2011.04.04
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March 4, 2011 issueTRANSCRIPT
I fell on my neck... twice since 1918
Uthe ubyssey APRIL 4, 2011volume 92, number xliviiiroom 24, student union buildingpublished mondays and [email protected]
UBC is in the first steps of examining a trimester system.
What could it mean for students?
Pages 6-7
Could summer school look this good?
ski team season
wrap-up
page 8
ndp face tough go in VancouVer-Quadra page 3
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april 04, 2011volume xcii, no xliviii
editorial
coordinating editor Justin McElroy : [email protected] editor Arshy Mann : [email protected] news editorKalyeena Makortoff : [email protected] news writer Micki Cowan : [email protected] editorsJonny Wakefield & Bryce Warnes : [email protected] culture writerGinny Monaco : [email protected] illustratorIndiana Joel : [email protected] editor Marie Vondracek : [email protected] editorTrevor Record : [email protected] editorGeoff Lister : [email protected] manager Virginie Ménard : [email protected] editor Kai Green : [email protected] editorTara Martellaro : [email protected] multimedia editorStephanie Warren : [email protected] editorDavid Marino : [email protected] Blake : [email protected]
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contributors
Miranda Martini Mike DicksonJohnson Rae Dylan WallAmelia Rajala Josh Curran
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The Ubyssey is the official student newspaper of the University of British Columbia. It is published every Monday and Thursday by The Ubyssey Publi-cations Society. We are an autonomous, democrat-ically run student organization, and all students are encouraged to participate.
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eVentsongoing eVents
Ubyssey production • Come help us create this baby! Learn about layout and editing. Expect to be fed. • Every Sunday and Wednesday, 2pm.
resource groups • Are you working on a progressive project, but need funding? Do you have an idea, but can’t get it off the ground? Apply to the Resource Groups for funding! Come in, pitch your idea to us and we will consider fully or partially funding your project. • Every Monday, 11am in SUB 245 (second floor, north-east corner). For more info email [email protected].
pot t ery sa l e at sprou t s • The UBC Pottery Club is now selling their work at Sprouts and have donated some pieces in return for space. It brings a new addition to the Sprouts atmosphere and allows potters space to showcase their pieces. • Mon–Fri, 9:30am–4pm, Sprouts, SUB basement.
noon yoga $1 • Led by the UBC Yoga Club—all skill levels are welcome. Bring your own mat and enjoy this invigorating session. RSVP on the Facebook events page. • Tuesdays, 12–1pm, UBC Bookstore, $1.
monday, apr. 4
uBc ca mp 2ca mpus ref ugee e V e n t • H ave yo u eve r wondered how the 42 million people fleeing from conflict and war live? On Monday, April 4, a coalition of UBC student groups is putting on a daytime interactive display to show the work of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) in refugee camps. In the evening, MSF field worker Sharon Janzen will give an amazing talk on her experiences; workshops
and an expert panel on refugee r ights issues wil l follow. Delicious dinner and dessert will be served! • 9am–4pm, SUB North Concourse, 5–10pm, Hillel House.
tuesday, apr. 5
a f r o - B r a z i l i a n s u i t e • A journey through the African roots of Brazi l ian music . “Afro -Brazilian Suite” was composed by Juan Diego Diaz. It is a five-movement piece inspired by samba, capoeira, sacred candomble rhythms, funk and jazz. Featuring UBC Jazz Big Band Ensemble, Sambata , UBC C apoe i ra Angola Study Group, Anna Baignoche and Aquizamin Garcia. • 8–10pm, Roy Barnett Recital Hall, Music building.
dr daniel Vickers on prof talk • On UBC CiTR Radio’s Prof Talk with host Farha Khan, Dr Daniel Vickers from the department of history will discuss the subject of history as a field of study as well as his research on early America, and the social history of seafaring, work and economic culture. • 3pm, live programming at citr.ca.
wednesday, apr. 6
my neighBor, my killer • My Neighbor, My Killer is an award winning documentary film by Anne Aghion on the gacaca justice in Rwanda. Literally meaning “justice on the grass,” gacaca is a form of citizen-based transit ional justice which Rwandans decided to put into place in an attempt to deal with the crimes of the 1994 genocide. • 5–9pm, Liu Institute for Global Issues, reception to follow.
hadani ditmars puBlic lecture on iraQ and liBya • On the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, journalist and
author Hadani Ditmars looks at regional unrest and examines the legacies of bombing in the name of peace and democracy. With special guest Jane Kokan, founding Frontline club member and producer of For the Love of the Leader: Libya. • 12:30–1:30pm, Main lecture hall, UBC School of Journalism, go to hadaniditmars.com for more information.
thursday, apr. 7
ams Block party • The AMS Block Party is an event by UBC students, for UBC students and the campus community that brings students and friends together in a celebration of a year completed and a summer soon to start. This year’s bands include Switch, Felix Cartal, Rye Rye, Team Canada DJ’s and My!Gay!Husband! • 19+ event, 2–8pm, MacInnes Field, $15 at the Outpost starting Apr. 4, go to amsblockparty.com for more information.
friday, apr. 8
capture the flag tournament • Team Up 4 Kids is throwing their first event as a club to raise money for Success By 6, an early childhood development initiative dedicated to providing all children with a good start in life. Come out to play some capture the flag in order to raise money for a good cause! Prizes for the top team, other activities on the side while you’re waiting to play and it’ll be lots of fun! • Register by Apr. 6, 12–3pm, UBC Campus, $40 team (6–10 people), $5 individual, email [email protected] for more information.
saturday, apr. 9
d J s p oo k y i n t e r r a n o Va : sinfonia antarctica • Paul D Miller is highly regarded as a writer and conceptual artist,
though he is probably best known under the moniker of his constructed persona, “DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid.” His large scale multimedia work “Terra Nova: Sinfonia Antarctica,” is a meditation on global warming, translating Miller’s first person encounter with the harsh, dynamic landscape of Antarctica into visual and sonic portraits. In addition to video projections and DJ Spooky on turntables, the performance will also feature local chamber musicians on violin, cello and piano. • 8pm, Chan Centre, $25.25–$48.25, go to djspooky.com for more information.
greater VancouVer regional science fair • This spring, 300 emerging scientists will gather at UBC for the Greater Vancouver Regional Science Fair. They will present and defend their projects in earth & environmental sciences, engineering & computing sciences, health sciences, life sciences, and physical & mathematical sciences. Up to 17 students will be chosen to join Team BC and compete in the Canada-Wide Science Fair, May 14–21, in Toronto, Ontario. The public and media are invited to view all the projects and talk to these enthusiastic young people. • 9am–12pm, SUB Ballroom and Party Room.
