March 25, 2013 by The Ubyssey

MaRcH 25, 2013 | VolUME XciV| issUE XlViii BURGOOOOOOO SINCE 1918

braIN FOOD

three recipes with only three ingredients each

INTERDISCIPLINARY RUGBY COLLEGE AXED FACES learn more about his academic future on P3

DEFEAT AGAINST CAL Men’s team is defeated 38–6 on Sunday P5

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 |

YoUR GUiDE To Ubc EVEnTs + PEoPlE

WHaT’s ON

THis WEEk, MaY WE sUGGEsT...

PIC OF THe WeeK

MONDAY 25

FEATU

RE PRE VI

F CONSACES OF T RU C T IO

WRIte YOuR eSSAY

APRIL

let’s be real here, guys. There are no full weeks of school left *gasp* and you likely have anywhere from one to five essays due soon. Time to take that Facebook hiatus and buckle down, stat.

TUESDAY

8 TH

KARAOKe

9 P.M. @ THE GALLERY

if you either don’t have any essays to write or exams to prepare for (in which case, stop lying to yourself), or need some chilling out time, just go belt it out. Fly your freak ﬂag high and let everyone know you still love that one Third Eye blind song.

WEDNESDAY 27 tIMe MANAGeMeNt WORKSHOP This may not be the most formal workshop you have attended before, because it’s one you can do at home! step 1: pull out your sullabi. step 2: reread class goals and assignments. step 3: make Google calendar with study schedule. step 4: feel successful for having managed your time.

ON THE COVER

kai jacobson PHoTo/THE UbYssEY

sam, a carpenter for biRD construction, pictured on the site of the new student Union building, slated to open in 2014.

For this issue’s spread (pg. 6), art director kai jacobson created a mini studio in his kitchen. by experimenting with different lighting scenarios, he was able to create the gloss and finish that is often found in recipe books, but not necessarily in home photography.

josH cURRan PHoTos/THE UbYssEY

Members of the Ubc varsity nordic ski team train at cypress Mountain last weekend.

Video content

Make sure to check out our latest content, 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, catherine Guan, Ginny Monaco, Matt Meuse, Hogan Wong, Rory Gattens, brandon chow, joseph ssettuba. Tyler McRobbie, sarah bigam, stephanie Xu, natalya kautz, colin chia, kim Pringle, Geoff lister

MaRcH 25, 2013 | VolUME XciV| issUE XlViii busINess

CONTaCT

Business Manager Fernie Pereira fpereira@ubyssey.ca

editorial Oﬃce: SUB 24 604.822.2301

Ad Sales Ben Chen bchen@ubyssey.ca Accounts Tom Tang ttang@ubyssey.ca

Business Oﬃce: SUB 23 604.822.1654 604.822.6681 Student Union Building 6138 SUB Boulevard Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 ADVERTISING INQUIRIES

Online: ubyssey.ca twitter: @ubyssey

legal The Ubyssey is the oﬃcial student newspaper of the University of british columbia. it is published every Monday and Thursday by The Ubyssey Publications society. We are an autonomous, democratically run student organization, and all students are encouraged to participate. Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff. They are the expressed 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. The Ubyssey is a founding member of canadian University Press (cUP) and adheres to cUP’s guiding principles. 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-

ty. all letters must be received by 12 noon the day before intended publication. letters received after this point will be published in the following issue unless there is an urgent time restriction or other matter deemed relevant by the Ubyssey staff. it is agreed by all persons placing display or classified advertising that if the Ubyssey Publications society fails to publish an advertisement or if an error in the ad occurs the liability of the UPs will not be greater than the price paid for the ad. The UPs shall not be responsible for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value or the impact of the ad.

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 |

EDiToRs WILL MCDONALD + LAURA RODGERS

sTuDeNT lIFe >>

third-party operator. The lodge is an asset that can never be regained once sold, he said. “Selling wouldn’t even provide a long-term benefit; that money is going to go back into the establishment and students aren’t even going to see it... Maybe [the lodge is] not a need, but I think it is still something that students want, and something that was built by students,” said Parker. by the numbers

$40,500 OPeRAtING

lOSS IN 2011

$5,626

OPeRAtING lOSS IN 2012

$400,000 tO De-

MOlISH tHe lODGe 5626 PReVIOuS eStIMAte FOR ReNOVAtION

$420,000

1,617 NIGHtS BOOKeD BY StuDeNtS IN 2011

The aMs won’t spend the money to look into renovating the lodge, but they don’t have students’ permission to sell it, either.

kai jacobson PHoTo/THE UbYssEY

No thaw yet on Whistler Lodge debate Colin Chia Staﬀ Writer

The AMS is once again on track to sell the Whistler Lodge after Council rejected an allocation of funds to begin necessary repairs to the building. The executive committee was seeking up to $30,000 to obtain cost estimates for repairs from third-party consultants. But with 14 councillors in favour and 11 against, the motion failed to obtain the two-thirds majority required to approve expenditures from the Student Spaces Fund, which currently has a balance of $366,000. AMS President Caroline Wong said this signals Council’s rejection of plans to operate the lodge as a

