January 7, 2013

APPOINTING A CHINESE FOOD DINNER COMMITTEE SiNCE 1918

UBC’S oFFiCiaL STUDENT NEWSPaPER | JaNUaRy 7, 2013 | VoLUME XCiV| iSSUE XXX

NEW CITY ON CAMPUS Residents of University Endowment Lands seek incorporation P3

U

THE UBYSSEY

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

After a decade in the woods, UBC men’s and women’s hockey are ready to make some noise in the CIS P6

OUT OF

OIL SANDS

A group of students want universities ranked on ethical investments P3

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

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013 |

YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS + PEOPLE

What’s on 12 7Tue

2

OUR CAMPUS

This week, may we suggest...

ONE ON ONE WITH THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE UBC

fitness >>

MONDAY

UBC REC Shopping Week @ UBC Student Recreation Centre

UBC REC offers students the opportunity to sample its instructional fitness courses from Jan. 7-13. There are over 60 classes available. Reserve your spot by 5 p.m. the day before the class you want to take. Free.

Tue 128

Tue 129

Music >>

TUESDAY

Film >>

WEDNESDAY

Karaoke: 9 p.m. @ the Gallery This Tuesday night musical event is a UBC classic. Come out and sing along to your favourite tune.

Free.

Tue 1210

Engineers >>

Michael Silbert has been the rabbi and executive director of UBC’s Hillel House for four months.

Rabbi says hello to Hillel House

THURSDAY

Engineering Transfer Student Info Session: 5 p.m. @ Lillooet Room, IKBLC Have questions about transferring into engineering answered before the application deadline on Jan. 31. Free.

Tue 1211

Looper: 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. @ the Norm Theatre Films resume playing at the Norm this week with a sci-fi action movie set in 2074. $2.50 for members, $5 for general public.

dance >>

FRIDAY

Unlimited Styles, from the Streets to the Schools: 5 p.m. @ UBC SUB Ballroom Come out and show off at UBC’s first one-on-one all-styles dance battle. Prizes and entertainment abound, and spectators are welcome. $8-$20.

Got an event you’d like to see on this page? Send your event and your best pitch to printeditor@ubyssey.ca.

Video content Check out our coverage of last week’s Idle No More protest at ubyssey.ca/videos/.

U The Ubyssey

editorial

STAFF

Features Editor Coordinating Editor Natalya Kautz Jonny Wakefield coordinating@ubyssey.ca features@ubyssey.ca

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

Managing Editor, Print Jeff Aschkinasi printeditor@ubyssey.ca

Video Editor David Marino video@ubyssey.ca

Managing Editor, Web Andrew Bates webeditor@ubyssey.ca

Copy Editor Karina Palmitesta copy@ubyssey.ca

News Editors Will McDonald + Laura Rodgers news@ubyssey.ca

Art Director Kai Jacobson art@ubyssey.ca

Senior News Writer Ming Wong mwong@ubyssey.ca Culture Editor Anna Zoria culture@ubyssey.ca Senior Culture Writer Rhys Edwards redwards@ubyssey.ca Sports + Rec Editor CJ Pentland sports@ubyssey.ca

JANUARY 7, 2013 | Volume XCIV| Issue XXX 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

Anna Ou Contributor

Michael Silbert, newly appointed rabbi and executive director at Hillel House, had a long journey before finding himself at UBC. From completing his undergrad at the University of Cape Town in South Africa to attending graduate school at Brandeis University in Boston, Silbert is familiar with working in a university setting.

“It is a place and environment that I really thrive on and really enjoy,” said Silbert.

“Having worked at a Hillel before [in Boston], I knew that university environment — Hillel environment — was the kind of place I wanted to be working in.”

Prior to his arrival to the West Coast, Silbert worked at the Boston University Hillel and recently obtained his ordination as a rabbi from the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in Massachusetts.

“I had an incredible experience, a very powerful and meaningful experience myself, as a Jewish student leader,” he said.

“In a way, I guess I worked very hard to never leave uni-

versity campuses, and now I have the luxury of being on a university campus without having to study or write exams or hand in papers, so I’m really loving that.”

Silbert said that his first four months as the executive director at Hillel House have not disappointed.

“It’s just actually an incredibly special and unique opportunity to get to work with students who are exploring so many aspects of their identity at this point, and to be able to show that Jewish life is an exciting and viable choice that they can make at this point in their life,” said Silbert.

Although he was a university student for more than a decade, Silbert acknowledged the differences between current and past generations of students.

“It’s a constant reminder and reality check that you can’t just go on assuming that the experience that other people have is the same that I have,” said Silbert. “What we were doing for students two years ago isn’t necessarily what we need to be doing for students today. “ As far as Jewish students go, Silbert said that Hillel House

work 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 sub-

DROP BY A UBYSSEY STAFF MEETING TO • Become a staff member (GET voting privileges, a staff email, a fancy title and a T-Shirt)

Online: ubyssey.ca Twitter: @ubyssey missions for length and clarity. 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.

welcomes all students, whether they are religious or not.

“I know there are Jewish students out there who just don’t relate religiously at all,” he said. “You don’t necessarily need to relate to Israel to find a place for yourself here.”

In addition, Silbert said he wants Hillel House to foster its own sense of community.

“Maybe some students have had experiences in the Jewish community that have made them feel pretty disenfranchised from that Jewish community,” said Silbert.

“This does not need to be that community.”