tuesday, apr. 12
Quartet in four courses: an e Vening of musical dr am a a n d c o n V e r s at i o n • Th is experimental evening will explore connections between a string quartet, a theatrical performance and a social event (a dinner party). The celebrated Borealis Quartet will play Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in G Major, Op. 76, No. 1, with a staged reading of a short play by Jonathan Wisenthal as a companion piece. • 8–9:30pm, Coach House, Green College, go to greencollege.ubc.ca for more information.
thursday, apr. 14
co. erasga/complot: eXpose • A powerful new full-length duet exploring sexuality, gender and identity, EXpose brings together two exceptional male solo artists: Vancouver’s own Alvin Erasga Tolentino, artistic director of Co. ERASGA, whose sophisticated works have toured around the world; and Mar tin Inthamoussú, a driving force in Uruguay’s contemporary dance scene. T h e s e t wo c h a r i sm a t i c performers seek to expose the complexity of the personal and public territories within the gay psyche, creating a spellbinding theatrical and physical dialogue. • Apr. 14–16, 8pm, Scotiabank Dance Centre, $28 , $20 students/seniors, buy tickets at ticketstonight.ca.
saturday, apr. 16
f il m sc r e e ning: AAkideh • ‘Aakideh’ is an Ojibwe word meaning brave or brave-hearted. Artist Carl Beam earned a reputation for being fearless, v is ionar y and ult imately, unforgettable. From his early years growing up on Manitoulin Island to his turbulent years spent at a residential school, this documentary explores how these early experiences not only impacted Beam’s life but also his art. Screening time: 65 minutes. • 1pm, Museum of Anthropology, $14/$12 + HST.
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News editor ARSHY MANN » [email protected] assistant editor KALYEENA MAKORTOFF » [email protected]
senior writer MICKI COWAN » [email protected]
Tuition set to increase by 2%“Our votes really don’t matter,” said BoG representative Heislermicki [email protected]
On Tuesday, the UBC Board of Governors (BoG) is expected to vote yes to another two per cent tuition increase.
Despite last month’s referen-dum where 8737 students vot-ed in favour of the AMS lobby-ing for lower tuition, members of UBC’s finance committee not-ed that not a single UBC Van-couver student showed up to a UBC Vancouver consultation that was held to discuss the tu-ition increase, and only 24 stu-dents were present at the UBC-Okanagan consultation.
Sean Heisler, a student BoG representative, said that after the lackluster attendance at consulta-tions, students now have few op-tions to counter the raise.
“If the student is concerned about tuition increases, there’s not a lot they can do to stop it,” he said.
Ashley Zarbatany, a second year political science and wom-an’s studies student, said that more consultations needed to be held.
“They did do one [consulta-tion], but they basically sent out an email saying we’re raising tu-ition and didn’t give a chance for students to give input back.”
UBC will gather nearly $4 mil-lion more in revenues from the increase. Heisler explained UBC’s price index projects a three per cent increase to the cost of pro-viding education this year.
“The university wants to jus-tify it by saying two per cent
doesn’t even cover the increased cost of providing education, and that’s where we’ll be looking to-wards the government, saying we need an increase in our fund-ing to make up this extra one per cent,” he said.
Ben Glassco, UBC-O’s student representative, was the only member on the Board who vot-ed against the increase. Both UBC Vancouver student representa-tives, Heisler and Azim Wazeer, abstained from the vote.
Heisler explained that even if faculty and staff voted against
the increase, it would have passed given the majority of ex-ternal business members on the Board who are concerned about finances.
“A vote from a student as a po-sition statement doesn’t actually do much. Our votes don’t really matter,” he said.
Tuesday, the question will be brought up again at the BoG meeting before the increase is officially approved. Zarbatany plans to show the university that students do care by orga-nizing a rally to greet the BoG
representatives before they head into their meeting on Tuesday.
“We’re going have a bunch of signs up and hopefully we’re go-ing to get students out,” she said, but was unsure of the turnout as the meeting starts at 8am.
“It’s hard to get students to come out and it’s short notice, so I don’t think that many stu-dents are going to show up this time. But we’re going to be do-ing this consistently from now on to try to build up momentum behind this.”
After speeches from UBC-O’s student union stating that tuition increases are unacceptable, the finance committee agreed to put together a strategic committee. The strategic committee will ex-plore financial assistance for stu-dents who need help.
“If my dad has tons of mon-ey and it’s funding my educa-tion, I don’t care about tuition,” said Heisler.
“An ultimate goal...is to take that money and funnel it into student aid for people who ac-tually do need it.”
Glassco said that the commit-tee reached a consensus on what needs to be done in the future, stating that as a public institu-tion, it is the government’s re-sponsibility to provide funds for students to attend UBC.
“We must push even further under these circumstances, with both the provincial and federal government to look into more funding for school, post-second-ary education, as well as loan and grant programs that are better for students.” U
More money to Brock. Josh curran photo illustration/THE UBYSSEY
news BRIEFS
uBc rapid transit consultations continue
The UBC Rapid Transit Study is transitioning into its second phase, in which another round of consultations will focus on a review of preliminary designs of seven transit alternatives for the Broadway corridor and UBC, and their cost evaluations.
Phase one did not exclude any of the alternatives—one of which is extending the Mil-lenium Line to campus. Eval-uation results on forecasting models are based on assump-tions about population, employ-ment and student growth, and the ability of each alternative to cater to these demands.
Feedback from phase two, which began March 30 and will continue until April 22, will in-clude thoughts on street-lev-el, underground and elevated transit, lane placement, road space sharing, station locations and overall perception of phase one evaluations.
Community workshops will be held April 5 from 6-9pm at Kitsilano Secondary School and on April 6 from 6-9pm at the Tenth Avenue Alliance Church. For those who cannot attend in person, an online webinar will be held Monday, April 4 from 7-8pm. An online question-naire is available on the Trans-link website.
Results from the input will be available to the public in late 2011/early 2012.
are acts of kindness contagious?
UBC Professor Karl Aquino found that reading about ex-treme acts of human goodness can make others more willing to help strangers and make peo-ple more virtuous overall.
The study was co-authored by Brent McFerran, a Universi-ty of Michigan assistant profes-sor of marketing, and sought to find whether exposure to exam-ples of “moral elevation” would increase the likelihood of peo-ple taking positive moral action.
Participants read two stories, one of which included an act of extreme kindness and the other a positive, light-hearted story.