NEWS BRIEFS universe may be older than we think: uBC study The universe is 100 million years older and expanding more slowly than previously thought, according to research by a canadian team led by Ubc astronomy professor Douglas scott. The data comes from the Planck space Telescope’s measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation, cosmic remnants of the big bang. scott said that a “precise recipe” for the universe is also emerging, thanks to new data from the telescope about the density and lumpiness of dark and normal matter. 14.9 per cent of Vancouver condos unoccupied: uBC study Research into the effects of foreign investment on Vancouver’s housing market shows 14.9 per cent of condos in downtown Vancouver are occupied by foreign residents, according to a study by andy Yan, an adjunct professor with the Ubc school of community and Regional Planning. The data doesn’t differentiate condos sitting empty from those occasionally lived in by a foreign owner. although unoccupied residential units mean property tax revenue without using municipal services, it can also have a negative effect on local businesses and could be distorting housing prices. U

service rather than a business, and make the repairs needed to keep the lodge running. “We made it very clear to councillors that if they failed this motion, it is with intent to sell the lodge or sell the land, basically. And they did fail it, so that’s the direction we’re taking right now,” she said. But it’s unclear if it’s the direction students want to take. An AMS survey released on Jan. 5 showed a majority of UBC students would prefer to maintain the Whistler Lodge. Forty-eight per cent of students consider the lodge a service, while 14 per cent view it as a business. The lodge lost $5,626 last year and $40,500 in 2011. Although it

made a profit of $279,000 between 2005 and 2010, the student society spent $500,000 on capital repairs in the same period. Some AMS councillors don’t accept the validity of the survey, although it was meant to gather information on what students wanted after the referendum on selling the lodge failed in 2012. Arts representative Anne Kessler said the poll was misleading because it assumed student fees wouldn’t be affected and didn’t specifically explain how students might benefit if proceeds from the sale were placed into an endowment fund to generate interest. “I understand people’s attachment to the lodge.... I just think there’s so much more that we could

be doing that would be more meaningful to students,” said Kessler. “Why are we keeping this building that’s wasting a lot of money simply for the idea of liking it? Yes, it’s something unique, but that uniqueness isn’t bringing people up there.” Kessler also thinks the lodge can’t be considered a necessary service in the category of the Food Bank or the Sexual Assault Support Centre. “I don’t think that partially subsidized ski trips are something that students need,” Kessler said. UBC Ski and Board Club president Braden Parker said he believes the AMS is taking a short-sighted approach and hasn’t adequately considered options like engaging a

aCaDeMICs >>

New international college gets Senate approval

Sarah Bigam Staﬀ Writer

On March 20, the UBC Senate passed a proposal to establish a college on campus for international students who do not meet UBC’s English language requirements. Many of the specifics of this project, including the name of the college itself, are still under discussion. It has been referred to as “Bridge to UBC” and “Pathways.” The program is intended to increase diversity of the student population and fill gaps in UBC’s central budget. If the Board of Governors also approves the proposal at their next meeting, 300 students will start the 12-month program in August 2014. These students will be split into arts and science programs. Students will be required to meet minimum English language requirements and have averages equal to at least 70 per cent in the B.C./Yukon secondary school system. Students studying science through the program must have an equivalent of B.C. Grade 11 chemistry and physics. The college will not use broad-based admissions. According to student senator and AMS VP Academic Kiran Mahal, UBC Admissions is still trying to figure out the best way to assess students for admission, given the level of variation in curricula around the world.

jEFF ascHkinasi GRaPHic/THE UbYssEY

Through a new international college with intensive English instruction, Ubc hopes to recruit more students from countries like those listed above.

Mahal said that admissions will be very selective in order to choose students with the best chance at success. “We are going to be bringing in students halfway across the world and asking them to invest a lot into this program, and UBC wouldn’t want to bring people to campus unless they actually have the potential to be very successful and to get into second year out of this program.” The college has a $4 million startup budget to cover the preparation of curriculum and the recruitment of students and faculty. Tuition is proposed at $30,000 per year, and seven per cent of all tuition revenue will be used to create scholarships and financial aid for the program. The college has the ability to create its own courses, according to Mahal, but students of the college will mostly be taking existing UBC courses and writing the same exams as other first-years. It is still under discussion whether the students will be in the same sections as other

first-years at UBC proper. The students will also have additional English education integrated into the rest of the program. According to Mahal, the science segment will have a stream for both physical and computational sciences, and no life science or biology courses will be offered to students in the program. Janet Giltrow, the senior associate dean of the Faculty of Arts, said that Arts Studies 150 (a standard course about academic writing), geography, political science and psychology are being considered for the arts courses. After their year at the college, students who get high enough grades will be admitted to second year at UBC. The cutoff is still to be decided by the faculties, Mahal said, but the goal is to have at least 80 per cent of the students who are admitted into the college move on to second year. She said the current plan will require students to renew their visa when going into second year, because their initial

