February 25, 2013

FEBRUARY 25, 2013 | VOLUME XCIV| ISSUE XLI STILL FINDING ROCKS SINCE 1918

ELISA LAM FOUND DEAD

Missing UBC student found dead inside a hotel water tank in Los Angeles P3

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

T-Birds continue dominant season, capture fourth Canada West title in five years P5

WATERPROOF YOUR BAG

A step-by-step guide to keeping your stuff dry through the rainy season and beyond P8

TOOPE TALKS The UBC president loves acting, hates Twi er and wants more money for UBC

P7

T-BIRD TURNAROUND

One year after winning only one game all season, the UBC women’s hockey team is headed to nationals.

Inside the comeback story of the year P5

Notice our new cover?

Read more on page 2

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013 |

YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS + PEOPLE

WHAT’S ON

THIS WEEK, MAY WE SUGGEST...

OUR CAMPUS

2

ONE ON ONE WITH THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE UBC

MONDAY 25 WHY WOMEN SHOULD SPEAK UP 5 P.M. – 6:30 P.M. @ CIRS 2260

Media action advocate Shari Graydon will be discussing how the female perspective is often missing from public eye. RSVP to winnie.kam@ubc.ca.

TUESDAY

26

CAN SPORT CONTRIBUTE TO WORLD DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE? 8 P.M. @ GREEN COLLEGE

U of T scholar Bruce Kidd will outline and examine the background of sports and how they contribute to development and peace in Canada and abroad.

WEDNESDAY 27 DANCING, LIQUOR, FUNZIES

PHOTO COURTESY UBC FACULTY OF ARTS

UBC Film professor Rachel Talalay has produced and directed films including Hairspray and the Nightmare on Elm Street series.

8:30 P.M. @ THE PIT

You had a lovely 10 day break to rest (or test) your liver and dance moves, now is the time to show off the results. Come to the first Pit Night since reading break has ended, and it will undoubtebly be a night you will (not) remember.

APPOINTING A CHINESE FOOD DINNER COMMITTEE SINCE 1918

UBC’S OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER | JANUARY 7, 2013 | VOLUME XCIV| ISSUE XXX

NEW CITY ON CAMPUS

FEBRUARY 25, 2013 | VOLUME XCIV| ISSUE XLI STILL FINDING ROCKS SINCE 1918

ELISA LAM FOUND DEAD

Residents of University Endowment Lands seek incorporation P3

Missing UBC student found dead inside a hotel water tank in Los Angeles P3

UTHE UBYSSEY

REDESIGN

From Elm Street to Main Mall

IDLE NO MORE

A demonstrator beats a drum at last Thursday’s Idle No More aboriginal rights protest. Read about UBC’s branch of the movement on P4

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

T-Birds continue dominant season, capture fourth Canada West title in five years P5

WATERPROOF YOUR BAG

A step-by-step guide to keeping your stuff dry through the rainy season and beyond P8

TOOPE TALKS The UBC president loves acting, hates Twi er and wants more money for UBC P7

Arno Rosenfeld Features Editor

UBC men’s and women’s hockey primed for deep playoff runs P6

OUT OF

OIL SANDS

T-BIRD TURNAROUND

A group of students want universities ranked on ethical investments P3

One year after winning only one game all season, the UBC women’s hockey team is headed to nationals.

Inside the comeback story of the year P5

Notice our new cover?

Read more on page 2

Unlimited Dance Club hosts b-boy dance battle at UBC P5

Rachel Talalay is bringing her Hollywood experience to Hollywood North.

She produced the original Hairspray and directed and produced the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Her television credits include Cold Case, Without a Trace, Boston Legal and Ally McBeal. And for the past four years, she’s been a professor in the film program at UBC. Talalay said that when she was first interviewing for the job, it was as much about seeing whether UBC wanted her as determining if she could bring something of value to the university.

“I decided yes,” Talalay explained. “I realized I had a lot to teach.”

The adjustment from working exclusively in the private sector to learning how to teach hasn’t been seamless, but Talalay said she’s received great support and is starting to get the hang of things.

“If you talk for an hour, then you see people texting,” she said. “And you’re like, okay, I know that didn’t work and you go home and rethink.”

She said making her classes more dynamic is important — not just to get people to pay attention, but also because the film industry is a very hands-on business. Being able to teach the skills needed to work in the industry in an academic setting like UBC was part of what attracted Talalay to the university.

“Many people ask, Can you teach film production, and is this a trade rather than an academic subject?’” she said. “The aim is to give them both skills, but much more context.”

As part of giving students more context, Talalay has organized a lecture series that brings Hollywood professionals in to speak to her classes when they visit Vancouver. The series has seen a range of professionals with impressive credentials come through UBC, from the cinemotagrpher of Anna Karenina to the assistant director of the Bourne Identity series.

“They don’t come in and say, I shot Anna Karenina on this film stock at this speed,’” Talalay said. “They talk about the artistry of filmmaking, and that’s what I want the students to learn.” </em>

Did you notice our new front cover? Over the past three months, our design team has been working to create a more accessible, interesting publication that will be informative and interesting to all members of the UBC community. Throughout the next week, you will also notice some more subtle changes, including the changes on this page. If you have any suggestions for how we can make The Ubyssey a better product, please contact Jeff Aschkinasi, managing editor, print at printeditor@ ubyssey.ca or stop by our office in SUB 24.

Video content Make sure to check out the full version of our interview with Toope, airing now at ubyssey.ca/videos/.

U THE UBYSSEY EDITORIAL

Senior Lifestyle Writer Justin Fleming jfleming@ubyssey.ca

Coordinating Editor Jonny Wakefield coordinating@ubyssey.ca Features Editor Arno Rosenfeld Managing Editor, Print features@ubyssey.ca Jeff Aschkinasi printeditor@ubyssey.ca Video Editor David Marino Managing Editor, Web video@ubyssey.ca Andrew Bates Copy Editor webeditor@ubyssey.ca Karina Palmitesta News Editors copy@ubyssey.ca Will McDonald + Art Director Laura Rodgers Kai Jacobson news@ubyssey.ca art@ubyssey.ca Senior News Writer Graphics Assistant Ming Wong mwong@ubyssey.ca Indiana Joel ijoel@ubyssey.ca Culture Editor Anna Zoria Layout Artist culture@ubyssey.ca Collyn Chan cchan@ubyssey.ca Senior Culture Writer Rhys Edwards Videographer redwards@ubyssey.ca Lu Zhang lzhang@ubyssey.ca Sports + Rec Editor Webmaster CJ Pentland Riley Tomasek sports@ubyssey.ca webmaster@ubyssey.ca

STAFF Bryce Warnes, Josh Curran, Peter Wojnar, Anthony Poon, Veronika Bondarenko, Yara Van Kessel, Lu Zhang, Catherine Guan, Ginny Monaco, Arno Rosenfeld, Matt Meuse, Hogan Wong, Rory Gattens, Brandon Chow, Joseph Ssettuba. Tyler McRobbie, Sarah Bigam, Stephanie Xu, Natalya Kautz, Colin Chia, Kim Pringle

FEBRUARY 25, 2013 | VOLUME XCIV| ISSUE XLI BUSINESS

CONTACT

Business Manager Fernie Pereira fpereira@ubyssey.ca

Editorial Office: SUB 24 604.822.2301

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Online: ubyssey.ca Twitter: @ubyssey

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Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff. They are the expressed opinion of the staff, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Ubyssey Publications Society or the University of British Columbia. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of The Ubyssey Publications Society. Stories, opinions, photographs and artwork contained

herein cannot be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of The Ubyssey Publications Society.