As executive director, Silbert said his main priority at Hillel House is to provide a place of comfort — for not only any Jewish person, but also any member of this campus.

“We share this campus environment with other people and heaven forbid that we become so self-involved that we forget that,” he said.

“We are continuing to work hard at making connections, not just with people that possibly have the same interests and same backgrounds, but with people who are different than us, those that have other life experiences.” U

GET THE BIG PICTURE

Inquiries

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 Layout Artist run student organization, and all students are encouraged to Collyn Chan participate. cchan@ubyssey.ca Editorials are chosen and written by the Ubyssey staff.

Videographer They are the expressed opinion of the staff, and do not necSoo Min Park essarily reflect the views of The spark@ubyssey.ca Ubyssey Publications Society or the University of British CoWebmaster lumbia. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is Riley Tomasek webmaster@ubyssey.ca the property of The Ubyssey Publications Society. Stories, opinions, photographs and art-

Graphics Assistant Indiana Joel ijoel@ubyssey.ca

kai jacobson photo/The ubyssey

• Learn about the Big picture operation of the paper

FRIDAYS @ 2pm | SUB 24

• GET THE FIRST PICK Of STORIES/ PHOTOS/VIDEOS FROM EDITORS email coordinating @ ubyssey.ca for more information. Hope to see you there!

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013 |

EDITORS WILL Mcdonald + laura rodgers

MONEY >>

3

LIBRARIES >>

University of Saskatchewan to get rid of over a million books

File Photo Kai Jacobson/THE UBYSSEY

The U of S is reorganizing their libraries in favour of digital collections.

KIM PRINGLE AND JOSH CURRAN PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/THE UBYSSEY

A petition launched by a UBC sustainability grad wants Maclean’s to rank universities based on how ethical their investment portfolios are.

UBC grad wants schools ranked on investment ethics Veronika Bondarenko Staff Writer

Class size. Professors’ research.

International reputation. These are some of the usual categories that are used to rank universities. But now a UBC grad wants to add a new, controversial item to this list: how ethical a school’s investments are.

Recent UBC graduate Kyuwon Kim is one of the three students behind a petition to push Maclean’s magazine to include an ethical investment assessment in its annual ranking of Canadian universities.

Together with Yasmin Parodi and Elysia Petrone, Kim is asking the magazine to rank universities based on the environmental and labour practices of the companies they invest money in.

“We just got talking about how endowment funds are often invested in unethical ways,” said Kim, who finished her degree in natural resources conservation in 2012. “And then we just came up

NEWS BRIEFS UBC profs appointed to Order of Canada Pianist Jane Coop, a longtime faculty member of the UBC School of Music, was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada for her contributions as a musician, performer and music educator.

Anthropologist Julie Cruikshank was appointed as an officer for her work studying the oral histories of Athapaskan and Tlingit elders in Canada’s north.

Clyde Hertzman was also appointed as an officer for his research on early childhood development.

And David Scheifele, a UBC medicine professor, was appointed as an officer for his work preventing infectious diseases.

Riskier skiing may be caused by genetics: UBC study A UBC study shows there may be a link between how many risks skiers and snowboarders take on the slopes and their genetic makeup.

Researchers surveyed skiers and snowboarders in Whistler, Vancouver and Lake Louise about how risky their downhill antics were, and then took genetic samples. They found a mutation in a gene for a dopamine receptor — dopamine is a brain chemical involved in pleasure-seeking and feelings of reward — that was more common in skiers and snowboarders who make riskier choices on the hill.

The study was published in the Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports. U

with using the Maclean’s route of leveraging them to make a change, because a lot of people use the Maclean’s rankings to decide what university they’re going to.”

The petition, launched in December on change.org, already has over 9,000 signatures, and the number is still growing. Kim hopes the ranking system will make it easier for students to see whether a university has ties to corporations that they consider unethical, such as the fossil fuel industry or companies with questionable labour laws.

UBC is a big proponent of on-campus sustainability initiatives, but Kim argues that for them to be a truly “green” university, they need to make sure their investment portfolio is sustainable as well. “I believe that because you go to universities and they are quick to boast about how they’re leading the way in sustainability, and they are, it’s kind of hypocritical that they are investing in unethical activities,” said Kim. <em>

</em>

According to UBC treasurer Peter Smailes, the university’s $1 billion endowment fund is managed by the university’s finance department and UBC Investment Management Trust, Inc. (IMANT), a separate corporation owned completely by UBC. IMANT has come under scrutiny in recent years because, as a separate corporation, its files aren’t subject to provincial freedom-of-information law. And for big-picture oversight of UBC’s investment strategy, the buck stops with the UBC Board of Governors.

According to Smailes, UBC does not have a policy that bans the university from investing in certain companies. Instead, investments from the endowment fund go through a process that tries to ensure the best possible long-term return on investment for the university, all while striving to maintain a standard of ethical investment.

Details on what exactly constitutes “ethical investment” are still up for debate.

Recently, various private colleges in the United States have started to scrutinize their endowment investments more closely. Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts, does not ban investments in specific sectors. But it does have a policy that all investments must be made in accordance with the school’s core values of sustainability and social responsibility.

The movement hasn’t picked up much steam in Canada, but Kim said she believes it wouldn’t be difficult for Maclean’s to include investments in their university rankings. “[There is] a lot of material and it’s really available, mainstream research,” said Kim. “The idea would be that Maclean’s could use existing research that’s out there to rank the universities.”