Afterwards, people filled out questionnaires asking them to divide $10 between themselves and another unknown partici-pant in another room.
Participants were found to share 24 per cent more on av-erage after reading a story of uncommon goodness in com-parison to a generally positive story.
This study suggests that peo-ple can be influenced to help strangers in far away places, and that media outlets could change society for the better if more attention was paid to positive stories.
UBC’s NDP candidate looking “long-term”Jonny [email protected]
Victor Elkins is no stranger to challenge. A long time activ-ist with the hospital workers’ union and an organizer with the NDP, Elkins is used to up-hill struggles.
“As a union member, it’s in our blood to get out there and fight,” he told The Ubyssey.
Fight though he may, it will take a miracle—or an unprece-dented student turnout—for the residents of Vancouver Quadra to give him a seat in the House of Commons. Elkins is making his first foray into federal politics with a run in the historically cen-trist riding that contains UBC. In the 2008 Federal election, the New Democrats finished behind even the Green Party with just 8.1 per cent of the vote.
“I don’t believe in just para-chuting [into a riding],” said El-kins. “I’m looking at this as a long-term building prospect for the NDP in the riding.”
One step in this project is reaching out to UBC students as a base of support, said Elkins. His campaign has been working with New Democrats on campus to get out the youth vote.
“We’re here [to act] as a re-source for people who want to get involved with the NDP and vol-unteer on local campaigns,” said UBC Young NDP president Tim Chu. Both Elkins and Chu said that student debt relief forms the foundation on the NDP’s post-secondary platform.
In March, NDP post-second-ary critic Niki Ashton proposed the Post-Secondary Education Act to the House of Commons, which would create a federal transfer dedicated to post-sec-ondary education.
“Federal transfers for post-secondary education as a per-centage of GDP have fallen by one half since the liberal gov-ernment in the mid-1990s,” said Ashton.
“And average undergraduate tuition has tripled since the ear-ly 90s. Universities and colleges are left to choose between rais-ing tuition fees and sacrificing quality.”
The NDP is skeptical of the Liberals’ post-secondary plan, which would eliminate two fed-eral tax credits aimed at higher education and replace them with up to a $4000 grant for each Ca-nadian high school student go-ing into university. The total cost
of the program is expected to be around $1.45 billion.
“If tuition goes up by $1000 at the same time you are receiving the $1000, you are no further ahead,” said NDP leader Jack Lay-ton, adding, “The key thing you have to do with education is get the costs down and hold those costs from rising.” He said the NDP plan would ensure stable tuition costs across the country.
Elkins has a personal in-terest in improving access
to education. He put himself through a Bachelor of Science at the University of Alberta, where he struggled to keep his head above water. He has also raised five foster children, and wor-ries about their ability to pay for university.
“The chances of them getting to university are—with the lim-ited income they and their fam-ilies have—next to nil,” he said. “My goal is to make [education] affordable.” U
The NDP’s Victor Elkins at UBC. geoff lister photo/THE UBYSSEY
4/ubyssey.ca/national/2011.04.04
NatioNalpolice Break up student protest
JacoB sereBrinCUP Quebec Bureau Chief
MONTREAL (CUP)—Five peo-ple were arrested after riot po-lice shut down an anti-tuition in-crease protest in Montreal on Thursday.
One person was injured af-ter protesters entered an office building downtown, but police said the injured woman was not a protester.
The protest remained peace-ful for over three hours, as around 2000 demonstrators snaked their way through down-town Montreal. Throughout the march there was a heavy po-lice presence, with officers on horseback and a provincial po-lice helicopter overhead.
Clashes with police began around 4pm. As the majority of protesters were gathered out-side Premier Jean Charest’s Montreal office, a small group of protesters entered the near-by offices of the Conference of Rectors and Principals of Que-bec Universities (CREPUQ). The group, which represents admin-istrators at all universities in the province, has come out in favour of the increase.
According to police, a wom-an who works in the building housing the CREPUQ offices suffered a fractured arm during a confrontation with protesters.
The protesters were upset with tuition increases proposed in Quebec’s provincial budget earlier this month. Protesters were also calling for free uni-versity education in Quebec. On March 17, Quebec finance minister Raymond Bachand an-nounced that university tuition fees would rise by $1625, over the next five years, beginning in 2012. Quebec currently has the lowest tuition fees in the country.
Police also scuffled with pro-testers in front of the building, with officers using pepper spray. The main body of demonstra-tors soon moved in front of the office building.
Around 4:20pm, police or-dered demonstrators to clear the street and move west. When a large number of protesters didn’t move, riot police charged the crowd. Police fired several stun grenades above the protest-ers. Police split the crowd into several smaller groups within a matter of minutes. At several
points, large crowds of onlook-ers gathered as riot police fol-lowed small groups of protest-ers on busy downtown streets. Riot police began leaving the area before 5pm.
Police spokesperson Annie Lemieux said those arrested will face charges including assault-ing a police officer and mischief. She said several vehicles, includ-ing two police cars, were dam-aged during the protest.
The protest was organized by the Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante (ASSÉ), a large Quebec student lobby group. The protest coin-cided with a one-day student strike, also organized by ASSÉ, at several French-language uni-versities and CÉGEPs across the province. The strike was en-dorsed by 21 student associa-tions, which represent a total of over 50,000 students.
“Already, too many students drop out for financial reasons. What the government is pro-posing will aggravate this sit-uation,” ASSÉ spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said in French. “This is unacceptable and we will fight for everyone to have access to education.”
Stick it to the man by writing with Mann!
Arhy mann | [email protected]
A news byline is the most famous you’ll ever be.
arshy mann | [email protected] Utheubyssey.ca
gemma karstens-smithThe Martlet (UVic)
VICTORIA (CUP) — Referendum results are in, and students at the University of Victoria voted in favour of their students’ so-ciety severing ties with The Ca-nadian Federation of Students (CFS), Canada’s largest student lobby group.
Karina Sangha, who led the No campaign, says she’s a “lit-tle bit shocked” by the results.
“I know we all worked really hard, but we were definitely out-numbered throughout the vast majority of the campaign,” she said. “The representatives of the Yes side were out in full force and had much larger numbers than we could ever achieve…we really spread the word through our networks and via word of mouth.”
James Coccola, the stu-dents’ society chairperson, said the results are preliminary and will need to be verified by the referendum oversight com-mittee, but 1361 students vot-ed to continue UVic’s member-ship with the CFS, while 3255 voted to leave.