Wong now plans to ask Council on April 3 for funds to maintain and secure the property if the lodge were to shut down. AMS director of finance Keith Hester told AMS Council that demolishing the lodge would cost an estimated $400,000. There’s also the possibility of the lodge being stuck in limbo if Council fails to pass the motion, or if the student referendum that would be necessary to sell the land fails. “We would still cease operations, of course, and have it a sitting duck, and that costs money to maintain it and secure the site,” said Wong. She added that there is still “wiggle room” to change direction. “This is a little football we’ve been passing around for a long time and I’d like a firm decision on this,” she said. U visas will only be granted for the one-year program. To advance into second year, students will need to meet transfer admission requirements as determined by the Faculty of Arts or Science. “[If] a student would end their first year at Langara, [they] would need to meet a certain grade point to transfer to UBC, and i think we’re looking at that standard,” said Giltrow. Once in second year, students will already have at least 24 UBC credits and will be able to transfer to other faculties if they choose. Vice-Provost Angela Redish said in an email interview that the proposed Orchard Commons, a hub containing student residences as well as academic facilities, will help house these new students, although the idea of the building predates the proposal. If the Board of Governors approves this building, construction will begin in 2014. Mahal said that the AMS and VP Students office are working together to ensure that students of the college are integrated fully into UBC student life. To help with this, they will be housed not just in Orchard Commons but in student residences across campus. Mahal said Bridge students will be AMS members, with access to AMS facilities, school libraries and the U-Pass. “I think if the AMS and the VP Students office work very closely over the next year, we’ll be able to create a really, really strong experience for these students coming in so they feel like they’re part of the community,” said Mahal. U

4 | NeWS |

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

graD sCHOOl >>

sTuDeNT POlITICs >>

college for interdisciplinary More scrutiny coming for AMS studies to shut down

executives’ bonuses Ming Wong Senior News Writer

inDiana joEl anD kai jacobson PHoTo illUsTRaTion/THE UbYssEY

students in interdisciplinary grad programs will soon find themselves in the Faculty of science, applied science or Medicine.

Veronika Bondarenko Staﬀ Writer

As the UBC College for Interdisciplinary Studies prepares to close its doors, students in a handful of science graduate programs will soon have a full-service faculty to call home. Starting in September 2013, the college’s interdisciplinary programs, like bioinformatics, oncology and software systems, will be transferred to either the Faculty of Science, Medicine or Applied Science. According to its current president, Hugh Brock, the College for Interdisciplinary Studies was founded in 2006 in order to maintain department-spanning research units and provide graduate programs for students who wished to focus on more than one area of study. But the research units were brought over to individual faculties last year, and Brock said it is no longer worthwhile for the university to maintain the stand-alone graduate programs. “[The college] was small and it seemed unfair to deny the grad programs the same benefits that the units got when they were transferred to faculties,” said Brock.

Brock also stressed that while the change will involve some shifts in administration, it will have very little effect on the overall course of students’ degrees. “There’s no change in the academic part of the program,” said Brock. “They [the students] will be working with the same graduate assistant, the same director, have the same funding. Their transcript and academic rules and regulations will be the same, so really, they won’t even notice.” When it comes the college’s remaining goal — promoting interdisciplinary research more generally on campus — Brock expects to continue striving for it from his new position as the associate provost, academic innovation. Chris Roach expressed concerns about the suddenness of the change at the March 20 Senate meeting. Roach is president of the college’s student association, Graduate Student Society president and current Ph.D. student in the college’s former genome science and technology program. In a later interview, Roach said that while the switch will break up a tightly knit campus community, it will also allow students to take advantage of the greater num-

ber of opportunities, whether academic or social, offered by the larger faculties. “It’s great to get those students together, so it’s sad that we won’t have something like that,” said Roach. “At the same time, I think it’s going to be much more beneficial to students to have them in faculties that can better support these graduate student programs.” Paul Harrison, associate dean of the Faculty of Science at UBC, also feels the switch will provide more students with the support they need to make the most out of their degree. “The faculties are the strongest academic units on campus, the most long-lived, and they can provide administrative support as well as academic nurturing,” said Harrison. When it comes to the administrative budget formerly used for the College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Harrison said that the remaining money is being redistributed among the faculties based on the total number of new students transferring. Part of the budget will also be used to support interdisciplinary initiatives at UBC through an associate provost, academic innovation position. U

The AMS is changing the bonus system for their five executives to make it more accountable — but they still refuse to release how much money the execs are getting. The total bonus money allowed for each executive is $5,000, on top of a regular salary of $27,500 per year. Now the AMS has tweaked the bonus rules to clarify that the money is an extra incentive to go above and beyond, not a method of withholding part of what would otherwise be a $32,500 salary. Some bonus money was paid out to the 2012 2013 executive team, but neither the committee deciding on the bonuses nor the execs themselves are willing to say how much. The bonus plan was initially pitched as a pay raise for the executives along with a “performance accountability restriction” — a way to withold some of the money if the AMS Council thinks an exec failed in their duties. Many saw the exec pay raise and bonus structure as a contentious move when it was introduced in 2011, and an unsuccessful petition was circulated to stop the measure shortly after it was introduced. But according to Hans Seidemann, engineering rep on AMS Council and head of the AMS legislative procedures committee, withholding part of somebody’s pay doesn’t jibe with employment law, so the system was actually implemented as a bonus plan from the start. “It is not possible for someone to have a salary and then [for Council to] claw it back,” said Seidemann. The five AMS executives set a series of goals at the beginning of their terms. Those goals are approved by an AMS oversight committee, and how successful the execs are at achieving their goals determines how much bonus money they get at the end of their term. But Seidemann and others felt the bonus plan needs some polishing after its first full year in effect. The new guidelines will