Kim said they have received a response from Maclean’s and talks are ongoing, but would not discuss the details of the conversations. A response from the magazine was not available by press time. U <em>

</em>

<em>

</em>

<em>

</em>

Governance >>

Get ready for a new city next door to UBC Laura Rodgers News Editor

If you’re on UBC campus, the closest city is Vancouver, right?

Well, that might not be true for much longer.

The University Endowment Lands — a patch of provincially run land on Point Grey, dotted with high-priced houses — might soon become its own mini-city. The approximately 4,000 people who live on that land, which isn’t part of UBC or the City of Vancouver, are frustrated they don’t have any elected civic representation.

The issue of who has control over land west of Blanca is fairly complicated. As it stands right now, the part controlled by UBC — which includes all the university-related buildings, and “University Town” neighbourhoods like Wesbrook Place — isn’t part of any other city and has no local government. Any decisions about what happens there are made by the university. The Endowment Lands, on the other hand — which covers all those older homes in the neighbourhoods east of Wesbrook Mall — are run directly by the provincial government, and they don’t have any local representation either.

The Community Advisory Council for the Endowment Lands, which hardly has any power right now but acts as the voice of people living there, voted at a December meeting to take the first steps to incorporate

the area as its own municipality.

“The Endowment Lands are managed by outsiders. The problem is there’s nobody looking after the people. There’s nobody paying attention to what the community needs,” said Council chair Ron Pears. “The people in Victoria don’t care. It’s not their job.”

According to Pears, this has been a long time coming. The Endowment Lands have tried to incorporate before, and in 1995 a vote was held on the subject. Endowment Lands residents were strongly in favour, but that vote also included the then-new campus neighbourhood of Hampton Place, which voted against incorporation.

Pears said that the Hampton Place residents likely opposed incorporation because they were afraid their municipal taxes would go toward infrastructure improvements in the much-older Endowment Lands areas. But this time, Endowment Lands residents plan to leave UBC land out of the hoped-for new city.

“The people living on the land leased from UBC have a very messy situation. They’ll probably have to live with whatever they’ve got,” said Pears.

The council has only just started taking the first steps toward incorporation; they need to survey all residents and conduct a feasibility study before the plan can become a reality. According to Pears, it could

take up to two years for all of this to happen. Once they have everything in place, they’ll need permission from the provincial government to incorporate.

The province’s Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development, which would be in charge of approving the change, hasn’t taken any position on the issue yet.

Pears expects residents to support the change, and he doesn’t anticipate any hurdles from the province. “If we make a good pitch for it, and the citizenry really do want it, there’s no reason for them to stand in the way,” he said.

When asked about the possible option of joining the City of Vancouver instead, Pears said the option is off the table. “They [aren’t] looking to absorb us,” he said.

What happens to the University Endowment Lands will probably have some effect on UBC, not to mention the thousands of people who still live on university-controlled land without any civic representation. However, what that effect will be remains to be seen.

Richard Alexander, chair of the University Neighbourhoods Association, which represents the residential housing on UBC land, said that so far, the association has no position on the Endowment Lands plan. “It’s all a bit premature for us,” Alexander said. “We’ll just wait and see how things turn out.” U

Anna-Lilja Dawson The Sheaf (U of Saskatchewan)

SASKATOON (CUP) — More than one million hard-copy books are set to be removed from University of Saskatchewan libraries in the coming years.

The move, which will wipe the shelves at four of the seven campus libraries, is the third phase in the library’s long-term plan to become efficient in the digital age.

The removal of the 1.1 million books will begin with the Veterinary Medicine Library in September 2013, followed by the Engineering Library in 2014. Both the Law Library and the Education and Music Library will be gutted at an undetermined later date.

The remaining books will create a three-branch collection in the main Murray Library, the Leslie and Irene Dubé Health Sciences Library, which will open in the spring of 2013, and the soon-to-be renamed Natural Sciences Library.

According to the official planning document, the number of books that students have been taking out has dropped 42 per cent in the past decade. The university acquired 1.6 million books from 2008 and years previous; of those books, 1.1 million have been deemed suitable for disposal or storage.

Books that are moved into the high-density storage facility will be available for students to read upon request in a provided location.

Ken Ladd, associate dean of the U of S Library and co-author of the planning document, told the Star Phoenix that most universities are shifting towards a more digital book collection. The goal for most facilities, he said, is to decrease book space by at least 20 to 30 per cent.

Despite the strategic move away from the printed copy, Vicki Williamson, dean of the U of S Library, told the Star Phoenix that visits to the Murray Library skyrocketed since the renovations three years ago.

This space will be used to create a classroom, a reading room, graduate student commons and additional space for special collections and archives, as well as a digitization centre where resources can be made easily available beyond the U of S community.

Ladd told On Campus News that the third and current phase of the plan will help define the university’s library by allotting new space for archives and special collections.

“With the way electronic resources are going, libraries are becoming more similar to each other except for their archives and special collections. These, as well as service and facilities, are what make libraries unique from each other.”

The planning document describes the amount of books that will be removed as equivalent to 32 kilometres of bookshelves. <em>

</em>

<em>

<em>

</em>

</em>

4 | NEWS |

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013

ABOrigiNAl issues >>

Idle No More supporters organize protest on campus Arno Rosenfeld staff writer

Her shoulders draped with a red blanket adorned with traditional symbols, Shelly Johnson took the mic in front of the UBC First Nations Longhouse Thursday afternoon and began verbally assailing Bill C-45, a sweeping new proposed law from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government.