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Letters to the editor must be under 300 words. Please include your phone number, student number and signature (not for publication) as well as your year and faculty with all submissions. ID will be checked when submissions are dropped off at the editorial office of The Ubyssey; otherwise verification will be done by phone. The Ubyssey reserves the right to edit submissions for length and clari-

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And, according to Talalay, the series has been a huge hit among her students.

“I had one [email from a student] just now saying I will remember this for the rest of my life,’” Talalay said. “How much more could you ask for as a teacher?”

And while Talalay has had to cut back somewhat on her outside work now that she is teaching, on the whole she thinks she made the right decision.

“I kick myself sometimes because I miss some of the things I wish I was doing, but I have to say that the trade-off for the student — it’s absolutely the right decision,” Talalay said.

The hardest adjustment to working at a university has been the different speed at which things operate compared to the film business.

“You’re taught to be so practical and just like, get it done,” Talalay explained of her previous work. “[Now] you can say, Boy wouldn’t it be great if I had this, this and this,’ and they’re like, Uhhuh, we can talk about that in a year or two.’”

Talalay understands the constraints of working in UBC’s small film department, but the university bureaucracy is nonetheless a rough adjustment from working on the set of a television show where a one-minute delay could cost $3,000.

But despite the occasional tedium of university life, Talalay said she’s thrilled to be working at UBC. The daughter of two university professors, Talalay has long appreciated the value of education. As an undergrad at Yale, she majored in mathematics and considered a job at IBM before choosing to go into film.

She said that while she doesn’t use advanced mathematics in her daily work, problem-solving is ever present and she still thinks in mathematical terms. But more than that, she values the experience of learning the incredibly complex information needed to complete her degree.

“Education is about learning how to think, it’s not [just] about the specifics of what you learn,” Talalay said.

And after producing seven hours of television and teaching five classes over the past year, Talalay isn’t sure what her future holds. But for the time being, she loves being a professor. U

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013 |

EDITORS WILL Mcdonald + laura rodgers

3

ELISA LAM >>

UBC student found dead in hotel water tank

NEWS BRIEFS Provincial budget spaces out cuts to post-secondary education

PHOTO COURTESY FACEBOOK

21-year-old UBC student Elisa Lam, who was reported missing from her L.A. hotel weeks ago, was found to be dead last Tuesday. L.A. police are currently investigating the case.

Will McDonald News Editor

Los Angeles police have found the body of missing UBC student Elisa Lam. A worker found her body in a water tank on the roof of L.A.’s Cecil Hotel while looking into a complaint about low water pressure last Tuesday, according to the L. A. Times .

Lam, a 21-year-old UBC student, was last seen Jan. 31 in the Cecil Hotel. She was reported missing on Feb. 1. Her autopsy has been completed, but investigators have yet to determine how she died. The L.A. coroner’s office hasn’t revealed if there were signs of trauma on Lam’s body.

Police are waiting for the results <em>

</em>

of a drug test to help determine the cause of Lam’s death. The results won’t be available for six to eight weeks.

Surveillance footage from the hotel on the day of Lam’s disappearance showed her acting strangely in the hotel’s elevator. She pressed the buttons for multiple floors, waved her arms around and looked around the hallway outside the elevator.

Police are still unsure how Lam got onto the hotel’s roof in the first place. L.A. police Sgt. Rudy Lopez told the Associated Press that the door to the roof is kept locked and only hotel employees have the key.

The door also has an alarm to alert employees if someone is on the roof.

Lopez said the only other way to gain access to the roof is by climbing the fire escape.

Police haven’t determined how long Lam’s body was in the water tank. Shortly after she was reported missing, investigators checked the roof of the hotel with police dogs. They found no signs of her, but did not look inside the hotel’s water tanks.

The Cecil Hotel, which offers cheap rooms, is located close to the low-income L.A. neighbourhood known as Skid Row. “That part of downtown Los Angeles is not good,” said LAPD spokesperson Robert French shortly after Lam was reported missing.

“There is crime, there is squalor there, among many things.”

UBC spokesperson Randy Schmidt confirmed that Lam took courses at UBC last summer, but she wasn’t registered for any classes

this term. A profile of Lam’s on the website academia.edu says she studied psychology.

Health officials have issued an order not to drink the water in the hotel, but tests haven’t found any disease-causing bacteria in the hotel’s water supply. Residents of the hotel drank water from the tank containing Lam’s body for weeks.

Health officials have asked the hotel to drain its water supply and flush out the pipes before another round of testing to declare the water safe to drink.

Los Angeles police have been reluctant to release details about Lam’s death, as their investigation is still ongoing. U — With files from Andrew Bates <em>

</em>

ADMISSIONS >>

Mandatory minimum grades coming for some high school courses

Lawrence Neal Garcia Contributor

Starting in 2014, UBC faculties will be able to mandate minimum grades in certain high school courses for those applying to UBC. Andrew Arida, UBC associate registrar of undergraduate admissions, said this measure is aimed at the growing number of applicants who load up on easier electives to inflate their overall admissions average. The policy was approved by the UBC Senate at their last meeting, and will come into effect for the class starting September 2014.

“Students will have to put an emphasis on bringing up their grades in their weakest courses when those courses are critical pre-requisites, not just taking any course to bring up their overall average,” said Arida.

UBC’s hope is that mandatory minimum averages in specific courses will allow each faculty to better select students who will be successful in their studies. For example, if students’ marks in English 12 give the best indication of how well they’d do in completing a UBC BA, the university thinks this should take precedence in admissions decisions over marks in other, less-relevant courses.

The threshold numbers will be up to individual faculties to decide, and they will be lower than the gen-

UBC faculties are now able to set minimum admission averages for core high school courses.

eral admissions average cut-off.

UBC already has a policy to reject any applicants from Canadian high schools with averages below 70 per cent. There’s also a required grade of 70 per cent in English 12 (or an equivalent course) for all faculties, and a requirement of 67 per cent in Math 12 for science students.

“This is about saying that it’s competitive,” said Arida. “It’s an additional criterion that can be used to rank order applicants ... because again we have far more demand than we have space for at UBC.” Students who don’t meet the

mandatory minimum averages could still be considered for admission through UBC’s recently-implemented broad-based admissions process.

Kiran Mahal, Vice-President Academic at UBC’s AMS student society, hopes this move will help high school students focus on improving their grades in core courses.

“It’s kind of shifting the way students look at admission to UBC,” said Mahal.

While both Arida and Mahal see the policy as a way of setting students up for success, second-year

HOGAN WONG STOCK PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

Sauder student Andrew Lowe isn’t so sure.

“I don’t know if average would be the best metric, because I know school isn’t just about grades,” Lowe said. “It’s definitely going to prove to be tough for some students.”

Many other Canadian universities, including McGill and the University of Toronto, have similar policies.

The policy was passed by the UBC Vancouver senate on Feb. 13, and will be voted on by the UBC Okanagan senate at the end of the month. U

The B.C. Liberals have opted to reduce planned cuts to operating funds for universities and colleges. For now.

The provincial budget for 2013–14, announced on Feb. 19, includes a $5 million overall cut to the nearly $2 billion worth of operating grants given to post-secondary institutions.

That’s significantly less than the $20 million planned cut that schools were bracing for.

But the Liberals still hope to shave $50 million from the advanced education operating budget in the not-so-distant future. While their original plan was $20 million less in 2013-14 and $30 million less in 2014–15, they’ve now spaced the planned cuts out: after the $5 million coming off this year, there’s a $20 million cut coming in 2014–15, and a further $25 million cut in 2015–16.