require the bonus oversight committee to meet more frequently and to be more involved in the execs’ goal-creation process. They will also require executives to make their goals clearer and easier to measure. “A goal like, I’m going to increase engagement,’ you can have that goal, but you would have to have some metrics to define how that was a success or not,” said Seidemann. Some critics wondered whether the bonus system kept this year’s executives from attempting far-reaching goals that might not be successful. But management consultant Glenn Wong, who initially recommended a bonus structure for AMS executives, said the bonuses were actually intended to make the execs more ambitious. “I didn’t recommend it as a holdback or a penalty system. It was meant to be more of a positive incentive and for things that are over and above,” said Wong. Seidemann concurred, saying the bonus payments are “supposed to reflect accomplishment of projects above and beyond the day-to-day.” The new changes to the system mean execs will be eligible for part of their bonus money even if they don’t achieve their goals, so long as they can show concrete steps toward them. The oversight committee will release summaries of how they evaluated this year’s AMS executives on their bonus goals, but Seidemann said they won’t release how much money they received because of employment standards law. Of the 2012 2013 executive, VP Finance Tristan Miller, VP Academic Kiran Mahal and VP Administration (now President) Caroline Wong all declined to disclose to The Ubyssey how much of the $5,000 bonus they received. Former President Matt Parson and VP External Kyle Warwick did not respond by press time. Seidemann said he was pleased with the evaluation of this year’s executive, but another committee member, Barnabas Caro, disagreed with him. “There’s a lot of room for improvement,” said Caro. U

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 |

EDITOR C.J. PENTLAND

rugby >>

World Cup trophy going back to Cal UBC rugby can’t overcome 10-point deficit, loses second leg of annual series C.J. Pentland Sports + Rec Editor

kai jacobson PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

UBC had trouble penetrating Cal’s defence and could only muster six points.

The UBC men’s rugby team needed to win by more than 10 points to bring home the World Cup trophy for the first time since 2006. But the ’Birds couldn’t take advantage of their opportunities and ultimately fell 38-6 to the University of California Golden Bears in the second leg of their annual series. UBC lost the series by an overall score of 68-24. It was a tight, low-scoring affair in the first half on Sunday afternoon, with neither team able to get much going on offence or score a try. UBC took an early 3-0 lead off a penalty kick from Brock Staller, but Cal tied it right up with a kick of their own shortly after. The teams exchanged penalty kicks for the remainder of the half, and the Bears took a slim 9-6 lead into the final 40 minutes. Cal came out flying at the start of the half, diminishing any chance of UBC bouncing back and silencing the large crowd at Thunderbird Stadium. They tacked on two tries to push the lead to 15, and came up big on defence to maintain it. UBC had numerous chances to cross the try line, but stalled just short of it for several minutes and was unable to break down the Golden Bear defence. After that period of intense pressure, Cal took control for the rest of the game and sailed to a convincing victory. “I think in the first half, the Thunderbirds did a good job of

keeping possession, keeping us on the back foot, which is never easy. And I think we went into the locker room and realized that we needed to get more possessions and make the most of the possession that we did have and not give away easy balls, and I thought we did that,” said Cal captain Seamus Kelly. The score does not fully reflect how close the game was for the majority of the contest, as UBC had many chances to take the lead or even the score. But a few missed kicks and the T-Birds’ inability to cross the goal line eventually cost them, and a few late Golden Bear scores put the game well out of reach. The win gives Cal, consistently one of the top teams in the NCAA and 16-0 this year, the series victory for the seventh straight year and the 14th time over the past 17 years. Overall, the series has been played every year since 1921 and is one of the most intense and competitive cross-border rivalries in North American collegiate sports history. Despite the tough loss, the remainder of the season looks bright for the Thunderbirds. They have an overall record of 13-4-2 and sit near the top of the Okanagan Spring Brewery League One standings. They have five more games left before the postseason starts in May. UBC’s next contest is against the University of Victoria on March 29. The game is at 2:30 p.m. at Lord Rugby Field on campus. U

baseball >>

T-Birds hit their way to victory UBC baseball overcomes slow start to take three wins over College of Idaho C.J. Pentland Sports + Rec Editor