“We can all do something about this colonial and unilateral, paternalistic legislation being pushed through in the name of Canada,” said Johnson, an assistant professor in the UBC School of Social Work and a Saulteaux person from the Keeseekoose First Nation in Saskatchewan.

The gathering of roughly 200 Idle No More supporters cheered.

Idle No More is a viral, decentralized protest movement founded weeks ago by Canadian aboriginal activists. It sparked around a hunger strike by Theresa Spence, chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario, who has now gone three weeks on a liquid diet in hopes of meeting with Harper to discuss treaty

rights. The movement grew across Canada to a series of increasingly vehement demonstrations opposing C-45, a law which changes how aboriginal reserve land in Canada can be sold.

Thursday’s event, organized

by Johnson, was the movement’s first on UBC campus. It featured speakers including Joyce Murray, MP for Vancouver-Quadra and candidate for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, as well as Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

Those assembled, spanning in age from toddlers hopping in puddles to bundled-up seniors, were low-key and solemn. Quiet, scattered applause was punctuated by occasional drumbeats.

The speakers had angry and determined messages, but spoke with a sombre tone. During a lull waiting for Grand Chief Phillip to arrive, a dance circle began, one lively moment that drew in most of the crowd.

The speakers criticized the Harper government, and praised the movement for highlighting issues that have long plagued

aboriginal peoples and Canada as a whole.

Murray, who first announced her support for Idle No More weeks ago, said Bill C-45 demonstrates larger problems with the current government. “It has been a very difficult time, to see the downward spiral of democracy, the closedness, but also the lack of consultation and especially the lack of consultation with aboriginal peoples,” she said.

Petitions opposing the law were circulated though the crowd, and organizers hope Murray will take those signatures to Ottawa.

Proponents of the bill say it will help aboriginal groups pursue economic development projects on their land. But the Idle No More organizers say the bill violates existing treaties.

Specifically, many are worried that by allowing the minister for Indian affairs to sell reserve land without a band’s consent, the government is hoping to open more land to oil drilling.

Tom Flanagan, a political science professor at the University of Calgary and former Harper

adviser who supports the bill, said aboriginal groups oppose it simply because they believe the federal government lacks authority to change how aboriginal land is managed.

The only way the public is going to really understand the depth of poverty, and the tragic dimensions of that poverty, is when you hear from the people themselves who are most affected by the poverty.”

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip President, Union of B.C. indian Chiefs

But Idle No More’s goals go beyond opposing C-45. Similar to the Occupy movement, it is a grassroots initiative: it has no one leader, and it aims to tackle a broad range of issues.

In an interview after the rally, Grand Chief Phillip said the movement has brought out a side of aboriginal issues the media had previously failed to focus on.

“The only way the public is going to really understand the depth of poverty, and the tragic dimensions of that poverty, is when you hear from the people themselves who are most affected by the poverty,” Phillip said.

“The Idle No More movement goes beyond the indigenous community.... [Harper’s government] has shown utter contempt for the parliamentary process and I believe Canadians are beginning to wake up to this.”

Shawn Schaubel, a UBC social work student who collected signatures in opposition of C-45, thought the demonstration achieved an important goal: raising more awareness on campus for aboriginal issues.

“I don’t think a lot of people on campus either know about Idle No More, or what we’re learning is that people think it’s only about aboriginal issues,” said Schaubel.

“The average person, they just don’t know what it’s about.” U

kai JaCoBSoN PHoTo/THE UBySSEy

Numerous speakers, including Grand Chief Steward Philip, took the stage.

Demonstrators formed a drum circle during the rally.

kai JaCoBSoN PHoTo/THE UBySSEy

kai JaCoBSoN PHoTo/THE UBySSEy

over 200 people attended the Thursday event, held outside the the First Nations Longhouse on campus.

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013 |

EDiToR anna Zoria

DANce >>

5

literAture >>

Creative writing grad to publish book on sexual assault

PHoTo CoURTESy oF MiCHaEL CoRDiEZ

Unlimited Dance Club kicks off 2013 with UBC’s first dance battle JoSH CURRaN PHoTo iLLUSTRaTioN/THE UBySSEy

The Unlimited Styles dance-off is on Jan. 11.

Rebekah Ho Contributor

On Jan. 11, the Unlimited Dance Club will start the new year fresh by presenting Unlimited Styles, UBC’s first one-on-one dance battle.

According to Graham Lee, one of the club’s event coordinators, a group of Korean B-boys (or breakdancers) founded the Unlimited Dance Club because they were looking for a greater community of dancers at UBC. The slogan for the event, “From the STREETS to the SCHOOLS,” reflects their desire for a place on campus where dancers can meet, connect and learn. “[We want] to let people know what Unlimited Dance Club is all about: to bring people who are interested in dance, but just never knew how to get there. We really

want to build a community here in terms of hip hop,” said Lee. “This is a place you can chill, learn new techniques and introduce yourself to the scene in Vancouver.”

Naheel Jawaid, one of Unlimited’s executive members, added, “We wanted there to be that kind of hub where people could practice and be supportive of each other.”

Unlimited has three goals for this year: offering dance classes, organizing social events, and finally, creating one huge dance battle that is not only supported

by UBC, but by other schools such as SFU and Douglas College. To encourage new dancers who may be hesitant to put themselves in front of judges and a crowd, several spots have been reserved specifically for post-secondary students.

“We want to involve a lot of

new people in UBC or in post-secondary,” said Lee. “The whole point of this is to share and show people this is what we’re about.