But with a hotly-contested provincial election coming this May, none of these future numbers are set in stone. Although many at universities hope more cash will come their way if the B.C. NDP are elected instead, that party has not yet released a platform describing their plans for post-secondary funding.

To try and keep up with the demand for more physicians in B.C., the province will give $2.4 million for more spaces at UBC medical school in 2013–14, and this will increase to $4.8 million the year after.

Arts students approve new student centre The Arts Undergraduate Society has won a referendum to collect student fees for a new building.

They just need to figure out where to put it.

60 per cent of voters in the election running from Feb. 8 to 15 were in favour of paying $15 each year to fund the construction of a new, freestanding Arts student centre. That fee will increase to $25 from every Arts student in 2018, until the cost of the centre is paid off. According to a preliminary design for the building, the cost to build it is expected to be just over $5 million.

The society hasn’t yet figured out where they’re going to put the building; two possible sites are beside Buchanan E block or in a lot alongside Brock Hall.

The voting period also saw new executives elected for the Arts Undergraduate Society, and indexed the society’s regular $13 student fee to inflation.

Arts students elected Sebastian Silley, current AMS rep and brother of sitting Board of Governors member Mike Silley, as their new student society president. Silley won 56 per cent of votes, ahead of Ekateryna Baranovskaya, who received 32.6 per cent of votes and who also ran unsuccessfully for AMS president this year. Joke candidate Zaphod Beeblebrox (a character from Douglas Adams’s The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as represented by Ubyssey writer Colin Chia) got 11 per cent of votes.

Altogether, 11 per cent of Arts students — 1,494 out of the 14,006 who were eligible — voted in this election. U <em>

</em>

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013 |

EDITOR C.J. PENTLAND

4

BASKETBALL >>

Coming up big when it counts UBC men’s basketball delivers inspired effort to move on to the final four C.J. Pentland Sports + Rec Editor

The outlook wasn’t great for the UBC men’s basketball team.

After dropping their final two regular season games, it took a furious second-half push on Friday night to defeat the University of Alberta Golden Bears in game one of their first-round playoff series.

And then on Saturday, the T-Birds were outplayed for the majority of the game, losing 81-68 to Alberta.

This made for a decisive game three on Sunday night, a game that could have possibly ended their promising season.

But with their season on the line, UBC came out on fire and played perhaps their best game of the season and beat the Golden Bears 96-67. They got out to an immediate 14-0 lead, were up 45-18 at the half and kept up the pressure in the second to cruise to victory. They now advance to the Canada West final four that they’re hosting next weekend, meaning that the fans in attendance had to return the blue cowbells that they were given at the start of the game.

The T-Birds played with an intensity that was missing during

JOSH CURRAN PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

It took two hard-fought efforts for UBC to knock off Alberta in the first round.

Saturday’s loss. They forced Alberta into tough shots, limiting them to only 22 field goals on 30.9 per cent shooting. They also out-rebounded them 47-25, pouncing on loose balls and keeping the Bears out of the paint. Brylle Kamen, despite having three teeth pulled in the past two weeks and not being able to eat solid food, led the way with 12 rebounds,

while second-year David Wagner also grabbed 10.

“That was the type of defence that we wanted to play last night.

Last night we got behind and we burned a lot of energy playing catch-up,” said UBC head coach Kevin Hanson after Sunday’s win. “I thought we came out and didn’t give them many looks. We made some

adjustments on ball screens which had hurt us all week, and I thought our guys adjusted very well.... The effort and energy level was tremendous.”

Another main reason for the rebounding discrepancy was due to UBC’s stellar shooting. They were able to score almost at will in the paint during the first half, and got hot from three-point land in the second to finish with a 58.3 field goal percentage. In total, five players ended up in double figures for points: Kamen, Wagner, Doug Plumb, O’Brian Wallace and Geoff Pippus.

“To see us come out fired up like that in the first quarter was really exciting for us, because we haven’t had that real killer instinct for quite some time now,” said Hanson. “I’m just proud of the energy we came out with, and it set the energy for the second half.”

Last weekend saw UBC drop two contests to the University of Victoria and put them on the wrong foot heading into the playoffs. It was a wake up call for the Birds, who had previously coasted to 12 straight victories, and reminded them that they needed to really work for their wins.

“It was a big kick to the ego and to the head,” said Hanson, referring to the Victoria losses.

“All of a sudden it put us in a tough situation.... It could’ve gone south in a big hurry. You lose that one last night too, and [it affects] your confidence.”

“We had two options today: we could’ve either cowered in fear at what was in front of us, or just attack it and embrace the situation,” said Plumb, who avoided this being his last game as a T-Bird. “And I feel that we attacked it head on.

I was really impressed by all of us.”

Instead of going south, the T-Birds still have a shot of heading east to Ottawa for CIS nationals.

The Birds will host the Canada West Final Four next weekend, where a win in the semi-finals will provide them with an automatic berth at nationals. A loss would not be an automatic end to the season, as there is also an at-large berth to the tournament that is awarded nationally.

UBC will take on the University of the Fraser Valley on Friday night, with tip-off at 7 p.m. at War Memorial Gym. The Canada West final is on Saturday. U

BASKETBALL >>

Youthful T-Birds see season end early

Two close losses to Alberta bring the UBC women’s basketball season to a close C.J. Pentland Sports + Rec Editor

A couple of close losses at home to the University of Alberta Pandas made for a premature end to the UBC women’s basketball season, as a 66-62 defeat on Friday night and a 67-64 loss in overtime on Saturday made Alberta the winner of the teams’ first-round playoff series. It was revenge for the Pandas, as it was the T-Birds who

ended their season in the first round last year.

Both games were back-and-forth affairs, with the two teams trading leads throughout the contests. UBC held numerous leads of over eight points in each game, but weren’t able to extend the leads and allowed Alberta to claw back into the games.

The end result was the Pandas being up near the end, and the T-Birds not being able to complete any late

comeback attempts.

Friday’s game was one marred by poor free throw shooting. The Birds shot a mere five of 14 from the charity stripe, a sore spot that became all the more noticeable after the four-point loss. On the other hand, Alberta was 14-20 from the line and was clutch down the stretch.

The Pandas were also deadly from beyond the arc. They were six of 11 from three-point land, and used the barrage of threes to overcome an eight-point UBC lead in the third quarter.

“It was a game of runs — we’d go up and then they’d catch up, we’d go up again and then they’d catch up — and then they went up a bit,” said UBC head coach Deb Huband.

“There were just some key times where we just didn’t execute; we couldn’t communicate on the floor.

We took some possessions away from ourselves which really hurt.”

UBC saw strong performances from their starters; Kris Young lead the way with 19 points. Leigh Stansfield added 13, while Victoria Spangehl recorded a double-double with 11 points and 13 boards.

However, the T-Birds’ bench was outscored 24-2.

Young and Stansfield were also standout performers on Saturday night, but their stats weren’t enough to top the balanced scoring effort from Alberta. Young had a season-high 29 points in the loss, while Stansfield added 14 and eight rebounds during her last game as a Thunderbird. Zana Williams was also a spark off the bench, making several key defensive plays and hitting a clutch three-pointer to send the game to overtime and briefly extend her team’s season.

With only one fifth-year and one fourth-year on the roster, the T-Birds were a young team that had been riding their youthful energy into the playoffs. But on Saturday

JOSH CURRAN PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

Zana Williams had 11 points off the bench in Saturday’s game.

night, it was clear that they still have a bit more to learn, and the experience of the Alberta squad was evident.