It didn’t look promising at first, but the UBC baseball team overcame a slow start to their weekend series at Thunderbird Park and took three of four games from the College of Idaho Coyotes in regular season action. The ’Birds eventually got their bats going after the first game, and received strong pitching over the final three contests to win the final three games and improve to 9-3 in conference play. Game one didn’t start well for UBC as the T-Birds came out flat, with defensive mistakes and weak pitches. The offence wasn’t able to make up for it, and Idaho took the opening game 3-0. Alex Graham started and gave up the three runs, while Connor Smith did his best to keep UBC in the game by giving up no runs over four innings of work. Only Andrew Firth was able to get much going on offence, racking up three hits. “That was one of our poorest games of the year,” said UBC head coach Terry McKaig. “Their guy threw quite well, especially in the first four or five innings. I thought he got a little tired after that and started elevating the ball, but we couldn’t take advantage with a disciplined approach.” But in the second game, the T-Birds got the bounce-back effort they needed. James Stewart

Infielder Kevin Biro had six hits on the weekend to help UBC to three wins over the College of Idaho.

made a diving catch in the first inning to get UBC some momentum, and backed by a seven-run fourth inning, the ’Birds rolled to a 9-0 victory to split the Saturday series. Starter Jeremy Newton was “outstanding” in the eyes of McKaig, giving up only one hit over seven innings. Reliever Tavis Bruce threw two perfect innings to seal the deal.

It was a balanced effort on offence, with six players picking up multiple hits. Greg Densem led the way with three hits, while Mike Hole went 2-2 with two doubles. Tyson Popoff, Kevin Biro, Austin Fruson and Tyler Enns all had two hits apiece. After a slow start for both teams on Sunday, the ’Birds used some clutch hitting to power

kai jacobson PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

ahead come the fifth inning and win 8-2. All of UBC’s runs in the game came while there were two outs. Jerod Bartnik sparked the twoout rally in the third inning with a triple to the right-centre gap that brought home Stewart. That was followed up by a Densem single and a Firth double, giving UBC an early 3-0 lead.

That lead was pushed to eight in the fifth inning, when UBC took advantage of some fielding errors and score five more twoout runs. Fruson, Biro and Jeremy Kral all racked up hits, and from that point on the ’Birds were in complete control. Freshman Bryan Pawlina was solid over six innings, giving up only one run to earn the win, and Connor Lillis-White pitched the final three and gave up only one run on one hit. UBC picked up where they left off in the fourth and final game, scoring five runs in the first inning to get out to an early lead and finish with another 8-2 victory. It was another balanced offensive effort, with five players recording more than two hits and four contributing RBIs; Firth once again led the way with three hits, four RBIs and two runs scored. On the mound, Sean Callegari pitched five solid innings to pick up the win, and Alex Webb and Miles Verweel threw the final four to preserve the win. UBC has now won eight of their last nine games, and is now second in the NAIA Cascade Collegiate Conference. The T-Birds will head onto the road next weekend to take on Simpson University in California, and will come back home on April 12 for a four-game series against Corban University. U

6 | CultuRe |

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

sNaCK aTTaCK Simple snacks to help you study

loW-fat Yogurt With granola and froZen fruit This isn’t really a recipe at all, but it’s all too easy to forget that there are alternatives to PopTarts. You can replace the granola with walnuts or almonds if you’re on a tight budget. Not only are yogurt and nuts filling, but they are full of protein, calcium and other nutrients. Make sure to leave the frozen fruit out for at least 20 minutes beforehand for pristine softness. Add maple syrup for a classy dessert.

sWeet potato fries

ants on a log

Sweet potatoes are full of fibre and potassium. (Note that some supermarkets incorrectly call sweet potatoes yams — chances are, if your “yam” was grown in the United States, it’s actually a sweet potato.) Slice the potato up into thin wedges, leaving the skin on. Coat the wedges with olive oil or cooking spray and add your preferred seasoning. Then coat a microwave-safe plate with more oil and arrange the wedges on it, being careful not to let them overlap. Depending on the thickness of the wedges and the strength of the microwave, cooking time takes anywhere between two and 10 minutes, so keep an eye out. The fries are done when they begin to turn brown at the edges.

A childhood favourite, ants on a log is a tasty, filling source of protein, minerals and vitamins. Simply slice some celery sticks into miniature “logs,” spread peanut butter on top and add raisins. In addition to portability, the other great thing about ants on a log are the endless variations: instead of peanut butter and raisins, try sun-dried tomatoes and cream cheese, guacamole and beans, or hummus and olives.

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

| culture | 7

Rhys Edwards Senior Culture Editor

he exam season isn’t kind to the body of a student. The mental duress of exams and the exhaustion of all-night cramming sessions can turn once-balanced diets southward. You most likely know that the refined carbohydrates and saturated fats in most processed snacks can leave you feeling unsatisfied, accelerate tiredness and cause weight gain. But with so much stress and so little free time, the principles of economics displace gastronomics, and you reach for the Hot Pockets.This doesn’t have to be the case. It’s possible to get a good grade and eat well with just a little prudence. At three ingredients apiece, the following recipes are stupidly simple, cheap, easy to prepare — and, most importantly, they’re good for you. U

8 | CultuRe |

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

FasHION >>

Local fashion insiders share style tips

ED nG PHoTo/THE UbYssEY

next time you’re reaching for those stretchy pants, take a cue from Vancouver Fashion Week and strut into spring with style.

