports, but this doesn’t mean that it is currently actively working on the subject of non-binary student-athletes.

“We’re going to continue and be interested in schools in Canada who have adopted the [U Sports] policy, their experience in implementing it and issues that arise — this may be one of them,” he said. “In addressing those issues, we might come a place where we want to explicitly address this issue.” U

The first 30 minutes of football did not go well for UBC. They allowed a sack on the second play of the game and were pinned inside their own 20-yard line, thus losing the valuable field position. The ensuing punt granted Manitoba a short field to work with to start their drive, which resulted in a swift touchdown.

To their credit, the Thunderbirds responded accordingly, perfectly executing a play-action pick route for a 1-yard Trey Kellogg touchdown.

The euphoria was short lived, however, as the Bisons’ Dylan Schrote took advantage of UBC’s appalling tackling and slipped through for a 66-yard reception — setting up Manitoba’s second offensive touchdown.

It didn’t get any better for the T-Birds as the half waned to a close. Between a porous defensive performance and an offense content with playing into the flats, UBC conceded another two scores to Manitoba.

FiLE LUCY FoX/ CoURtESY U SPoRtS

U Sports is using a medical review system instead of allowing for an advanced exemption option.

Alex Nguyen News Editor

A month after U Sports announced a new policy on transgender student-athlete participation, the national governance body for Canadian university sports is continuing to build its guidance document for affiliated schools.

Under this policy, transgender student-athletes can choose to compete in either the team of their assigned sex at birth or their current gender identity. That said, they may only play for one gender within an academic year.

To ease the transition, U Sports’ guidance documentation hopes to provide recommendations and answers for common questions about the policy.

The specifics of the implementation will be determined by the individual schools, however.

“We set a rule and our schools are entitled to do things that are more stringent but not more lenient,” said U Sports Chief Operating Officer David Goldstein. “… We don’t tell schools how to run their tryouts, we don’t tell schools how to run their locker room arrangement or travel or hotel or anything like that.”

Goldstein added that there’s no requirement from U Sports for student-athletes or coaches to disclose or verify any information on this issue.

“We won’t know how many transgender student-athletes competed in a given year because they wouldn’t be classified any differently than anyone else on the team,” Goldstein said.

Currently, the details of UBC’s approach to the policy are unclear as they wait for further guidelines from U Sports.

“UBC supports the inclusive new U SPORTS Transgender Policy for student athletes,”

said Gord Hopper, director of performance and team support for UBC Athletics in an email to The Ubyssey, “but at this time we’re still waiting for some of the intricacies and details of the policy and how that relates to implementation.”

“A liViNg ANd breAtHiNg documeNt” According to Goldstein, a question that has received a lot of attention is how the Canadian anti-doping program would work with this policy.

With 14,000 affiliated studentathletes, U Sports is using a medical review system instead of allowing for an advanced exemption option.

If a transgender student-athlete undergoing hormonal therapy is flagged during a drug test, they would not be penalized as long as they can provide doctor-issued confirmation of their hormone treatment plan.

For those who are not willing to disclose that information, they would likely be flagged for a doping violation. This would usually result in at least a fouryear competition ban, according to Paul Melia, president of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports (CCES), which governs the Canadian anti-doping program.

“We certainly understand and respect the privacy of the individual,” said Melia, stressing that the CCES treats this information “extremely confidentially.”

“But when it comes to applying the rules of anti-doping, unfortunately to apply them in a way that the athlete can’t hide behind certain rules, the rule of anti-doping is fairly intrusive.”

Beyond this issue, the U Sports policy guidance document will include recommendations on how

FiiLE ELLa ChaN

Demoralized and down 31-13 at the half, it would have been easy for UBC to have cut their losses and moved on. After all, removing star players from a ‘lost’ game isn’t so foolish — minimizing the risk of injury is at the forefront of every coach’s mind in this situation.

But for the Thunderbirds, an 18-point halftime deficit wasn’t much to sweat.

“All we did at halftime was reflect on how important football is to us and ask each other if this was worth the battle,” said UBC head coach Blake Nill. “There are enough kids on this team where football truly means everything to them and we saw that kind of effort in the second half.”

On the T-Birds first possession of the third quarter, O’Connor slung it to Pinto for a 26-yard TD reception with a six-man blitz in his face. The two connected again mid-way through the fourth quarter with a 46-yard touchdown pass, Pinto using his blistering pace to shred Manitoba’s soft zone coverage. Cummings plowed into the end-zone out of the shotgun for a subsequent 2-point conversion to tie the game.

With the defense holding Manitoba to a field goal in overtime, UBC’s offense handily drove 35-yards for a Cummings touchdown to cap-off a ferocious comeback effort.

Perhaps the biggest turnaround for the ’Birds was defensive.

UBC intercepted Bison QB Jamie Ybarra twice in the second half, once in the red-zone, in which Stavros Katsantonis stayed inside of the receiver to haul in the pick.

Additionally, the Thunderbirds exerted more pressure on Manitoba — two of their three sacks came on critical downs in the second half.

With the win, UBC will play the Saskatchewan Huskies at Thunderbird Stadium next Saturday at 2 p.m. in the semifinals of the Hardy Cup playoffs.