It’s not a chance to get out there and get smoked.… It’s more of a chance to observe and share the hip hop style.”

The high-energy dance battle calls for a very participatory audience.

“The best thing about these events is that it’s not like you just sit and watch something. It’s interactive,” said Jawaid.

“When you see someone throw down in the jam, it gets the crowd pumped up and going,… and the dancer who’s dancing feels the energy from the crowd and starts excelling from it,” said Lee. “It really involves everyone in the room. The energy comes from everyone.”

But the Unlimited Dance Club hopes to do more than just put on a show.

“I think you have to go to one of these battles just to see. There’s something about it that’s so positive.… It’s infectious,” said Jawaid.

“It’s more than just dance. It’s a learning experience. It’s something that helps you grow as a person.… Don’t just watch it. Just dive in and pursue it.”

Lee added, “When you go to an event like this,… it’s not dancing just for show. Their whole heart is into it, and it’s something they’ve developed from hours of continuous practice. The chance to witness something like that is really inspiring because you can see everything they have on the dance floor. That’s who they are as a person. It’s what makes them up.” U

filM >>

UBC grad’s short film stands tall at TIFF

CoURTESy oF BaHaR NooRiZaDEH

Bahar Noorizadeh’s film “Lingo” centres on the cultural and linguistic barriers encountered by immigrant families.

Andrew Bates Managing editor web

T

he stress and sleep deprivation of a final project is not something people associate with the glamour of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

But for recent UBC graduate Bahar Noorizadeh, the effort invested in her UBC film production final project has landed her film “Lingo” in the top 10 Canadian short films of 2012.

“Every step was super shocking and surprising to me,” Noorizadeh said. “It was part of a student pro-

ject and I couldn’t see the scope for my film,... that it [has gone] so far.”

“Lingo” is a film about an Afghan immigrant who has a misunderstanding in a police interrogation when her son is suspected of arson. According to Noorizadeh, the film was based on research she did for an unrelated story on immigration.

“Before I started that project, I was working on an immigration-related topic, and I was going to work on some kind of immigrant film,” she said. “After a while I came upon this real life story about

an Afghan woman in the U.S., that the same situation happened to her. It kind of started changing my idea to this one.”

The way that language and culture affect the immigrant experience is common in many countries, said Noorizadeh, who was born in Iran. “I felt like it’s kind of universal, immigration and language.

[It’s] something that happens in every immigrant society and Canada is probably the biggest one. It’s probably bigger than the U.S.” “Lingo” was one of UBC’s submissions to the TIFF Student

Showcase, an August event where the top 10 student films from across the country are shown at TIFF. “The thing is that the programmers that curate that event, they’re the same programmers that pick the short films at TIFF,” Noorizadeh said. “So after a while, my film got into the short section of TIFF in September.”

After a year of writing the script, the film took about four months to produce. “We had more pre-production than shooting days.

The structure of the program requires only three days of shooting for each film, so I had to prepare for my film for about three months before starting the project,” she said, adding that the post-production process of editing and sound design took three weeks.

Film production students Alex Lasheras, Edi Leung and Leen Issa also worked on the project.

Noorizadeh is currently workshopping her next project and applying to master’s programs. But in the meantime, she’s enjoying the spotlight at TIFF. “I was always shocked by all the news that came along. I think TIFF is amazing for what it gave me.... I’m kind of spoiled and pampered,” she said. “There’s a cocktail party, and then there’s a directors’ lunch the day after, so that’s the kind of pampering I [saw] on this trip.

“I’m super excited; I can’t even explain.… I had the experience of screening my film at TIFF[’s Student Showcase], so I’m not as scared as before.” U

Arno Rosenfield staff writer

W

hen Jen Roth went hunting for a comprehensive book on sexual assault several years ago, she was disappointed to come up empty-handed at local libraries and bookstores. So she set out to write one herself.

Roth, a UBC creative writing graduate, said that while she has friends who have experienced violent sexual assault, what really drove her to write the book was the lamentable state of society’s views on sexual assault.

“Almost everyone I talked to thought it was somehow inherent in human nature, or that ... it’s just something you need to accept instead of reject,” Roth explained.

The book, which is still being written, will explore society’s treatment of sexual assault through various paradigms. For instance, in the book, Roth examines the idea that women tend to make up sexual assaults for attention.

Roth also explores the idea of a “rape script”: the “script” that people, including police officers and others in positions of authority, expect sexual assault to conform to. Generally, such a prototypical situation involves an innocent and vulnerable woman being physically attacked by a bad man. When reported rapes or sexual assaults stray from this script, people are often turned away.

“A lot of sexual assault that is reported doesn’t go along with the lines of what a police officer believes sexual assault really is,” Roth said.

While her research has not focused on UBC specifically, Roth said that university campuses are hotspots for sexual assault — and great places to educate young people about such issues.

“Fraternities and sororities are great places to start sex ed. in general, and talk about consent,” Roth said. “If that’s not something that’s going on, there’s a lot that can go wrong,... especially in first- and second-years, being in such a sexually charged environment.”

Roth will be writing from a first-person perspective, drawing on interviews and research in the field.

She plans to self-publish the book with pay-what-you-can pricing, and give free copies to schools, community centres and libraries.

Roth is using the fundraising website gofundme.com to raise money for the book; she is currently about a third of the way toward her $15,000 goal. However, Roth noted that the more money she is able to raise, the more thorough the book can be.