Sangha believes the Yes side’s campaign worked to the advantage of the No side.
“I feel like the Yes side also kind of shot themselves in the foot by aggressively campaign-ing,” she said. “I had people who were either not going to vote or who were voting ‘no’ just because they felt harassed and intimidated by some of the Yes side people.”
Voter turnout for the referen-dum was about 30 per cent, up from about 18 per cent in the UVSS elections in March. Sangha, who is currently a students’ soci-ety director-at-large, believes the high voter turnout is due in part to the fact that the referendum was a “simpler issue.”
“It was less political. It wasn’t people trying to sell them-selves...it was more so just rais-ing awareness about an impor-tant issue and I think people were very receptive to that. It was a very different kind of vote than what the campus sees very often.”
While Sangha says she’s ex-cited by the results, she doesn’t believe the issue is over. She’s anticipating a lawsuit, possibly over whether or not the referen-dum applies to their member-ship in the CFS’s provincial com-ponent, CFS-British Columbia.
The CFS was not immediate-ly available for comment.
uVic students Vote to leaVe cfs
courtesy of megan kamocki/THE MARTLET
‘no’ side organizer thinks fight isn’t oVerOver 2000 students protested rising tuition in Quebec. courtesy of Victor tangerman/THE MCgILL DAILY
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culture editors BRYCE WARNES & JONNY WAKEFIELD » [email protected] writer gINNY MONACO » [email protected]
illustrator INDIANA JOEL » [email protected]
If you’ve sat in a clinic waiting room before, you’ve almost certainly seen a poster on the wall asking you to rate your pain based on scale from one to ten,
with pictures to guide you. One will likely be a dopey, guileless grin, ten an exaggerated pout with big fat tears running down its face.
This system points to an in-teresting phenomenon: when it comes to describing pain and ill-ness, our first instinct is to say it with pictures. Perhaps this could explain why the illness memoir has done so well in the form of comics. There’s something about being able to see, in pictures, someone’s experience of illness that’s almost like looking at a per-son under an x-ray. It makes the dim, slimy world inside us all suddenly and undeniably real.
“Somehow in the cartoon form, panel by panel, the absurdist part of this whole experience comes out in a way that it wouldn’t if I were just writing an essay,” said Miriam Engelberg in an inter-view with NPR.
She should know. Engelberg’s groundbreaking graphic novel Cancer Made Me a Shallower Per-son opened up the genre when it came out in 2006, shattering no-tions in the medical community that a diagnosis of cancer (espe-cially breast cancer) should have a transformative effect, making you kinder, braver, more spiritual. Engelberg pulls no punches; her funny, caustic writing style and honest drawings opened up a dia-logue of dissent, or at least doubt,
within the health advocacy com-munity, and—more importantly—gave patients who had been sup-pressing feelings of shame and weakness their first mental x-ray.
There has also been a prolif-eration in recent years of graph-ic novels about the other side of pain caused by a major illness—the grief and confusion felt by people who are forced to watch a loved one get sick. UBC Cre-ative Writing MFA alumna Sar-ah Leavitt turned her thesis proj-ect, a collection of sketches, notes and reflections documenting her mother’s premature decline and death, into the moving and ter-rifying Tangles: A Story About Al-zheimer’s, My Mother And Me, re-leased last year.
While the physical health mem-oir flourishes, the mental health sector of graphic memoirs has only just started to put down some roots of its own. Most people are comfortable with the idea of the mentally ill artist, the Van Gogh figure shunned and tormented during their lifetime and celebrat-ed as geniuses after their death. This fetishized portrait of the “cra-zy but brilliant” mentally ill per-son denies the real mentally ill community the voice it deserves and—in a society where the men-tal illness is ghettoized within medicine and mainstream so-ciety alike—desperately needs.
In the last few years, a few books have begun to appear that address this need, depicting honestly the toll mental illness takes on the sick person, their family and the entire commu-nity. Clem and Olivier Martini’s
book Bitter Medicine: A Graphic Memoir of Mental Illness docu-ments the Martini family’s ex-perience with schizophrenia, from the authors’ younger broth-er Ben’s diagnosis as a teenager to Olivier’s own diagnosis and subsequent troubled relationship with Alberta’s mental health sec-tor. (Full disclosure: Clem Marti-ni is my dad, Olivier Martini is my uncle.) Although the main narrative is from Clem’s perspec-tive, it’s Olivier’s drawings that bring the story to life, while also providing a unique narrative of their own. The drawings are dis-turbing, likely because they give a face—many faces, actually—to the hallucinations and anxieties that “normal” people, no matter how sympathetic they are, don’t ever have to see.
In one of her last entries on her LiveJournal before her passing in 2006, Engelberg thanks a fan for recommending the 1982 version of The Thing, then adds in paren-theses, “The problem is—no mov-ie is as scary as cancer.”
The books I’m talking about are scary. That is because it’s a scary feeling, witnessing what you’d rather not witness in yourself or people you love. It’s scary because my aunt battled cancer for a year. Chances are someone close to you has as well. It’s scary because there is a history of schizophre-nia in my family. These are roads we’d all rather not go down.
But the fact that Engelberg was able to stare it down, give it shape and voice, even laugh at it, might make it just a little bit less scary for someone else. For another pa-tient, it might be the one thing that can open the closet and show that the monsters aren’t real, or are at least not as big as they were imagined to be. Comics might not be the best medicine for the loneliness and fear that illness can bring into a person’s life, but they are at least a powerful voice for hope, and that is—mercifully—highly contagious. U
The comics cure
Comics are an effective medium for illustrating illness . indiana Joel illustration/THE UBYSSEY
comics wIth mIRAndA mARtInI
For the ill, graphic novels can be a source of catharsis
UVideo recap of UBC Theatre’s Brave New Play Rites, as well as an inter-view with Vancouver band Black Wizard @ ubyssey.ca/multimedia
online eXclusiVes
When it comes to describing pain and illness, our first instinct is to say it with pictures.
16 weeks 16 weeks
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Students struggling to make their way through their degree. Students work-ing long hours during the summer and part-time jobs throughout the year are a common at most Canadian universi-ties—and UBC is no exception.
With unemployment on the rise and an extremely competitive summer job market, finding full-time work to pay for school is not easy. So why not get a part time job and take extra classes in the summer, consolidating your loan, which would lead to lower post-gradu-ation debt?
For most students, this isn’t a viable possibility. With a limited selection of summer classes and a scheduling sys-tem that has shorter, more time-inten-sive courses, options are limited.