Reyhana Heatherington Contributor

It can be hard to see the fashion forest through the Lululemon trees. As Vancouver Fashion Week wrapped up this weekend, it may have been difficult for people to identify with the staged shows in a city where comfort and athleticism rule supreme. And many students, lacking bottomless bank accounts, dismiss the notion of being fashionable altogether. But The Ubyssey caught up with a couple fashionistas attending Vancouver Fashion Week to talk about how vintage clothes are the

key to affordable style. Instead of ignoring fashion, students can separate the trendy from timeless, look beyond the brand-name retailers and combine pieces for an eye-catching wardrobe. Tiffany Murray, store manager at Used House of Vintage on Granville Street, said that fashion in Vancouver is often more underground. But that doesn’t mean there is a shortage of diverse options for stylish people on the hunt for an original look. Murray said her customers approach fashion like a jigsaw puzzle. “They like coming in here, because they can actually use their brains and say, I can mix this

with that,’” she said. She said people can find unlimited potential in used clothing, and noted that a small budget shouldn’t be an excuse. “You just have to have your eyes open,” she said. Fashion designer Blake Hyland has kept his eyes open for 10 years in the vintage clothing industry. “I want to sort of show people that just because it’s old or it’s been disregarded or whatever, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a beautiful thing. [I’m] trying to change people’s mentality towards fashion in general,” Hyland said. Hyland, an Australian-born men’s wear and accessories

designer, showed at Vancouver Fashion Week in 2010 after graduating from design school. Now, he is responding to customer requests and expanding his grunge looks to women’s wear. Hyland is drawn to re-working material to create new pieces; his deconstructed aesthetic has a sustainable component. “It’s sort of like helping the earth, helping the world a little,” he said. “If I can help contribute by taking or eliminating some of that waste out of these places, and creating them into something new that can be reused or re-worn again in a different way.” Mass consumerism and trends

of the moment do not drive his design philosophy. “Stay true to yourself and it’s gonna come across stronger than if someone’s buying into something that is popular or in demand or seen as a trend,” he said. “I always pay attention to the people who stand out, as opposed to the people who look the same.” And though top fashion labels are synonymous with hefty price tags, Hyland finds value in individuality rather than price. “It comes down to how someone wears a certain garment. You don’t need to have a lot of money in order to be able to feel comfortable about yourself.” U

| CultuRe | 9

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013

THeaTre >>

Lizzie Borden took an axe...

Tale of unsolved murder closes Theatre at UBC’s season on a bloody good note Sidney Hryciuk Contributor

hildren’s nursery rhymes often have dark roots. The children’s rhyme that is echoing through the Freddy Wood Theatre for Theatre at UBC’s last production of the season, Blood Relations , is no exception. “Lizzie Borden took an axe/ Gave her mother 40 whacks/ When she saw what she had done/ She gave her father 41...” So goes the sing-song rhyme that haunts the heroine, Lizzie Borden — and the audience — throughout the play. Blood Relations , which premiered at UBC in 1986, follows the dark drama of the notorious real-life Borden axe murders. Lizzie Borden, then 32 years old, was acquitted of two charges of murder. To this day, the case remains a mystery. Though the question “Did you, Lizzie? Did you?” is posed more than once, Sharon Pollock’s play is less interested in whether she actually committed the murder. Instead, the plot revolves around the psychological question of whether a “gentlewoman” living under the oppressed conditions of the 19th century would be capable of such a crime. The sheer lack of control Lizzie Borden has over her life raises a slippery series of questions on morality, blame and power. As the play begins, the audience is greeted immediately with a foreboding curtain that reads, “Home, Sweet Home.” Very soon, however, it becomes apparent that there’s not much sweetness in the Borden household. A colossal birdcage unfurls as the audience is transported into

HoGan WonG PHoTo/THE UbYssEY

Did you, lizzie? Did you?

the dim household of the Bordens, years after the murder of Lizzie’s parents. Fourth-year UBC acting student Courtney Shields portrays an older Lizzie, whose nasally dialogue is peppered with dismay at her societal repression. She is supported by her alleged partner and only friend, the Actress, who begs for some answers. The play then flashes back to the past, before the murders, and a sense of sympathy for the younger Lizzie begins to develop. At 32 — “spinster” age, in those times — Lizzie is trapped in the family home with a pushover father, a callous stepmother and a feeble sister (well supported by fourth-year acting student Georgia Beaty). Adding tension to the plot is a controlling uncle, looming over the family’s fortune and threatening to take away what is rightfully Lizzie’s. Production student Diana Sepulveda-Navarette’s set — a metal birdcage towering over the

Borden household — masterfully emphasizes the trapped nature of the Borden sisters. Deftly complementing this theme is Scott Zechner’s sound design, which weaves the sound of birds throughout the play. The large projection screen onstage is the only out-of-place element. The play follows a nonlinear storyline and jumps in time and space without set changes, so it is understandable that the screen is meant to orient the audience. However, it is distracting and seems to suggest that the actors can’t portray their characters without the help of images. Though not without its minor faults, UBC’s Blood Relations is a noteworthy mystery that questions the audience’s assumptions and adds effective new twists to Sharon Pollock’s well-known play.