Devoting so much time to writing and researching such a dark topic has been a battle, Roth said, but she’s starting to feel more hopeful.

“It was depressing before I started writing the book,” she explained.

“I thought I would be destroyed by it, but instead I’ve been feeling less depressed.” U

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013 |

EDITOR C.J. PENTLAND

6

Building a strong hockey future hockey >>

UBC hockey has struggled over the past decade, but things are looking up

C.J. Pentland Sports + Rec Editor

The words “UBC Thunderbirds” typically strike fear into opposing schools across Canada, and for good reason. With three national championships already this year, and the most championships of any Canadian school in history, UBC has a storied history of athletic success.

However, over the past 10 years or so, there have been a couple of exceptions. Both the men’s and women’s hockey teams at UBC have not excelled over the past decade; only in 2006-07 did the men’s team finish with more wins than losses. This is not the performance that’s expected of a team donning the T-Bird blue and gold.

But the 2012-13 season has been a different story. Both teams are currently on pace to have their best regular season in the past 10 years, and both would qualify for the playoffs if the season ended today. In fact, the women’s team tied a team record for wins in a season on Saturday; their victory over the University of Calgary Dinos was their eighth win on the year and moved them to 8-7-3, good for fourth in the Canada West.

What made that eighth win all the more impressive, though, was that it came against the No. 2 ranked team in the CIS. The Dinos, a team that features Canadian hockey icon Hayley Wick-

The men’s team has been ranked in the CIS top 10 twice this season.

enheiser, sit atop the Canada West standings, but the ’Birds showed this weekend that they can compete. Friday night saw UBC down by just one with nine minutes left before a Calgary empty netter made the final score 4-2. But the Thunderbirds got their revenge the following night: led by a strong defensive effort, UBC got out to an early 2-0 lead and held on for a

2-1 victory.

“I said yesterday I thought we deserved a better fate,” said UBC head coach Graham Thomas to UBC Athletics after Saturday’s game. “And we played really well today. We played really well as a team and played a pretty solid, complete game.”

Thomas is in his first year at the helm of women’s hockey after a

geoff lister photo/the ubyssey

stint as assistant coach at Syracuse University. Under his direction, the ’Birds are playing at a level that has never been seen before. A record just above .500 isn’t grounds for naming a team national champions, but considering the T-Birds finished 1-21-2 last season, this turnaround is quite impressive.

Danielle Dube, a former Team Canada netminder, backstopped UBC to the victory on Saturday afternoon, stopping 27 of the 28 shots she faced and acting as the anchor of a strong team defensive effort. The ’Birds forced the conference’s top offence to go 0-for-8 on the power play, and stayed composed late in the game with Calgary pressing. Nikola BrownJohn and Nicole Saxvik added the offence and scored the goals.

The team’s record may signify that they’re stuck in the middle of the pack, but this victory shows that UBC has potential to be a top team. Even when they do lose a game, they still compete and make the other team earn it.

“I was really proud of the girls; they battled hard but also played really smart. We’re very pumped.

We needed that win. It’s big in the standings and for the confidence,” said Thomas.

The men’s team has a similar record, but despite their success during the first half of the season, they couldn’t earn a big victory like the women. They earned only one of a possible four points against Calgary on the weekend, falling 6-2 on Friday night and 2-1 in overtime on Saturday, but UBC head coach Milan Dragicevic saw promise after Saturday’s close loss.

“I thought we rebounded pretty hard today; I thought we played with a lot of passion,” said Dragicevic after the second game.

“I thought our [penalty kill] was good today. I thought [goalie Steven] Stanford was good today.

I thought the game could’ve gone either way.… We had enough chances to win.”

With a 9-7-2 record on the year, the T-Birds have proven that they are a good team. But now they must prove that they are an elite team. And in the ultra-competitive Canada West — with six of the eight teams above .500 — they need to be elite to make it to nationals.

Dragicevic said he believes his team is capable of success as long as

they stick to what they do best: enforcing a strong forecheck, creating neutral zone turnovers and getting pucks on net.

“We have to get back to our identity. I thought we lost our way on Friday night — we were a team without any direction — and today I felt we played with a purpose. And that’s what we’ve got to do; we’ve got to get back to just doing simple things and doing them hard.… To me, that’s the biggest thing.”

There is still a lot of time left for both teams; they each have 10 games left before the end of the regular season. Both should qualify for the postseason based on their current paces, but it will be a tough test as to whether they can go deep.

Right now, it seems that the women have the best shot: they have proven that they can knock off the conference’s best, while the men are 0-4 against the top two teams in the Canada West.

Even if these seasons don’t end with trophies, the future is bright for both squads. There is only one fifth-year on the men’s side, and there are eight freshman on the roster, all of whom have made contributions this year. Most notably, Neil Manning has emerged as a top offensive defenceman, and Brad Hoban, Joe Antilla and Scott MacDonald have been consistent offensive sources all year.

The women will also be graduating only three players, and although there will be key losses — fifth-year Kaitlin Imai is second on the team in scoring — there are already three recruits coming in for next year and eight first-years returning. And after the group gets more time playing together under Thomas, there’s no reason to expect this season to be just a flash in the pan.

Josh curran PHOTO/the ubyssey

And best of all, the teams’ success might attract more highend recruits to UBC. With UBC offering both a good education and a chance to play for a top hockey team, there’s a high chance that more players will want to become Thunderbirds.

Their seasons might not end in a Canada West championship, but champions aren’t built in one year.