This may change soon, however. UBC administrators are considering chang-ing the summer semester to more close-ly resemble the winter and fall. Rath-er than concentrating on making mon-ey in the summer, students could take courses that span the entire semester like any other term at UBC. Stanford, the University of Washington, Simon Fras-er University and the University of Wa-terloo are some of the institutions that have decided to make fuller use of the summer term, dividing the year into three equal terms.
Melanie Lephan is one of those stu-dents working through school. Already through a first degree from a school in Ottawa that she paid for herself, she is struggling to pay for a three-year film diploma at UBC. After working full time and part time jobs for the last year and a half, she saved up enough money for rent this year.
For her, summer is an invaluable time to make money for the upcoming year.
“Those four months are really cru-cial. I need the down time to recover from being eight months in school and to save up money,” she said.
A revamped summer semester would mean that students like her could find work during other semesters. Profes-sors would have more flexibility for when they want to do their research. Businesses on campus would bene-fit from the higher traffic of students. Residence spots wouldn’t sit idle and empty.
Schools like SFU prove that this mod-el is possible—now, UBC is trying to fig-ure out if it will work for its campus cul-ture. There are still many issues to con-front, including student loan conflicts, general inflexibility with other services on campus and hidden expenses mak-ing the switch requires.
what is a trimester and why should we care?
Switching to a full trimester system would mean that the school year would be broken down into three semesters: September to December, January to April and May to August. Each would have a large number of courses offered and students could, potentially, fast-track their degree into a three year program.
Sean Heisler, a student representative on the UBC Board of Governors, said the trimester option may be the best way to make use of the summer session. As it stands now, the summer session is op-erating significantly below capacity. Heisler hopes that revamping the sum-mer would help students streamline their degree while lessening their debt.
“If there are static courses you can take over the entire summer, you can find part-time work—you’re still mak-ing money, you’re still helping support yourself, but then you can also help ex-pedite your education or take more in-teresting courses, whatever you prefer.”
Heisler currently sits on the Strate-gic Enrolment Management Committee, which was initiated by Provost and VP Academic David Farrar, and is tasked with discussing options for revamping the summer session. Aside from a full trimester system, the committee is also considering cleaning up the summer by making two distinct terms.
Heisler said that students don’t stay on campus in the summer due to the lack of consistency in the way classes are set up. Aside from focusing on offering courses that are frequently failed, each course’s start- and end-dates are decided by the professor, leading to scheduling issues.
“The reason that students aren’t here is [because the university is] not provid-ing a summer that works. If we fix sum-mer semester we could have much bet-ter capacity—you’ll have a win-win-win.”
While Heisler may be in favour of the trimester system, the university is just entering discussions regarding the pos-sible change. Paul Harrison, committee member and associate dean of student services for the Faculty of Science, said that the committee is primarily explor-atory for now.
“The discussions that the provost has initiated are raising questions, looking at issues, looking at ideas for opportuni-ties that might be manifested in sum-mer if we did things a little different-ly,” said Harrison. “There are no end-points at the moment or preconceived outcomes. It’s really raising questions.”
if sfu can do it...
Simon Fraser University (SFU) is an ex-ample of a university that utilizes the trimester system to its advantage. Jon Driver, provost and VP Academic at SFU, said that summer enrolment is at about 50 per cent, or approximately 10,000 students. He said that the trimester sys-tem provides flexibility to both students and professors. It also provides more choices for professors, who can choose any of the three semesters as their re-search term.
“It’s quite useful for people who actu-ally do fieldwork for their research,” said Driver. “A biologist who needs to be in another part of the world in January and February can just schedule their cours-es in the summer and fall.”
He said the system is also very useful for students who are looking for jobs. “If a student wanted to a work for a semes-ter they could look for work in the fall semester and schedule their courses in the summer and fall,” he said.
Jacqueline Chick, a UBC student who recently transferred from SFU, said she took advantage of courses offered in the summer to study part-time and work part-time. She is in favor of the switch.
“The first thing I thought when I signed up for classes at UBC is that I didn’t really like the yearly system, that I don’t have the option to take a random semester off.”
As an avid traveller, Chick liked the idea of reducing travel costs by flying during the non-summer semesters, which are the off-seasons for many travel
destinations. Waitlists are another prob-lem she found were better under the SFU trimester system.
“At UBC, signing up for courses was difficult because some of the required courses you want would be immediately full,” said Chick. “You don’t have the op-tion to choose them for another semes-ter. That was a big part of my dislike to-wards the yearly system...you know that there is no opportunity to get into the class at all.”
a tough fit, But mayBe that’s okay?
Students in some of the more strictly regulated programs at UBC may not be able to benefit from a revamped sum-mer semester. For Lephan, taking off a semester other than the summer is not an option in the film program.
“September to December is when most of our films are being shot. If you’re not there, you’re going to be delayed anoth-er year,” she said. “For this program, it demands you to be there for that time.”
Heisler sa id t hat t he proposa l wouldn’t necessarily affect special-ized programs such as film production.
“It would more look at the larger groups—Arts, English, philosophy, eco-nomics, Science. Not to force people to use it if they don’t already, but to provide the option,” he said. “If you’re looking at elective courses or meeting science and math requirements, to have those courses much more strongly offered in the summer would allow people to then free up their time in the school year to do more extracurricular [activities].”
Making better use of the summer would mean shorter waitlists in the fall. Heisler said that students who can stay over the summer will take cours-es that are harder to get into, reducing the waitlist for the next term. This also has the added bonus of making bet-ter use of space, reducing the need for new buildings for classes. Driver sees the summer semester as integral to ac-commodating the increasing number of students at SFU.
“We simply could not accommodate all of our undergraduate students in the physical space that we have if we didn’t do the summer semester.”
16 weeks16 weeks
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matching up with housing
Making better use of the summer would match up with housing initiatives on campus as well.
“There is a trend in housing to move to year-round, which is encouraging or even forcing students to be here over the summer,” said Heisler. “So we real-ly need to expand our academics so that students want to [be here], to make the two line up.”
The new Ponderosa Hub, which is ex-pected to be completed by 2015, is one residence building that will be adopt-ing the year-round lease system. Harri-son said that has figured into the plan-ning committee’s discussions as well.
“Part of the model for the hubs is to have the beds year-round, so what are we going to be offering people in the sum-mer if they want to have those beds?” he said.
could this Be a childcare solution?
Childcare could also be an area of bene-fit for students or professor couples who are both at the university, as they could stagger their term off to look after their children. Unfortunately, the current childcare system is not designed for a drastic switch. With the current system, most students and faculty keep their chil-dren in the program year round, even during research terms.