“I just thought that down the stretch we got outplayed,” said Huband. “They’ve a veteran team, and their veterans stepped up.... We had a rebound, and if we got that rebound at the end of regulation the game was ours, but we didn’t [get it].

We’re a young team,... so I thought our girls battled really hard and they tried to step up, but I think just down the stretch they were playing better than we were and were deserving of the win.”

The roster from last year’s team that came second in the country looked much different this season, as three starters had left the squad.

But of this year’s young team, only one player will be graduating, and that means the returners will be able to build off of this experience in the future.

“Hopefully there will be a lot of motivation to work in the off-season. I think when rookies come in they have no idea what they’re up against, and we have a lot of rookies and second-year kids,” said Huband.

“We put a lot of demands on our second-year kids, and it was a tremendous growth year for them and the rookies. I hope that they find that this feeling is something they want to avoid in the future, and is very motivating in the offseason.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do, and after a little break, we want to get down and get better.” U

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013

VOLLEYBALL >>

| SPORTS + REC | 5

HOCKEY >>

Dream season continues UBC women’s hockey is off to CIS nationals Colin Chia Staff Writer

JOSH CURRAN PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

UBC won their fourth Canada West title in the past five years on Saturday.

Dominant T-Birds are the best in the West

C.J. Pentland Sports + Rec Editor

“Dominant” is a word that has been used quite often to describe the UBC women's volleyball team during their 2012-2013 campaign. It's a term that shouldn't really be tossed around and assigned to just any good team, but UBC is not just another good team. They're one that has now won 22 straight games, and at one point won 37 consecutive sets during the regular season.

But during Saturday's Canada West final against the Trinity Western University Spartans — the only team who handed the ’Birds a loss so far this season — UBC was up against an opponent that provided tough competition, the like of which they hadn't seen since early November. And TWU showed no fear of the Thunderbirds, offering another stern test in the gold medal match, preventing the Thunderbirds from dominating like they usually do.

But despite everything the Spartans threw at them, the T-Birds handled it and prevailed. They took down TWU in four sets, capturing their fourth Canada West title in the past five years and clinching the number one seed at next weekend's CIS nationals in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

The T-Birds were limited to a .153 hitting percentage on Saturday — well off their .285 average during the regular season — and were blocked 31 times by Spartan defenders. But like good teams do, they found a way to win. It may not have been pretty, but it still got them another Canada West banner.

“I’m not too shocked that it was a little up and down; it definitely wasn't our cleanest play, and Trinity may say the same, and I expected there to be quite a few momentum swings, and there were,” said UBC head coach Doug Reimer. “We can take a lot out of that match because it was a great atmosphere, a strong team [and] an important match, and we're getting pushed, which hadn't happened that much.”

Leading the way for the T-Birds, as she has done all season, was fifth-year outside hitter and Canada West MVP Shanice Marcelle.

She led her team in both kills and digs, keeping several plays alive and hammering home momen-

tum-shifting kills that put TWU on their heels. Fittingly, it was an MVP-calibre performance.

“We were off by just that little bit in a few areas, and that's what happens, but we had to make plays and Shanice makes plays, almost without exception at key times,” said Reimer. “She can do it in so many different ways, but defensively,... that's pretty critical.”

Lisa Barclay didn't have her most efficient offensive game of the season, but the Canada West first-team all-star still racked up 11 kills, three of which sparked the UBC comeback at the end of the first set. Second-team all-star Brina Derksen-Bergen also had another efficient game at the setter position, splitting time with Kirsty Setterlund and totalling 26 assists to go along with eight digs.

The adversity that UBC faced on Saturday was something they hadn't dealt with in quite some time, but it will prove to be valuable experience come nationals next weekend. When the ’Birds got down in the first set and struggled in the second one, they did not collapse.

Instead, they stormed back with an intensity that is a quality of championship teams.

“It's that mental battle when you're struggling in some areas, and you're just fighting it a little bit; [you see] how well you can hang in there and rebound and not let it keep sliding,” said Reimer. “And because we haven't had a lot of those experiences, that's why [it's important].

“I think you take a deep breath, come away and make ... recognitions — the learning experience there out of that."

UBC will now build off of this weekend and head to Sherbrooke, Quebec on Thursday and attempt to win their sixth straight national championship. If victorious, they will solidify their status as one of the best dynasties in CIS sport history and complete one of the most dominant seasons in recent memory — that is, if they're not considered the best dynasty already.

Nationals kick off on Feb. 28 and will run until March 2. While there, this dominant UBC team will most definitely be in the mix for six straight golds. U

This watershed season for UBC Thunderbirds women's hockey isn't over yet.

The T-Birds won their Canada West semifinal in three games over the University of Regina Cougars this past weekend, capping it off with a convincing 7-1 thrashing of Regina in the deciding game. This means that UBC will play for the Canada West championship next weekend, and will also be heading to the CIS national championship in Toronto.

Both of these are firsts for UBC, and all this comes a year after the team won just one of its 24 regular season games. Head coach Graham Thomas has transformed the T-Birds during his first season in charge, and it's dizzying to think of just how far they have come since last year.

For a while it looked like the T-Birds had finally met their match when they hit the road to face the second-seeded Cougars, who had won three of the four regular season match-ups between the teams. And on Friday, UBC lost for the first time in nine games, dropping game one 2-1 and putting their season on the ropes.

After ending the first period down by two goals, UBC got a goal from Rebecca Unrau late in the second. But even after a late push, they couldn't find the tying goal in the third. Unrau was returning

to the ice after missing game two against Manitoba when she was injured during last week's playoff series.

The T-Birds kept their season alive on Saturday, however, as they went on to win game two 3-2 in triple overtime after giving up a game-tying goal with 7:04 to go in the third period. Tatiana Rafter finally scored the winner at 15:41 in the third overtime period, as she was the first to find the rebound off a shot by Unrau.

“The biggest thing at that point — in that overtime and in many overtimes — is they were playing for each other.... No one was ready to stop this run; they wanted to continue, they were determined to never say never and not quit. And there's no way they were going to beat us, and that's the attitude we had,” head coach Graham Thomas said to CiTR Radio after game two.

“That was our team identity; that's how we were playing and that's how we need to play.”

But anyone expecting the decisive third game to be as just as epic a nail-biter would have been disappointed when the Thunderbirds blew out the Cougars 7-1. UBC exploded out of the gate as Tatiana Rafter scored just 24 seconds after puck drop, and then Stephanie Schaupmeyer, Nicole Saxvik and Emily Grainger all tallied to give UBC a 4-1 lead after a first period that saw the Cougars change their goalie twice and struggle to get much going on offence.

Saturday had been a long night, but the visitors still came out fired up and put the sword to the dispirited Cougars on Sunday. Rafter got a second goal in the second period, with Nikola Brown-John also scoring before Genevieve Carpenter-Boesch added a shorthanded goal to complete the rout.

T-Birds goaltender Danielle Dube, named the Canada West female athlete of the week after her performance in the quarterfinal series against Manitoba, was once again a stand-out in this series, saving 73 of the 78 shots she faced over the three-game series.

UBC will now play for the Canada West championship on the road next weekend against the University of Calgary. CIS nationals are at the University of Toronto and will take place from March 8 to 10. U

HOCKEY STATS

1

games won by UBC last year

0 previous trips to CIS nationals

44 minutes of overtime

before Tatiana Ra er scored to give UBC the 3-2 victory in game two

26 seconds for Ra er to open the scoring in game three

6 | SPORTS + REC |

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013

SWIMMING >>

Thunderbird swimmers own the pool

UBC women win national gold for second straight year, men finish in second C.J. Pentland Sports + Rec Editor

It wasn’t quite a double gold, but it was as close to it as possible for UBC swimming.