The 2012-13 season has proven to be the first crucial step towards greatness for both the men’s and women’s teams; after a decade of treading water, the future of hockey at UBC is bright. U

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013 |

STUDENT VoiCE. CoMMUNiTy REaCH.

LAST WORDS

7

eNvirONMeNt >>

Will a petition get UBC out of oil and gas? Not likely

PHoTo CoURTESy SUNCoR ENERGy/FLiCkR

Though oil and gas divestment movements are gearing up across the continent, UBC is still inextricably tied to resource extraction.

EDITOR S NOTEBOOK

by Jonny Wakefield iNDiaNa JoEL iLLUSTRaTioN/THE UBySSEy

it’s bad news when university donations come with strings attached

ON DONATING TO UNIVERSITIES FOR THE WRONG REASONS </strong>

In past months, several eastern Canadian universities have found themselves in hot water for signing deals that allow donors to influence curriculum and academic management.

The episodes at Waterloo, Wilfred Laurier and Carleton have set off a new debate on academic freedom and the role of private money in universities.

Which, of course, universities need. Like, really badly.

UBC kicked off a campaign in September 2011 to raise $1.5 billion from private donors. In the face of declining government contributions, universities have had to get creative.

But donors expect to see their money used in ways they approve of — and that should only go so far.

Should donors be able to dictate things like class content and professor hiring? We don’t think so.

It’s easy to be cynical about academic freedom, the credo that professors must be allowed to espouse whatever views they want without fear of reprisal. Many now see tenure, the most basic pillar of academic freedom, as completely unaccountable. More often than not, tenure protects profs who are borderline incompetent, rather than those who teach controversial views.

But that doesn’t mean donors should be able to drop some coin and dictate the terms of education. If you give money to a university, it’s because you believe in its mission, not because you want to tinker with how it’s run. Some worry this will lead to a freeze on big donations. Fine. Those folks are giving for the wrong reasons.

GET READY FOR A NEW TOWN BETWEEN UBC AND VANCOUVER </strong>

The University Endowment Lands (UEL), the patch of land close to campus, is considering incorporating as a city.

They haven’t made any chan-

ges yet, but they have commissioned a survey on the feasibility of incorporating. The UEL is taking a concrete step toward a new governance system, something that we haven’t seen for a long time on campus.

At UBC, many of the services regularly overseen by an elected city council, like land use planning, are the purview of UBC’s Board of Governors.

UBC hasn’t made any progress (or even attempts) at governance reform. Maybe the UEL’s action will encourage the university to rethink its current governance model.

However, the UEL is in a different situation than the university. The UEL deals directly with Victoria. They don’t have to deal with the Board of Governors. But this move sets a precedent for UBC to make some of its own reforms.

WHY NO PUBLIC STUDENT SUPPORT FOR IDLE NO MORE? </strong>

Welcome to UBC in 2013, the hotbed of student rest.

Idle No More is swiftly becoming one of Canada’s most important protest movements in recent memory. Frustration over how the country handles aboriginal issues has been heating up for some time, and it only took a couple key disturbances for the whole thing to boil over.

The movement seemed to be perfectly in line with UBC’s fair-weather left: a big-tent event that’s vaguely pro-aboriginal and vaguely anti-Harper sounds like something designed to lure out whatever progressive types the university still has. And yet, they didn’t come.

Thursday’s on-campus protest was mostly composed of older people, parents with kids, and activists from the wider Vancouver community, rather than students coming together to support the movement. There was a palpable sense of outrage from speakers, but they didn’t galvanize the crowd.

Today, even if a popular protest movement is plunked pre-packaged right in the middle of thousands of students on

their lunch breaks, hardly any of them bother to show up. It’s a real shame.

TO WHOEVER KEEPS PULLING THE PIT FIRE ALARM, PLEASE STOP </strong>

This particular Last Word begins with a confession: yes, even though some of us are arguably too old for it, The Ubyssey has attempted to go to Pit Night as a staff a couple of times.

And we say “attempted” not because we were stymied by the long lines or the oft-surly bouncers. It’s because, both times, the place was cleared out by a fire alarm soon after we entered.

Seriously, repeat fire-alarm puller, what gives? Why do you think this is funny? Great.

Drunken. Prank. Force fire trucks to drive over and leave all those girls who show up to the Pit thinking it’s a club shivering outside in their tank tops and miniskirts. We only have one real bar that’s open past midnight, and then one idiot has to go and ruin it for everyone. HILARIOUS. Also, we hate you. <em>

</em>

...ANOTHER RANT ABOUT THE SUB BASEMENT </strong>

Used to be that after 3 p.m., the Delly would serve a large soup for $2.50. But those glory days have come to an end.

This term, the Delly decided to raise the cost of soup by 25 cents. That may not seem like a lot — because it isn’t — but we wanted something to complain about.

We are frequent patrons of the Delly, but only when things are on sale. You can find most of us in line there every Friday afternoon. And you used to be able to find us in line on weekdays for cheap soup. But that soup isn’t as cheap anymore.

So we won’t be buying as much of it.

Don’t get us wrong. The soup at the Delly is good (except for that weird seafood one).

We just waste too much of our money on beer to tolerate the increased cost of soup. U

Would you have attended a different university if you had known, say, that UBC maintains a $5 million partnership with mining giant Goldcorp? Or if the university’s promotional materials included a mention of its multimillion-dollar investments in oil and gas?

A few recent grads, among them a UBC alumna, wish they had been a little more aware of their university’s environmental records.