“Depending on what research they’re doing, the [parents] still tend to need childcare,” said Darcelle Cottons, direc-tor of childcare at UBC.
“There is either somebody in the space paying for it or the space is empty. We can’t have any space empty; it would be like keeping an apartment open. The cost still exists even if the people opt out.”
Opting out for a term is not encour-aged, as families would be placed at the end of the waitlist, which is at times up to two years long.
But the system may have the ability to adapt to fit the trimester system if it is put in place. Cottons said that the current system of childcare is not how it always was.
“When I started working here twen-ty years ago, we used to have a lot of
turnover with student parents opting out for the summer.”
Now, however, that demand has changed.
“[The parents] said that they didn’t need anything cut back for the sum-mer. In fact, when we did it we negoti-ated a two-week closure for some of the centres,” said Cotton. “That’s all they thought they could manage...It’s possi-ble to be somewhat flexible, but it would take a culture change for us,” she said.
Philosophy professor Christina Hen-dricks has a son enrolled in the child-care system.
“The situation of the childcare wait-lists, not just UBC but all around Van-couver, are such that you would not want to pull your child out of childcare be-cause then you would have to get back on a waitlist and wait at least a year, of-ten two, to get back in.”
She was skeptical of the benefits of the trimester system for childcare. “I don’t think it would make any difference, at least not with the situation we have in Vancouver right now,” she said.
fleXiBility and Bustle
While Hendricks was critical of possible improvements she would see in child-care, she was excited about its potential for teaching, especially with the possi-bility of spreading out her teaching load across all three terms. “I have a fairly high teaching load, and doing all of it in one term is quite a lot,” she said.
Having a more active campus year-round was also attractive to her.
“I live on campus, and the campus just dies in the summer. A lot of the ca-fés aren’t open anymore; it’s hard to find a cup of coffee,” she said. “There are a lot of reasons why you would want to uti-lize the space more efficiently through-out the year.”
Heisler said that with more people on campus, more businesses could stay open as long as it was feasible. With de-clining revenue plaguing many AMS businesses, this may be a way to have four extra months of money coming in. The AMS has to close many of its busi-nesses, such as the Gallery Lounge, dur-ing the summer because of reduced demand.
Residence buildings, which often sit empty unless booked out by the occa-sional conference, would also benefit from receiving rent revenue year-round.
But what of the cost?
With all of these opportunities, why has the switch not yet been made? There are a number of possible flaws in a UBC version of the trimester sys-tem. Both Stanford and the University of Washington, for example, use a sys-tem that operates on three 11-week se-mesters, with June and July off. UBC’s system would plug right through the year with three 15-week terms, and no summer break—unless you chose to take one of the semesters off. One of the concerns of this is the effects it may have on student stress or depres-sion, already a significant problem at a commuter campus such as UBC.
The switch to an 11-week program would require a lot of paperwork and change of classes, but would also pro-vide a mandatory two-month break for July and August, eliminating some of the stress of continuous studies. Stu-dents could still fast track their de-gree, but would be able to take a short vacation.
It’s clear why the university would choose the 16-week program, though. They wouldn’t have to adapt current class schedules from September through April. Courses would consist of the same amount of credit hours as other univer-sities, maintaining an easy transfer credit system.
“It’s established in our university’s bones [to have 16-week terms]. To change something like that would be nearly im-possible,” said Heisler.
Hiring extra sessional lecturers to teach classes would be an increased cost, although it might be balanced by tuition revenues from the summer. Driver said that operating a trimester system like SFU can be more expensive.
“We do three intakes a year and we have to keep all of the university offic-es and facilities open throughout the whole year.” SFU accepts new students in May, September, and January.
UBC currently keeps all of its ad-ministrative offices throughout the
summer at regular hours. Harrison said that the offices focus on differ-ent areas throughout the year, which means there is demand year round.
“In summer we’re preparing for the next group of students, new admits, and there are certain activities that happen there that refocus time,” he said. “If there are fewer current stu-dents needing advising, for example, there are new students, so you can’t cut back on those services.”
Harrison also has concerns with re-strictions that students on student loans may be held to.
“The student loan regulations are not set by the university, but by the govern-ment. They, at the moment, seem to lim-it the flexibility students have for tak-ing courses over summer because you have to have [a certain] amount of cred-its within a certain number of weeks, and you can’t have more than a certain number of days’ break between cours-es. It’s quite complex,” he said. “We need to learn more about it.”
Questions and considerations to come
There are numerous considerations that the university’s Strategic Enrol-ment Planning Committee will be look-ing into in the coming months.
“Then departments have to see—can they manage to offer more courses in the summer, and what does that do to winter enrolments? Students may sim-ply need the money to work to make the money to pay for the next session,” said Harrison. “Laboratories need to be refurbished, equipment repaired; you can’t offer everything all the time.”
With so many important issues to consider regarding the summer ses-sion, the university will have its hands full. It is unlikely that students like Lephan, working through their de-gree, will have the option of fast-track-ing through the summer in the com-ing year.
But with the sheer size and capaci-ty of the university, not making effec-tive use of this space for one third of a year seems like a waste. The trimes-ter system may yet prove to be the best way to rectify that. U
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sportseditor MARIE VONDRACEK » [email protected]
There will still be plenty of Thunderbirds soaring above their competition this summer. Write with us!
marie vondracek | [email protected] Utheubyssey.ca
Ski team ends another dominating seasonUnder-supported athletic program continues to excel in the Northwestmike [email protected]
Despite lacking the elite support structure afforded most varsity squads, the UBC ski team put forth elite results all year long.
“This was our best season since at least four to five years ago,” said UBC ski team student-coach Ben Millar.
“We’re competing against teams that are fully funded and fully coached, and our results just keep getting better.”
The team, which didn’t fea-ture any cuts during its train-ing camps, ploughed through the Northwest Conference, with the men winning every race they competed in to finish first and the women coming in at a close second.
The next step was region-als, held in Boise Basin, Ida-ho. Emma Beatty won the sla-lom despite a minor knee in-jury and standout rookie Mike Bisnaire took second in the gi-ant slalom. The women’s squad took third overall and the men in close second behind Rocky Mountain College.
These performances meant the squad made it all the way to the nationals which were held from March 8-13 in at Sun Val-ley, Idaho.
“Qualifying for regionals is relatively easy; nationals takes another gear which we were for-tunately able to find this year,” Millar said.