Blood Relations runs until April 6 at the Frederic Wood Theatre. U

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 |

STUDENT VOICe. COMMUNITY REACH.

LAST WORDS

More research needed to address water issues

S YUME/FLICKR

Events like World Water Day are needed because the public doesn’t understand how water use and governance affect issues like climate change, argues Pacheco-Vega.

PERSPECTIVES Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega

indiana joel illustration/the ubyssey

Downside of not renovating or selling the Whistler Lodge: students no longer have cheap accomodation in Whistler. Upside: local hippies/wildlife have a new place to squat.

Whistler Lodge still stuck in limbo Last week, Council voted down a motion to fund renovations to the Whistler Lodge. Council seems to take this decision to mean the lodge isn’t worth fixing and should be sold. But it isn’t that simple. Even if all of Council agrees the lodge should be sold, students still have to approve the sale in a referendum. Without student approval to sell, the lodge could be stuck in limbo. It will cost around $400,000 to demolish the lodge, and the AMS will have to pay for its upkeep while they wait for student approval to sell it. The last referendum to sell the lodge failed, but AMS execs want to sell it anyway. It seems the execs are pressuring councillors into selling the lodge. A recent survey shows students want to keep the lodge. The AMS needs to make a decision now before it loses even more money. At this point, it seems like their options are to make the investment or let the place rot.

Your primer on the annual tuition increase It’s spring: the sun is shining, birds are singing and if you’re a domestic UBC student, your tuition is rising by another two per cent. Since 2005, the steady increase in tuition fees, designed to put students and not taxpayers on the hook for inflation, has seemed as natural as the changing of the seasons. The B.C. Liberals instituted the two per cent cap on tuition increases eight years ago, and since then, students have received emails every March indicating that the Board of Governors has decided to raise tuition yet again. It hasn’t always been this way. In 1996, the B.C. NDP opted to institute a tuition freeze. This meant universities and government had to cover the cost of inflation. In 2002, the

Liberals scrapped the freeze, and tuition skyrocketed. Public pressure forced them to impose some sort of tuition regulation, and the cap was born. This has a few implications for UBC. For one, it means that UBC has to find new sources of revenue wherever it can. International students aren’t protected by the cap; they pay the entire cost of their education. So while UBC looks good when it increases international recruitment, financial motives are involved. New degree programs are another way to get around the cap — that’s what happened with the bachelor of international economics last fall. The new degree charges students several thousand more than a BA, and that extra money will go towards UBC’s bottom line. The cap also forces Board of Governors student reps to vote on increasing tuition. In the past, this might have been a real ideological decision on the role of government in education, but not anymore. Now, tuition votes are more or less a rubber stamp; reps either agree outright and vote for the increase, or agree in principle but opt to abstain from voting. The tuition cap, in many ways, informs everything UBC does: it’s managed to redefine middle-of-the-road public policy. It’s unlikely that the next government will touch the cap. The Liberals won’t remove it and shift more of the cost of a university education onto the student — they’ve learned that this is not a popular move. And the NDP likely won’t freeze tuition again, because it would force governments to pony up more money or watch their universities cut staff and services. So the tuition cap is probably here to stay. On balance, things could be a lot worse.

Unreported bonuses defeats purpose of program When the AMS introduced a bonus system for their executives, it was supposed to make

them more accountable. The society was bitter and burnt out over two years of scandal: first, a president caused a national embarrassment by complaining to the United Nations about UBC’s tuition rates, and then another president launched bitter personal attacks on candidates in the next year’s student government election. Having a bonus to give or withhold was supposed to discourage kerfuffles like these: executives, out of their own self-interest, would stay in line so they could collect their cheques. But if the student body doesn’t get to know whether or not their executives get bonus cheques, the rationale for this system dries up. Those disgraced presidents of yore? The worst part of what they did was acting dishonestly against the wishes of the AMS Council and students at large. Blake Frederick (the UN complainer) spent thousands of dollars in legal fees on that UN submission, without telling anyone. Bijan Ahmadian (the elections mudslinger) started by misrepresenting AMS Council in negotiations with UBC, and then moved on to mount an elaborate, secret scheme to smear candidates in a student election. Their transgressions were, primarily, all about not being accountable and not telling students — or students’ elected Council representatives — what they were doing. So long as the AMS keeps execs’ bonuses a secret, it’ll just be insular hacks awarding money to other insular hacks. Maybe a good crop of insular hacks on both sides will result in hardworking executives with good projects who deserve every cent they get; some of this year’s team should have earned a full $5,000 or possibly more. But this is a system that’s supposed to help the AMS avoid worst-case scenarios. And it won’t accomplish that if it’s shielded from public scrutiny. U