At the CIS swimming nationals in Calgary this past weekend, the UBC women’s swimming team led from start to finish to emerge as the national champs, while the men’s team ended in a close second, falling 15 points short of first-place University of Toronto and having to settle for a silver medal.

The wins give women’s swimming two banners on the year, as they captured a Canada West championship earlier this month. While the Birds were one of the favourites heading into the meet, they showed on the weekend that they were in a class of their own. They won by a substantial 143.5-point margin over second-place Calgary, finishing with 691.5 points over the three days. It was their 18th CIS championship, the most of any UBC team.

“We had a pretty balanced attack on the women’s side; everybody on the team recorded points, which is pretty good for any team,” said UBC head coach Steve Price, who was named CIS women’s swim coach of the year. “Typically we had people coming from everywhere and scoring points, and no other team was doing that.”

Leading the onslaught was Savannah King, who picked up two individual gold medals and was named CIS female swimmer of the year for the second straight year.

She touched the wall first in the 400m and 800m freestyle, picked up a bronze medal in the 200m freestyle, and also won a gold in the 4x200m freestyle relay, along with teammates Brittney Harley, Tera Van Beilen and Heather MacLean.

Van Beilen had a strong weekend herself, winning a gold medal in the 200m breaststroke, bronzes in the 100m breaststroke and 50m breaststroke and a silver with teammates MacLean, Erin Stamp and Grainne Pierse in the 4x100m medley relay.

Other medals on the weekend went to MacLean, who also picked up silvers in the 100m and 200m freestyle; Grainne Pierse, who came second in the 50m backstroke; and Harley, who won a bronze in the 100m freestyle. The 4x100m freestyle relay team of MacLean, Harley, Rebecca Terejko and Fionnuala Pierse also won a silver.

“We knew that we had a good strong women’s team, and if they swam to their capabilities they could dominate the championships,” Price said of his squad.

On the men’s side, Coleman Allen and Kelly Aspinall led the way to the second-place finish. Allen, in his first year with the T-Birds, picked

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID MOLL / UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

UBC women’s swimming captured the CIS national championship for the second straight year.

up two individual gold medals on day one and two silvers on day two, and helped UBC win the 4x100m medley relay and 4x100m freestyle relay. He also set a CIS record in the 100m butterfly.

Aspinall, in his final national championship, was dominant as well, winning five gold medals and one silver, setting two CIS records in the process. His performance was one that earned him the title of CIS male swimmer of the year.

Luke Peddie also swam well, winning a silver medal in the 50m freestyle. He was also a part of the gold medal-winning freestyle relay team that featured Aspinall, Allen and Sergey Holson; and the medley relay team that consisted of the same four swimmers. Other medals on the weekend went to Patrick Cowan in the 400m individual medley and Evan Broderick in the 200m breaststroke.

It may not have been a perform-

ance that saw UBC defend their gold medal from last year, but it was still one that pushed a dominant Toronto team to the brink and drew the praise of their coach.

“It was a close win last year, and we knew that Toronto would have one of their key guys back,” Price said. “They were number one ranked all year, so to come within 15 points is pretty good.”

With the CIS season now over, T-Bird swimmers can now look ahead to the 2013 Universiade Games in Kazan, Russia. To have a chance to make the Canadian team, a swimmer must have won a gold medal at the CIS championships, so King, Van Beilen, Aspinall and Allen will all have a chance to represent Canada in the summer.

Tommy Gossland, who graduated from UBC last year, will also have a shot to qualify at the secondary qualifiers in April.

As for next season, the outlook

remains bright. Only Grainne Pierse leaves the women’s side, while Aspinall leaves the men’s team. They are substantial losses, but another strong recruiting class will be joining the Birds next year, adding on to rosters that are already full of emerging stars.

“On the women’s side, we picked up a few key women that will just bolster our roster,” said Price. “We lose only one girl, and we pick up three more, with one being a worldclass swimmer. So we’re only going to get stronger with the women since we’re a young team.

“On the men’s side, we’re losing Kelly Aspinall, which will be a big loss, but we had a really good recruiting year.... The men’s side was a bit of a rebuild anyway, and the fact that we’ve been this competitive — last year winning [nationals] and this year almost winning it — [makes me] excited for next year.” U

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013

| FEATURE | 7

Stephen Toope despises Twi er The university president on provincial elections, UBC’s money problems and his aborted acting career

S

even years into his term, we re beginning to get a sense of how UBC president Stephen Toope s will be remembered.

Under Toope, UBC s ambitions have continued to grow as traditional sources of funding have shrunk. He has had to balance the university s desire to compete with the likes of U of T and Stanford against a tumultuous global economy.

Now, with the provincial election on the horizon, the university is struggling to defend its value and get a larger slice of post-secondary funding.

The Ubyssey sat down with Toope for our annual interview to talk about the issues that have defined his time at UBC. Should students or taxpayers be concerned about ending up on the hook for the current recent construction boom at UBC? No, not at all. In fact, most of our buildings are not underfunded. Most of them, by the time we’re actually building them, are about 95 per cent funded. So at the end of the day, we’re not in debt.

An AMS survey released last summer revealed that most students disagreed with the statement “campus is developing with student interests” in mind. What do you say to students who feel inconvenienced by construction?

Well, I can only say that the buildings that we’ve built are all either student residences or academic buildings. If students aren’t the target, I don’t know who is.

UBC was recently forced to make an about-face on tuition for the new Bachelor of International Economics degree, to be offered through the soon-to-be-created Vancouver School of Economics. Are programs like the BIE creating a two-tier education structure?

I’m not sure if it was an about-face. There was some student concern about the tuition and then there was some discussion between the university, student government, and the tuition was lessened. But it still is different from the tuition that is charged for regular programs.

I don’t see these as two tiers, this is just a different program. But the fact that students will be eligible for the full range of student financial assistance means that this will be, I hope, a very exciting program that remains accessible.

UBC is also working on a program called Bridge, which would allow students who fall short of UBC entrance requirements to gain admittance through study in an affiliated college. Given that a lot of students fail to meet English requirements, is UBC worried that such a program might ghettoize international students?

mand over the next four years. Why should taxpayers give more money to universities?

Every one of the last ten years, UBC has over-enrolled compared to what we’re funded for.

It used to be possible to get into a university in BC with a 75 or a 78 per cent average a decade ago. That’s almost impossible now.

From a UBC perspective, we have roughly 1,300 graduate students at UBC who attract no provincial funding. And we think that’s just not reasonable if you want to have successful research-intensive universities.

On the research front, there was a wonderful study a few years ago suggesting that UBC alone is responsible for roughly $10 billion of economic activity in B.C. per year, and a large part of that comes from the research activities of the university.

Every one of the last ten years, UBC has overenrolled. It used to be possible to get into a university in BC with a 75 or a 78 per cent average. That’s almost impossible now.

Stephen Toope UBC President

What would a change in government look like for the university?

That’s very hard to predict. The official opposition has promised certain things that I think are very positive — promises around support for students through grants — that’s a good thing. Truthfully, I think it’s hard to predict what either party will do because they haven’t said much.

It’s a period of some economic downturn, so the preoccupation is with jobs. And sometimes I think politicians think about that issue in too narrow a fashion. They’re not connecting the jobs piece to the broader question of investment in education that’s required. I don’t blame B.C.’s politicians specifically, this goes on in most of the Western world. Education and universities tend not to be major topics during elections.