They’ve started a petition to get Maclean’s magazine to include a section on ethical investment in its annual university rankings.

Asking Maclean’s , of all places, to suddenly declare the oil patch “unethical” is like asking Mitt Romney to speak ill of offshore tax havens. Maclean’s is business-friendly, oftentimes to a fault (a sample perspective piece on the topic: you should not refer to Alberta’s fossil fuel deposits as the “tar sands,” because the industry-approved term is “oil sands”).

The magazine heard about the petition, panicked a little and said something along the lines of, “No thanks, but maybe we’ll write an article?”

The university rankings strategy is misguided. But it’s part of a larger call for universities to divest from oil and gas that’s received fairly deep support.

Over 70 per cent of Harvard students voting in a referendum agreed that the university should get out of fossil fuels, though the university has already shot down the demand as impractical.

Students at smaller U.S. colleges in the U.S. have had more luck.

Unity and Hampshire Colleges have already moved their money elsewhere.

Coverage of the movement barely mentions large public universities, as though the idea of such institutions ditching stocks with good return on investment is unthinkable. So is there any way students can impact UBC’s investment decisions?

Let’s take a look at the hurdles.

The fact is, UBC is the largest research university in B.C., which, as you probably know, has made quite a bit of money removing things from the ground.

The provincial coffers (on which UBC is a substantial drain), are filled with rents from publicly owned oil, gas and timber. Money from these natural resources funds infrastructure, schools and hospitals.

People will tell you that the B.C. <em>

</em>

<em>

</em>

<em>

economy is no longer just about timber and gas, and that’s true — but the province is still very much dependent on natural resources.

Look what happened with the last provincial budget. Natural gas revenues were lower than projected, so everything was cut. That’s not to say UBC’s divestment of around $4 million would cause the B.C. resource sector to tank. It’s just the environment in which it exists.

Then you look at who makes the decisions at UBC. Over the years, UBC has developed close relationships with resource companies like Canfor Pulp and Paper (several Canfor execs sit on the Board of Governors) and BC Gas. So the logic of resource extraction informs UBC’s highest level of decision making.

Then there’s the education itself. Have you ever been to a UBC career fair? UBC students want jobs in these industries.

Those are big structural impediments, not the kind of thing a petition could affect. What could a petition accomplish? You could petition the university to say something in its mission statement about how sustainability is really good. But they’ve already done that. And the university can always argue its sustainability initiatives do more good than harm. Is the coexistence of the Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability and gas investment a massive case of hypocrisy? Maybe so, but probably not enough of one to produce any level of real outrage.

So what would get UBC’s attention? Individuals or families who have endowments could take their money elsewhere. A public discussion about UBC’s investments could lead fewer people to donate to the university’s $1.5 billion fundraising effort. UBC pension holders could ask UBC’s investment managers to review its oil and gas holdings. Or UBC could acquire shares in Enbridge and really piss people off.

But the fact is, students aren’t the main stakeholders on this issue. They’re one of many, including the province, pension holders, donors, UBC executives — the list goes on. The schools that have actually divested are considerably smaller and more liberal than UBC. The presidents of those universities actually cited the student petitions in their decision to divest.

But UBC — and really any Canadian university, for that matter — is a different world.

At the end of the day, UBC divesting from oil and gas would be nothing short of miraculous. U

8 | GAMES |

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013

28- Monster’s nickname 30- General ___ chicken 31- Tropical cuckoo bird 32- Raison ___ 33- Small salmon 34- ___ Rhythm 35- Joint inflammation 38- Gardner and others 41- Cut the crop 42- Swedish imports 46- Diarist anais 47- Having wealth 48- Showy pretense 49- Diary 51- Prince Valiant’s son 52- Charlemagne’s realm: abbr.

53- Got together 54- instruct 57- Deadly virus 59- acting part 60- Toward the mouth 61- Fortune-telling cards 62- Slaughter of baseball 63- Wash 64- ___ there yet?

65- Condensed moisture 66- Textile worker

10- Postal carrier’s tote 11- Storage container 12- Source of iron 14- Compel 20- old newsman 25- Shout in derision 26- Numero ___ 27- Canine command 29- Ladies of Sp. 30- Synagogue scroll 33- Tessellated 34- This ___ outrage!

36- Small combo 37- of Thee ___ 38- Besides

39- Through 40- you don’t bring me flowers, ____ 43- Smoker’s receptacle 44- Make desolate 45- Thin 47- Revolve 48- attempts 50- Beneath 51- Permit 55- Zero 56- Grasp 57- JFk posting 58- ingot

DOWN PUZZLE CoURTESy BESTCRoSSWoRDS.CoM. USED WiTH PERMiSSioN.

ACROSS 1- Wander 5- also 8- Small jazz band 13- First name in stunts 14- Sketched 15- Broadcasting

16- Lab fluids 17- Shower 18- Paris divider 19- Fundamental law 21- ___ de mer 22- Sugary suffix 23- Campers, briefly 24- Equilateral parallelogram

1- answer in words 2- Supervise 3- Utmost 4- Brio 5- Snares 6- Trompe l’___ 7- Legal right of possession 8- Universe 9- Late bedtime

Do journalism. Get paid.

Apply to be The Ubyssey’s features editor!

Applications due to coordinating@ubyssey.ca by 5 p.m., Jan. 10. Please include a resume, cover letter and three writing samples.

PUZZLE CoURTESy kRaZyDaD. USED WiTH PERMiSSioN.