Most of my former UBC undergraduate students know that I am passionate about water governance. I study water because of the sheer size of the problem. If you consider that 85 per cent of the world lives in the driest half of the planet, that almost 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, that more than 900 million individuals still defecate in the open, and that water availability is expected to decrease whereas water consumption is estimated to grow by about 19 per cent by the year 2050, you can realize now why I’m concerned about improving ways in which we govern the precious liquid. Why think about water scarcity when we could be thinking about climate change and its catastrophic effects on human welfare? After all, there is so much concern currently about the effects of anthropogenic global environmental change that it’s hard to think there are any other pressing issues to study, let alone think about water. The truth is that, as Donella Meadows demonstrated, everything is interconnected, and water governance is inextricably linked to global environmental change (and thus, to climate politics). Yet, when I see discussions around climate policy, water rarely comes up except in the context of how water stress would negatively impact agricultural industries and their need to adapt to rapidly changing climates. When I did my Ph.D. at UBC in resource management and environmental studies, my Ph.D. advisor taught me to focus on the most important problem, not the most visible one. Dr. Dowlatabadi taught me integrated assessment, a technique that is used to integrate multiple disciplines’ knowledge to develop policy-relevant solutions to complex problems that can’t be studied using only one disciplinary approach. While usually applied to study climatic change problems, I used integrated assessment to build a framework to study industrial restructuring under multiple stressors in Mexico. In applying integrated assessment to my own research (postPh.D. and now that I have been a professor for a few years), I have tried to stay true to this philosophy: to tackle the most important problems, and to develop applied, policy-relevant solutions to these

problems. In the past decade, I have come to realize that water is one of the two most important issues we will face in the next few decades. Important work on this topic is being done at UBC. While no longer a faculty member at UBC (I taught there from 2006 to 2012), I’m still affiliated faculty with the political science and the Latin American studies programs, and I do collaborate with UBC professors on several topics. For example, with Dr. Hisham Zerriffi from the Liu Institute, I’m working on understanding patterns of water poverty and energy poverty in vulnerable regions. And with several current or former UBC political science students, I have co-authored (or am co-authoring) a few pieces on topics related to water poverty in Karu, transboundary water conflict, waste water governance in Canada, paradigm changes in urban water systems in Jordan, the politics of bottled water and soft drinks, gender and sanitation, and drinking water patterns. It was World Water Day on March 22, and while the notion of an International Year of Water Cooperation is a hopeful one (this year’s theme is cooperation in water governance — previous years have had sanitation, transboundary water, and water and food as themes), it’s not a perfect one. In fact, conflict for water resources has increased, rather than decreased. Some authors even point to the notion of “water wars” as looming sooner than we think. I think UBC has enormous potential to have a real policy impact on how water is governed, not only in Canada but worldwide. As I said before, the big challenge will be to remember that climate change is one of the most important environmental issues but not the only one, and that everything is interconnected. I sure do hope that the work I’m doing with my UBC students and colleagues will have a positive impact in reducing water distributional inequities, alleviating issues of water sanitation and mitigating water shortages. One can only sustain hope from here on. Raul Pacheco-Vega is an assistant professor in the Public Administration Division of the Centre for Economic Research and Teaching, CIDE in Aguascalientes, Mexico. From 2006 to 2012, he was a lecturer at UBC.

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 |

PicTUREs + WoRDs on YoUR UniVERsiTY EXPERiEncE

across 1- Thin layer 5- Violinist Mischa 10- needless bustle 14- Draft classification 15- city on the nile 16- black-and-white cookie 17- bridge 18- Horn-shaped bone 19- baltic feeder 20- ice cream topped with syrup 22- Tinge 24- kett and james 25- Essay 26- bangkok native 28- ornamental coronet 32- Twiddling one’s thumbs 35- Genetic material 37- land, as a fish 38- avril follower 39- ___ Gras 41- Despot amin 42- Evaluate 45- structural engineer’s software 46- Film unit 47- Hot stuff 48- Got it PUZZlE coURTEsY bEsTcRossWoRD.coM. UsED WiTH PERMission.

Write Shoot Edit Code Drink COME BY THE UBYSSEY OFFICE SUB 24, FOLLOW THE SIGNS

50- Monkeyshines 54- slowpoke 58- salesgirl 61- breastbones 62- slippery swimmers 63- chaplin persona 65- Marries 66- Family portrait? 67- Vive ___! 68- French 101 verb 69- Droops 70- Exodus origin 71- costly

doWn 1- “Damn Yankees” choreographer 2- Two cents, so to speak 3- inclined 4- authorization 5- behold, to brutus 6- Philosopher ___-tzu 7- Hilarity 8- army leader? 9- People and places, e.g. 10- Flirting 11- Pakistani language 12- Visionary

13- open infection, painful 21- baseball bat wood 23- Quote 25- ike’s ex 27- Upper limbs, weapons 29- That’s ___! 30- Travel on 31- indigo source 32- apple product 33- Morse element 34- actress Virna 36- curve 37- Frees (of) 40- speaker’s spot 43- Goes by 44- Do a number 46- continued a subscription 49- superlative suﬃx 51- championship 52- like some vbs. 53- strongly fragrant sage 55- Mountain ridge 56- chief of the Vedic gods 57- coherent light beam 58- Tennis units 59- Mother of ares 60- Designer cassini 61- Roasting rod 64- cleaning implement