Have broad-based admissions been a success in pulling down the high secondary school grade averages for admitted students?

Not a big enough success. We’ve got some programs where even with broad based admission, the entrances averages are so high as to be in my view worrisome, because I’m not sure how real the distinction is between 89 and 91 or 91 and 93.

I actually see it from exactly the opposite perspective. I think it’s actually designed to ensure that there’s less lumpiness in that intercultural existence, which I agree with you is extremely important at the university.

[Bridge] is focused entirely around two things. One is, as you say, is language, and trying to help students who are outstanding but whose language skills may not be quite up to the mark.

The second piece is that, to date, a lot of the recruitment to UBC has come from International Baccalaureate programs and international schools. If you want to talk about schools that are more likely to have kids that have extra wealth,... that’s where you’re going to find them. What we actually want to do is find students who come from indigenous schools, native language schools, who happen to be outstanding but may not have had the same opportunities to be acculturated in Western-style education.

We turned up an article from a 1977 edition of the Harvard Crimson, a review of a production of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. In it, the performance of Stephen Toope is … panned.

Would UBC be going for these programs if it didn’t need money?

Would you ever consider getting on Twitter?

Yes. Absolutely. I think the BIE is just an exciting program.

The Bridge, I would say even more so. I know it’s hard for people to believe because we’re always talking about university finances. But the real reason to do the Bridge is to have a wider variety of students who can succeed coming from a wider variety of countries.

The Research Universities Council of B.C. have asked the provincial government for nearly $200 million over the next four years. You’ve argued that B.C. needs 11,000 new university spaces to meet de-

Panned, exactly! That is me, absolutely. A very unfair critic, though.

I actually, despite the review, considered theatre as a career for quite a few years. I started theatre in high school and continued through university. Had wonderful opportunities to work with really major directors from New York, from London, on various productions, some of which I think were pretty hard to watch. I was in a production of War and Peace, which for the actors I think was one of the funnest plays I can imagine doing. But I suspect it was pretty difficult to watch. I don’t have an opportunity to act any more, except in the role of president, where I get to act a fair amount.

No. I despise Twitter, truthfully. I think it’s one of the worst things that’s been created in my lifetime. I dislike everything about it. I think that the notion that you can say anything that matters in the limited number of characters you’re given, and that you have to do it immediately, and everyone will respond immediately with no reflection, I think it’s the worst of our society, so no. U

MORE ONLINE This interview has been condensed for print. Read the full interivew with Toope online at ubyssey.ca.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013 |

EDITOR ANNA ZORIA

HOUSING >>

Mini homes to enter Vancouver rent market

8

DIY >>

Waterproof your bag

How to avoid soggy textbooks in 7 easy steps Christine Thian Contributor

V

PHOTO COURTESY OF IAN KENT

NOMAD Housing makes a movable unit that could be the future of affordable housing.

Joan Tan Contributor

As students, we’re no strangers to living in small spaces. But what if you could trade in your cramped basement suite for a fully-equipped mini-home?

With a new development company, NOMAD Housing, entering Vancouver’s real estate market, this reality could be closer than we think. Their goal is to introduce fully mobile, 100 square-foot, twostory homes fully equipped with a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.

The project emerged in response to the need for more affordable housing.

“I think rental [in Vancouver] has always been strong and very competitive and highly priced,” said Ian Kent, architect and developer at NOMAD Housing. “There isn’t a lot available and there is a ton of people with a huge demand for more affordable housing but not a lot of supply.”

Though Kent acknowledges that the idea of tiny living units is not exactly new, he believes that NOMAD will be putting a fresh spin on the concept.

“If you look [at] the market for tiny houses, there’s probably 50 different designs out there by different architects around the world.

But none of them are as small, or completely mobile in a way that you can put it into a box and assemble it. None of them have a bathroom, kitchen, living room, stairs.... [Ours] serves its purpose as a completely livable unit,” he said.

The design is built around the

idea of minimalist living—living small, and living for less. “My idea is to strip the finishes,... to keep the costs down to the point where it’s accessible to a huge amount of people,” said Kent.

Aside from being a fullyequipped livable space, the NOMAD home will also function as a mobile and flexible unit, allowing owners the freedom to take it apart, move it around and modify it to fit to their specific needs. NOMAD houses allow for flexibility and potential to expand, able to cater to different people — whether they are students living independently, or families looking to live together.

“Since NOMAD houses allow more than one structure to connect, owners could potentially have, for example, a two-bedroom house with two bathrooms, a dining area [and more]” Kent said.

Keeping in touch with Vancouver’s demand for green design, Kent is also concerned with making NOMAD homes environmentally friendly. “You can make this product as green as you want,” he said. “It can be self-sufficient, if you choose.

Solar panels and composting toilets can be implemented into it to have a self-sustained living space.”

When asked about his vision for NOMAD Housing, Kent expressed keen interest in supporting and catering to the growing demand of affordable housing not only here in Vancouver, but eventually around the world and in developing countries. “It would be rewarding for me to see this concept in other places that need affordable housing as well,” he said. U

ancouver is one of the wettest cities in Canada, and this makes it a potentially inconvenient place to live. If it’s not raining, a cold mist hangs over the city, drenching all who are unprepared. UBC students are not excluded from its unrelenting moistness, and many find their bags soaking wet after a day of trekking around campus.

If you are one of those students, don’t rush out to buy a new bag just yet; read on to find some tips on how to waterproof your bag using wax. This method works best with canvas bags, but can also be used for thin broad cloth or denim. Canvas — a tough, woven fabric — already has a degree of water resistance, but waxing it makes it more waterproof and durable. Waxed canvas is also breathable, versatile, and less environmentally destructive — perfect for those wanting to go green. The following instructions will not only give your bag a sexy new look, but save you tons of money as well. You’ll never have to worry about soggy notes again.

A SPONGE ROLLER OR A BRISTLE BRUSH

1) MATERIALS NEEDED

A BAG

A DOUBLE BOILER

(BEST IF NOT FOR KITCHEN USE — TWO ALUMINUM POTS WILL DO)

1-2 WAX BARS

(PARAFFIN, BEESWAX OR A MIXTURE OF BOTH; FIND THEM IN THE CANNING SECTION OF YOUR LOCAL GROCERY STORE)

A DROP CLOTH

(TO PREVENT STAINS)

A PILLOWCASE ANNA ZORIA ILLUSTRATION/THE UBYSSEY

2) INSTRUCTIONS

1 Fill the bo om portion of the double boiler with water and put it on the stove on high heat.

2 As the water boils, drop one or two bars of wax (depending on the size of the bag) in the top portion of the double boiler.

3 Spread the drop cloth out beneath the bag.

4

7

Once the wax starts to melt, dip your brush into it and paint the surfaces of the bag you want to waterproof. Pay extra a ention to the seams, and the bo om, as it takes the brunt of the wear.

A er the drying time is done, pull out your bag and let it cool down (it’ll harden due to the wax between the fibers).

5 Allow the wax to cool and harden, then place the bag into a pillowcase. Tie the end of the pillowcase into a knot.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

6 Put it into the dryer on high heat for 30–45 minutes. This allows the wax to melt evenly into the fabric. (Note that this could leave a residue in your dryer; if you wish to avoid that, use a heat gun or a hairdryer.)

Voila! You now have a super-pro, waxed-waterproof bag. Pat yourself on the back for saving the environment and your money at the same time. Now work the fabric to soften it a bit, apply another coat of wax, or decorate it to your liking. Whatever you do, rest assured that your bag will never be drenched again.