It was a gear they managed to find despite only training once
a week at Grouse Mountain. The men’s squad finished third in the giant slalom, fourth in the slalom and ended up fifth over-all by way of losing a tiebreaker.
The women’s squad, fuelled by Beatty’s gutsy performance on a bad knee, finished seventh
in the giant slalom, ninth in the slalom and sixth overall.
“It was a great season; both teams put forth a great show-ing at nationals,” Millar said, adding “That we made it so far going up against teams with professional coaching and five
times the funding is a testament to our athletes.
“Bisnaire, Ben Middleton, Be-atty and Amanda Driver were all fantastic this year. Bisnaire and Driver both being rookies bodes very well for our chances of re-turning to nationals next year.” U
Training on Grouse Mountain to attain competitive perfection. Josh curran photo/THE UBYSSEY
Bird dRoPPIngS
uBc BaseBall Battles in siX matches oVer three days—one Being an eighteen inning epic
The Thunderbirds (12-1) were given a scare in the first game of a six-game weekend home-stand when they faced the 5-17 Corban College Warriors.
But UBC managed to pull out a pair of wins of 2-1, after which head coach Terry McKaig quick-ly diagnosed why his first-place UBC squad nearly lost the open-er to a team that has failed to win a game in conference play.
“Our pitching has been good enough for us to win any ball game but our hitting has started to become a bit of a concern,” he said. “Luckily we’ve been do-ing enough to win games while we work on it and try to figure it out.”
Saturday, after dropping an 18-inning marathon by a single run in the morning, they bounced back to take the second game 5-0. UBC’s offence came out hit-ting and Brandon Kaye stoned the batters he faced with a com-plete game-shutout in the sev-en-inning affair.
Referring to the 18-inning epic, McKaig said, “That was not what either team needed or wanted given that we are play-ing six this weekend.
“The bright spot in game two was getting a good start with our hitting. That’s what we expect from Brandon—to do a good job, and he really did,” said McKaig.
“It was nice to see the guys swinging the bats better.”
On Sunday, UBC defeated the Warriors 8-1 and 5-2 in the final double-header. U
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‘Software engineer’ stays groundedStarting pitcher Eric Brown a leader on and off the mound
mike dicksonmdickson@ubyssey. ca
“Eric Brown.” That was the re-sponse of the UBC Thunderbird Baseball coach Terry McKaig when asked who the team looks up to as a leader.
Leading by example, the star pitcher for the T-Birds has had a stellar performance this season. McKaig notes that his success
has been the result of his 88-90mph pitch.
“Brown’s probably been our most consistent guy and he has stepped up his game,” said McKaig.
“He wants to be leaned on heavily in the playoffs and pitch the big games. He’s shown he is up to that task.”
The Thunder Bay, Ontar-io nat ive has a lso seen his
Earned Run Average (ER A) drop from 3.92 to 1.33 last year, good enough for third in the NAIA West. His oppo-nents’ batt ing average also decreased from .270 to .181, good for second in the confer-ence. Brown also has the im-pressive statistic of a 6–0 win-loss record on the year. Three of those wins have come as complete solo games.
“I’m just focusing on me-chanics right now. Increasing strength and decreasing inef-ficiencies [in my pitch],” said Brown. “Last year I started off well, pitching about as well as I have been this year.”
However, his performance slumped toward the end of last season. This year is different, he said, because he has been able to maintain his performance.
Brown, a six-foot, 22-year-old senior, pitched Friday for a win against the Corban Col-lege Warriors. That game was delayed four hours due to rain. And this comes after the last weekend in Washington, where bad weather caused two games to be rescheduled to this week-end at UBC.
On Saturday he was behind the mound working the radar gun and watching the Warriors beat the T-birds after a long 18-inning game.
“Watching [when you’re down] is always tough. I used to find it really hard, but it has gotten easier. I have a lot of trust in my teammates.”
Those teammates may look up to him, but they sure know how to bring him back to earth. During a recent interview with The Vancouver Sun, he was de-scribed as looking “more like a software engineer than a staff bulldog.” The comment sparked jokes on the field.
“They haven’t let that one go yet,” he said, laughing. “[The Sun] caught me tired and with glass-es on.”
The ‘sof tware engineer’ has a few goals for the sea-son. “Right now it’s trying to make the [NAIA] World Series,” he said. After that, it’s about the MLB draft. And much like other athletes in his position, he’s not picky, with no partic-ular team in mind.
“I’ll take anything I can get,” he commented. U
Brown at home in the park. geoff lister photo/THE UBYSSEY
10 / u by s s e y.c a /g a m e s / 2 011 . 0 4 . 0 4
We’ve only got three issues left! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!And another year at university!What will I do with myself?
justin mcelroy | [email protected] Utheubyssey.ca
sudoku (medium)
solution
Submit your comics to our website at ubyssey.ca/volunteer/submit-a-comic.
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2011.04.04/ubyssey.ca/opinions/11
opiNioNs do you care? WRITE US A LETTER » [email protected]
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perspectiVe
editorialif we had a thousand dollars
Alright, hands up: Who honestly believed that one month into the federal election, post-sec-ondary education would be one of the most im-portant issues?
Well, that’s exactly what happened. Thanks to the Liberals’ unveiling of their “Learning Pass-port” proposal, which would guarantee a $1000/year grant to all university students (students from low-income families would get an extra $500 a year), all parties have to spend time de-bating university tuition, affordability and op-portunity. Whatever your thoughts on the mer-its of Ignatieff’s proposal, this is a fantastic de-velopment—all too often the concerns of univer-sity students receive no national debate, mostly because we barely vote.
That being said, we strongly support the Learn-ing Passport for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is that yes, students receiving solid, tan-gible financial support from the government as they attempt to get a degree and contribute to this country is a good thing. Some have argued that this will give provincial governments an excuse to raise tuition rates by $1000. But the same ar-gument could be made anytime the government gives a tax break/credit to a large group—that’s the ebb and flow of a federal system.
Moreover, this will help the many students who don’t qualify for student loans, even though their parents can’t actually afford to help them. There are thousands of them each year, all with their own unique family situation that has screwed them over when it comes to getting financial sup-port. With the Learning Passport, they get help for the first time.
Last, there is the criticism that this is a bribe. Yes. It is. So are all tax breaks, tax credits, sub-sidies and everything else parties throw on the table during election season. The salient ques-tion is which bribes have the most direct bene-fit. On this, there is no question—the Learning Passport is a bold step in the right direction for making university more affordable for those with the desire to attend.
hot town, summer in the city
It’s inevitable that many students feel duped af-ter they finish up their first year of UBC. Their first taste of the Point Grey campus likely came through a tour given by a bright-eyed silver-tongued youth who walked you through sunny vistas and described the incredible opportuni-ties that a world-class institution like UBC offers.