Considering the amount of effort the team put into winning this game, make sure you’re out there watching them next week. U

october 30, 2018 tueSDAY | sports+REC | 15 RECAP //

Weekend rundown: Nail-biting playoff games, first wins and heroic homeopeners Lucy Fox Sports Editor

It was a weekend of hype game excitement on campus, while playoffs got rolling for many of UBC’s varsity fall teams. Both soccer teams keep annihilating opponents. Football continues to surprise us. Winter sports are picking up pace. Needless to say, it’s a busy time in sports. Here’s what you need to know from the last few days:

Hardy Cup semifinal in the cards for football UBC campus is going to be athletics obsessed this weekend, as UBC football will be hosting a playoff game at Thunderbird Stadium: a Hardy Cup semifinal against the Saskatchewan Huskies at 2 p.m. this coming Saturday.

The Thunderbirds kept the playoff ball rolling with a narrow 38-34 overtime win over the Manitoba Bisons in their last regular game on Saturday. Though Manitoba started the game strong with 14 and 17 points respectively in the first two quarters, a consistent game from the Thunderbirds would see the two teams tied up at 31 each going into overtime. Though the Bisons would manage a field goal on their drive, UBC would come up with a huge last-play touchdown to secure the four-point win.

Needless to say, it was a big win for the ’Birds. For a team who three weeks ago looked doubtful

for a playoff run, they’ve really turned it around.

Game time for their semifinal is 2 p.m. on Saturday at Thunderbird Stadium.

First W for women’s volleyball The opportunity for their first wins of the year came and went for both volleyball teams in their homeopeners last weekend when they played against Alberta. This weekend, both sides headed up to Thompson Rivers where the women would finally get the first win for either side — a 3-0 sweep on Friday night. The team took the first set 25-20, the second 25-13 and the final set 25-18.

Kiera Van Ryk led UBC with 15 kills on the night, continuing the success she had in her rookie season last year as a consistent leading-scorer. Olivia Furlan, now taking on the setting duties upon the graduation of former team captain Alessandra Gentile, scored 42 assists for UBC. Fourth-year University of Toronto recruit Tessa Davis also impressed with nine kills.

Courtside success It was a blur of baskets and beer on Friday night in the annual Courtside game for basketball. Fans had lots to celebrate too, as both UBC basketball teams climbed back to win their games in the fourth quarters. Men’s basketball would come back from a one-point

Mason Bourcier soars towards the basket for UBC.

ELIZABETH WANG

deficit to the Huskies in the third — 67-66 — to win 92-87, following the women’s second-half 71-64 comeback win.

Individual highlights on the night included the women’s trio of Keylyn Filewich, Jessica Hanson and Kate Johnson who led the team in points.

For the men, Jadon Cohee put up 32 per cent of UBC’s points (29 on the night).

Soccer teams set for Canada West Final Four Unsurprisingly given their records in regular season, the UBC men’s and women’s soccer teams put in two great games this weekend to solidify their places in their respective Canada West Final Four tournaments.

On the men’s side, three goals in the second half for the T-Birds sent them soaring past the Mount Royal Cougars 3-0 on Saturday.

UBC’s continued powerhouse up front, Kristian Yli-Hietanen, scored another two in the game.

Veteran Sean Einarsson also put one in the net for the ’Birds.

The women on the other hand had a bit of a tougher go of the weekend against the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) Timberwolves on Sunday afternoon.

Leading 2-0 going into the second half thanks to goals from Danielle Steer and Amelia Crawford, an early penalty kick conversion after the restart from UNBC midfielder Paige Payne would cause some concern for the T-Birds. Their narrow 2-1 lead would stand until the 87th minute, when UBC again looked to Danielle Steer to seal their win with a penalty kick. She converted, easing any last minute tension and securing the Thunderbirds spot in the Final Four.

For the Canada West deciding tournaments, one team will host while the other heads out on the road — though thankfully, not too far.

The women’s side will again head out to Trinity Western — a similar picture to last year’s final four tournament; they will need to win to keep national hopes alive. The UBC men’s squad will look to claim Canada West gold at Thunderbird Stadium next weekend as the tournament hosts.

As they are hosting nationals on November 8, the T-Birds don’t need to claim the Canada West title to find their place in the national tournament. That said, UBC has been on a rampage through the league this year, dominating teams each weekend except for their final game against Thompson Rivers, which is their only loss of the regular season. Undoubtedly they will be looking to claim that regional title to set them on the right foot going into their national title hunt.

The three other men’s Canada West Final Four representatives — the University of Fraser Valley, TRU and Trinity Western — will be battling hard for the lone Canada West spot in the national finals.

Thompson Rivers will face Trinity in the semifinals, while UBC will face the University of Fraser Valley.

UBC’s game time is 7 p.m. on Friday at Thunderbird Stadium. U

UBC’s Kate Johnson dribbles down-court.

ELIZABETH WANG

Fixtures Sport

Home

Score

Away

Volleyball (M)

Thompson Rivers

3-1

UBC

Ice Hockey (W)

UBC

2-3

Alberta

Volleyball (W)

Thompson Rivers

3-2

UBC

Basketball (W)

UBC

71-64

Saskatchewan

Ice Hockey (M)

Alberta

3-4

UBC

Basketball (M)

UBC

92-87

Saskatchewan

Friday, October 26

Saturday, October 27 Volleyball (M)

Thompson Rivers

3-2

UBC

Football

Manitoba

34-38

UBC

Ice Hockey (W)

UBC

0-3

Alberta

Volleyball (W)

Thompson Rivers

0-3

UBC

Basketball (W)

UBC

60-70

Saskatchewan

Basketball (M)

UBC

93-102

Saskatchewan

Soccer (M)

UBC

3-0

Mount Royal

Ice Hockey (M)

Alberta

4-1

UBC

3-1

Northern BC

Sunday, October 28 Soccer (W)

UBC

16 | GAMeS | tueSDAY, oCtobER 30, 2018

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