If you have some other fabric you want to wax, throw it into the dryer with your waxed bag. It’ll catch some of the melt-off residue and produce another waxed fabric. U

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013

| CULTURE | 9

TELEVISION >>

Down to The Wire

Student-directed seminar takes an academic look at critically-acclaimed series Kit Sauder Contributor

T

his semester, on the third floor of Buchanan D, the gritty streets of Baltimore are being brought to the attention of a small but committed cohort of students who are fans of the TV show The Wire.

“Power, People, and Politics in the HBO Television Series The Wire ” is a student-directed seminar (SDS) course organized by English literature major Sharon Doucet, who leads discussions and facilitates student-generated presentations. Each member of the seminar presents two discussion topics — one on the material of the series, another on the large body of scholarly work that the series has generated.

For the uninitiated, The Wire is David Simon’s too-close-tolife drama produced by HBO, a five-season titan that ranks with The Shield and The Sopranos as one of the many unforgettable crime-and-punishment dramas of the first decade of the 21st century. The series focuses not on a character, or even a particular ensemble, but the city of Baltimore. It is the story of institutions — the way they grind, sieve, and eventually corrupt and destroy even the best within them.

Student-directed seminar courses count for three credits, and any student can pitch an idea to the SDS advisory committee.

Doucet’s inspiration came when one of her peers encouraged her to lead an SDS in her final semester.

After thinking about what topics interest her, she realized she had the perfect match in The Wire, having studied under one of its most noted scholars, Tiffany Potter — author of The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television.

The open and collegial atmosphere of the seminar is one of its major selling points, with the small class size allowing for a deep investigation from the interdisciplinary viewpoints of the members of the class. After the two discussions, the seminar breaks into a freewheeling discussion of the overarching issues that the series confronts.

The course is broken into three segments. The first covers sex, gender and race; the second addresses issues of economics and politics; and the third wraps up with a look at the urban geography of The Wire, and the layers of physical, technological and social structures and the ways in which they create real and artificial boundaries.

It wasn’t easy for anyone to pick one theme that they thought was most important. Brendan Clyde, a senior majoring in psychology, felt the most important themes were education, politics and community infrastructure, but that it made the most sense in an American context. “[I couldn’t] really relate personally,” he said. “I think Canada is a much different place, a much different environment.”

None of the members of the seminar had lived in the United States or spent much time there other than on vacation except for Doucet, who grew up in California. “I think it’s hard for us to relate, in our bubble in Vancouver,” she said.

Doucet felt that the criminal element of society and the effects <em>

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PHOTO COURTESY HBO

A new Student Directed Seminar allows UBC students to investigate the sociological side of David Simon’s The Wire.

of poverty once it has become endemic are something that are very hard to combat, and very hard to escape for many people, especially minorities. “Should people be allowed to be brought back to society, are crimes in the past going to haunt you forever?” she said.

But at the same time, The Wire’s nuances can be applied to real life. “I saw a lot of that,” Doucet said. “There’s a lot of gang culture, pit bull fighting, while at the same time a lot of the people involved in dog rescue programs are also black young men.”

The SDS program at UBC lends itself to an interdisciplinary approach, and offers an escape from the usual fare.

Apparently, the sentiments aren’t uncommon.

“There’s a bit of a disconnect between courses that students are interested in and what’s on offer,” said Toby Sirzyk, a student enrolled in the course.

The offer of intimacy, wide-ranging conversations, and the genuine interest of not only the director, but also Potter — who is the faculty sponsor and will be marking papers — means that this SDS will be one of the more unique courses on offer at UBC this semester.

Any time an institution as large as this is willing to open the doors to truly interdisciplinary viewpoints on an issue, let students take more responsibility for their education and do it under the umbrella of one of the best television series of the past decade, we all have something to learn and to gain from it. U <em>

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013 |

STUDENT VOICE. COMMUNITY REACH.

LAST WORDS

Finding an answer to the soul-killing Question REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PRESENT

by Kurtis Lockhart

ILLUSTRATION INDIANA JOEL/THE UBYSSEY

A Director of Viral Communications position, made possible through increased provincial funding, would ensure that UBC is ahead of the curve on the next Lip Dub, Harlem Shake and beyond.

CUTS TO EDUCATION ARE INCONVENIENT, AND NOT JUST IN ELECTION YEARS “We have to stop thinking of education as just K-12,” read the provincial government’s budget speech, implying the government needs to focus on post-secondary education. It’s true. But by looking at the newest budget, it’s clear that they haven’t actually done that yet.

For the last year, the provincial government’s biggest initiative to address underfunding in B.C. colleges and universities has been to cut their budgets by $50 million over two years. But only “administrative” cuts in areas where more efficiencies can be found. How to actually achieve those cuts has been left up to the institutions, which is a pain for schools like UBC, who have already squeezed out all the efficiency-saving they’ve got.

So, last week the government announced that it was going to push $20 million of that back two years, so they’d only cut $5 million this year. Which is good, because they had no plan on how to make those cuts and there’s an election in May, and who wants to make messy program cuts before an election?

That’s it. The government’s policy change for this year is not doing a thing it said it was going to do a year ago. For the last two years, post-secondary education has existed in a status-quo vacuum where nothing changes because nobody knows what they’re supposed to be doing. Given this budget, that’s basically the plan for 2013.

WEEK NIGHT T-BIRDS GAMES COULD BRING OUT MORE STUDENTS UBC was recently forced to make some scheduling changes in order to accommodate all the playoff games that needed to take place at War Memorial Gym. As a result, some teams played games on a Thursday night, a change from the typical weekend games that are played in the Canada West conference. And in terms of attendance, the weeknight game was a success.

When the men’s volleyball team played Manitoba on Thursday Feb. 14 in their first-round playoff series, the crowd wasn’t exactly large, but almost 400 people still showed up. That’s just under the average attendance for a volleyball game, but considering that this was also Valentine’s Day, that number is respectable.

The best thing about the crowd, though, was that it was largely composed of other varsity athletes.

Since all games are always on Friday and Saturday nights, they never get chances to see their fellow T-Birds play, and therefore don’t a chance to branch out into other sports that are played during their season. While there, the majority of the athletes all sat in the same section, taking advantage of the rare occurrence to be together.

The game on a weeknight may also provide a better chance to get more students out to games. Most students don’t live on campus and want to get off of it as soon as possible come the weekend, so there’s little incentive to stay and watch games. If the T-Birds play on a weeknight, though, students might be more inclined to stay and study at school for a bit before heading to watch a game.

Also, it can provide nice change of pace for the players. It can get monotonous playing at the same time on the same day every weekend.

The Canada West is different from the other CIS conferences in that their schools are so spread out, but Trinity Western, Fraser Valley and Victoria are still only a day-trip away. They could easily make it out for a Wednesday night game. The Manitoba and Saskatchewan schools do it, so why can’t B.C. follow suit?

lucky enough to be enjoying home cooked meals or resort buffets — was compounded by the fact that the Magda’s and Hubbard’s convenience stores were closed.

It is at times like this we are reminded of the unfairness of the university mandating that their various branches, Food Services included, turn a profit. One would hope the primary objective of the Totem and Vanier cafeterias would be to serve students good food, not to make money. Instead the need for profit drove Food Services to prevent students from cruising in for an 8:30 p.m. dinner, or a late-night stop at the convenience stores for some Oreos, potato chips, Pop Tarts, chocolate and soda after a stop in forest.

When the university community abandons its most vulnerable members — in this case, students without anywhere to go over reading week — it makes us at The Ubyssey question whether UBC values cash money over students hungry.