And after enrolling and spending a balmy, breezy September atop the Knoll and on Wreck Beach, the rain sets in. And those previously sun-ny—and empty—vistas are filled with puddles that resemble the Great Lakes, as graveyards of broken umbrellas sit rusting and columns of stu-dents march along in collective misery.
And so it is and has been for generations of UBC students. But now there’s a chance to change that.
Instead of being forced to take classes through-out the dreary Vancouver winters and then com-pete with hordes of their peers to find a summer job, students could opt to study in the summer—when UBC resembles something akin to the Ely-sian Fields—and work in the winter.
More than just enjoying the summer weather, a change to a trimester system would be a game-changer for students. It provides flexibility—you could finish your degree earlier, or spend more time doing extra-curricular activities.
Even more importantly, it would completely change how this campus operates. More sum-mer courses means more students living on cam-pus, increasing revenues for businesses and giv-ing the ghost town a bit of life.
More students on campus during the summer also hurts one of the university’s arguments for more market housing—namely that the campus is under-utilized for four months a year.
There’s potential for this to be the most sub-stantive change for students since the U-Pass was established.
Right now, everything is still preliminary. But if students can start pushing and get their stu-dent society to start actively lobbying for some change, we might be able to make this dream into a bright and sunny reality. U
Johnson raePerspective
In the March 28 opinion piece titled “Goldcorp’s $5 million gift to UBC rais-es questions,” the author made sever-al claims I suspected as being out of context. I would like to correct what I believe are some common misconcep-tions about mining practices & Cana-dian mining companies such as Gold-corp. As a student at the NBK Institute of Mining Engineering at UBC, we study the complex mechanical and chemical processes used to extract mineral com-modities. Mining students are taught industry best practices, environmen-tal ethics, tailings management, mine safety, aqueous geochemistry and, be-lieve it or not, how impacted communi-ties can best be compensated in an ef-fective manner. One class is entirely fo-cused on reviewing actual case histories, such as the San Martin Mine in Hondu-ras, and determining effective ways to distribute compensation to locals.
I make no claim that mining is a ze-ro-impact industry; in any industrial operation there is inevitably damage caused through land disruption, wa-ter usage and chemical reagents. How-ever, as engineers we not only have a legal but also a moral responsibili-ty to ensure these practices are made as least damaging as possible. We at-tempt to mitigate the impacts of tail-ings discharge and habitat destruction
by using proven, real life technologies and methods such as waste neutraliza-tion plants, tree and vegetation plant-ing and local health & education pro-grams. The majority of the public are blissfully unaware of how much work goes into meeting the rigorous safety and environmental standards required for Canadian mining companies.
In reality, the largest mining compa-nies in the world have spent more mon-ey on rehabilitation and meeting safe discharge standards than every govern-ment, activist and facebook group com-bined, guaranteed.
It is claimed in Honduras, Goldcorp uses “massive sprinklers that spray cy-anide into the air” which would “never be permitted in Canada.”
Taken out of context, this example manages to make a common practice appear super scary by dropping any logical reasoning for what is being done. Don’t you wonder what the eco-nomic incentive would be in blasting poisonous chemicals straight into the pristine rainforest? In reality, cyani-dation is a well understood and high-ly regulated practice. A very low con-centration of CN solution is dripped onto heap leach piles, collected in wa-terproof tanks, the gold extracted from solution and the remaining neutral-ized prior to water recirculation. Cy-anidation actually saves quite a bit of money and energy, because rock does not need to be crushed nearly as fine
using massive ball mills. The sole rea-son it is not common in Canada is that CN leaching is only effective on specif-ic deposit types, which we posses very few of in Canada.
The author argues that our new label as a “sustainable” school prohibits the acceptance of donations from compa-nies that do not exhibit these values. Mining is, by its nature, non-sustain-able; there are finite amounts of miner-als, and the extraction of them perma-nently removes these from the earth. Boom. Not sustainable. Since the min-ing department at UBC relies heavily on donations from mining companies (including Goldcorp) to fund research in waste management, toxin neutrali-sation, environmental studies and up-dating old technologies, should these programs be cut solely because of where the money comes from?
Furthermore, the definition of sus-tainability is nebulous—would com-panies that supply the cyanide, such as 3M, fall into the same category as Goldcorp because they implicitly sup-port them? Like an unsustainable arms dealer? What of the customers who hap-pily buy the gold rings, steel cars, alu-minum beers, tin cans and almost ev-ery modern product produced by min-ing companies?
Respectfully,
—Johnson Rae
UBC’s relationship with Goldcorp is sound
today, refugee rights should Be oBserVedDear Editor:
Today, 42 million people have f led armed conflicts in search of safety. These individuals are children, women and men living in temporary shelters, camps or shanty towns, struggling to survive in new and often hostile environments. Those who have sought refuge in anoth-er country are refugees, a status that en-titles them to certain rights under inter-national law. Currently, 16 million peo-ple have claimed such status.
Individuals seeking refuge within their own countries are officially regard-ed as internally displaced persons (IDPs). There are currently 26 million IDPs. They have fewer rights than refugees,
yet make up almost two-thirds of people around the world who are seeking safety from armed conflict and violence today.
I encourage UBC students to recognize this issue and take action. Today is Refu-gee Rights Day in Canada and Friends of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in coali-tion with other UBC Clubs, will be hold-ing Camp2Campus. Working to shed light on the realities that exits for displaced peoples and the crucial role MSF plays, this will be an opportunity for individ-uals to engage with the complexities of providing international service, while also fostering a sense of global citizen-ship and raising finance for MSF. Com-posed of daytime programming taking place at the SUB North Concourse as well as an evening event at Hillel House, the installation will present displays about
food and malnutrition, safety and human rights, clinics, shelter, water and sanita-tion in refugee camps. In the evening, there will be a keynote speech by Sharon Janzen, a field nurse for MSF. More infor-mation can be found at camp2campus.ca.
I encourage everyone to ask them-selves: what if I were a refugee? Would I be safe? What would I eat? How would I find water? Would I have access to med-ical care? Where would I live?
On April 4, I hope many individuals will participate in Camp2Campus in pur-suit of answering these questions. And on a broader note, I hope they will continue asking—until they have found the answers.
Sincerely,
—Nooran Paul
letter
12/ubyssey.ca/advertisement/2011.04.04