RIGHTEOUS FIRSTYEAR INDIGNATION OVER READING BREAK MAGDA’S CLOSURE

4/10/1979: Toope has the energy to play Arnolphe, but little of the control and pacing. He succumbs to the temptation so strong in Moliere s plays to overact. He rants too much, usually beginning his long monologues too vehemently and maintaining the same tone throughout. Toope has a face that rivals Jerry Lewis s for its malleability. He abuses this asset, however, and often seems to be forcing his face into a random series of contortions. U

Students unlucky enough to be left in residence over Reading Break were once again reminded that UBC Food Services can be quite cruel indeed. With shortened hours, students had to grab their food before 7 p.m. or risk going hungry. This inequity — in comparison to other students

10

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ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? It would seem UBC president Stephen Toope is a case study in perseverance. As mentioned in our annual interview with the man, Toope acted in several dramatic productions during his time at Harvard.

And by and large, his performances were lambasted in the Harvard Crimson.

This may be more a reflection of a college newspaper’s snark than Toope’s acting ability. We can’t help but wonder if the editorial staff at the Crimson had it out for Toope.

In any case, the reviews were brutal. A sample:

We’ve all been in that nauseatingly predictable situation: you’re in a new place with new people, and the first question every one of these strangers asks you — after your name — is some variation of, “So, what do you do?” or, for us students, “What do you want to do?”

Both questions are, of course, referring to that fundamental building block of capitalism: the job.

I have a theory that every time you’re asked this question — I call it The Question — and don’t know the answer to it, a part of your soul dies.

I have never known my own answer to The Question.

Obviously, I have a staged answer. You could almost call it rehearsed: a standard response to this soul-killing question that is itself a little soul-killing. It’s an answer you tell your grandmother or family friends when they’re over for dinner, an answer that doesn’t raise any eyebrows and makes everyone happy: “I’m thinking of going into law, Grandma,” or something of the sort. But this staged answer is not the truth. In reality, you have no fucking clue.

I’m at that point in my life where I need to start figuring out my true answer to The Question. And let me tell you — as if you need to be told — this process is unimaginably difficult.

I’ve consulted career websites, taken aptitude tests, read self-help books, talked to various professionals in various fields, and read biographies and autobiographies of successful people; I’ve even spent four years studying at a university to try and figure out my answer to The Question. All to no avail.

I think the reason these methods have failed to provide an answer is because they all involved looking outside of myself — expecting some external source to show the way, or point me in the right direction.

Because many of us are going through some of the most uncertain years of our lives, we are highly susceptible to the influence of these external sources. Sources we can point to when we make our ultimate decision and say, “See, look, this decision was supported by another

person. I didn’t make it blindly.” We hedge against excruciating uncertainty by seeking the comforting support of these external sources.

This too often results in us students deferring one of the most important decisions we’ll ever make to someone or something other than ourselves.

Now, I am going to propose an alternative that sounds trite — so trite that you may vomit. But you need to promise to keep reading after you’ve finished vomiting. Alright, here goes: instead of looking to external sources to answer The Question, try listening to that most ignored source: your inner voice.

Sure, it’s banal. But as David Foster Wallace said, “In the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance.”

And what could be more important than how you choose to spend the limited time you have? And once you realize your time is limited — that you will, inevitably, expire — why, oh why, would you spend this fleeting moment in which you’re alive settling for a job that you don’t particularly like doing?

And yet the tragic fact of the matter is that the vast majority of us will settle for just such a job. Not because we’ve tried to attain a job we actually love and have failed, but because we never even attempted to pursue our true passion in the first place. This is a truly heart-wrenching, viscera-crushing, despair-inducing human fact. This is capital-S Sad. I’ll leave you with one of the most important things I’ve ever read — an excerpt from Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement speech — and perhaps it will help you to find your answer to the question as much as it has me. (That is to say, perhaps it will give you a framework through which to come up with your answer. I myself have come nowhere close to having pinned down my own answer, but, through Mr. Jobs’ wisdom, I’ve finally discovered the values that I want to underlie it. And that’s not nothing.)

“Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” U

Sex issue heteronormative

LETTERS My name is Tim Philpott and I’m the president of UBC’s Society for Family Stability Foundation. We at the Foundation are strongly opposed to any public reference to humans as sexual beings. Your “sex” issue crossed all known lines of morality; such lustful debauchery has no place in our Christian Nation. We at the Foundation demand a retraction of the entire issue. Are you aware that an almost entirely naked man and woman are depicted on the front page of this issue! Appalling. This highly sexual imagery implies that sexual experiences are condoned for reasons other then procreation!

Those exclamation marks underscore my complete displeasure with your filthy newspaper. To top it all off, one of the disembodied hands touching the mostly naked man is wearing a crucifix. This is utter blasphemy, and we demand a public apology from the editors of The Ubyssey . <em>

</em>

Sincerly, Tim Philpott President UBC Society for Family Stability Foundation PS: Just kidding! No one is going to burn your newspaper. Well, no one from the SFSF, at least. I clearly have too much time on my hands. It’s reading week and all of my fellow grad students are off skiing or doing something fun. Anyway, what I really took issue with was that your sex issue was super heteronormative.

Come on, Ubyssey ! Put some (mostly) naked homo couples embracing each other on the front. There is more out there then just hetero sex!

Normalizing homo sex via imagery on the front page of The Ubyssey is a really really good way of helping the countless men and women who are stuck in the closet in their early 20s come out and embrace who they are. There is nothing worse then being stuck in the closet during your prime. I’ll be looking next year. <em>

—Tim

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12 | GAMES |

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2013

40- Extend the duration of 41- Person to whom property is transferred 42- Sty 43- 1998 Masters winner Mark 44- Unctuous 45- Main arteries 46- AMA members

47- Islamic call to prayer 49- Up ___ (trapped) 50- Soup server 51- Greek epic poem 55- ___ boy!

57- Delivery room docs 58- Swiss river

KILLER SODOKU

47- Moving around 48- Perpetuate 52- ___-disant (self-styled) 53- Toothed wheels 54- Currency unit in Western Samoa 55- Wight or Man 56- Constituent 57- Arrangement 59- Humorist Bombeck 60- Actor Lugosi 61- All together 62- Votes against 63- Highly ranked competitor in sporting events 64- Extent

DOWN

PUZZLE COURTESY BESTCROSSWORDS.COM. USED WITH PERMISSION.

ACROSS 1- Purple Heart, e.g.

6- Swill 10- Purim month 14- Beethoven dedicatee 15- 100 centavos 16- Bundle 17- Long for 19- Not base 20- Rapper born Tracy Marrow

21- A ___ formality 22- Maxim 23- ___ standstill 24- Art of writing in shorthand 26- Throws 28- Important 29- Upright 30- LP player 33- Scatter 38- Held on to 39- Argentine plain 42- Spanish inn

1- Intervene 2- Voter 3- Ill 4- ___ were 5- Spearheaded 6- Carousal 7- Get to know 8- Bony prefix 9- “The Bells” poet 10- Iranian city 11- Repeated from the beginning 12- On fire 13- Night flight 18- CPR experts 22- Pound sound 24- Hardens 25- Enter 27- Biol. or chem.

30- Tee follower 31- Mischievous fairy 32- In shape 34- Three-player card game 35- Church recess 36- Shooting marble 37- Act of sending out

PUZZLE COURTESY KRAZYDAD. USED WITH PERMISSION.

Fill in the blank squares so that each row, each column and each 3-by-3 block contains all of the digits 1 through 9. The dotted lines indicate areas which also contain a non-repeating set of digits. These squares can be summed to produce the sums shown in the clues.

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