march 25, 2013
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March 25, 2013 | The UbysseyTRANSCRIPT
MaRcH 25, 2013 | VolUME XciV| issUE XlViiiBURGOOOOOOO SINCE 1918
braIN FOODthree recipes with only three ingredients each P6
INTERDISCIPLINARY COLLEGE AXED
RUGBY FACES DEFEAT AGAINST CALlearn more about his academic future on P3
Men’s team is defeated 38–6 on Sunday P5
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 | 2YoUR GUiDE To Ubc EVEnTs + PEoPlE
sTaFFbryce Warnes, josh curran, Peter Wojnar, anthony Poon, Veronika bondarenko, Yara Van kessel, catherine Guan, Ginny Monaco, Matt Meuse, Hogan Wong, Rory Gatt ens, brandon chow, joseph ssett uba. Tyler McRobbie, sarah bigam, stephanie Xu, natalya kautz, colin chia, kim Pringle, Geoff lister
MaRcH 25, 2013 | VolUME XciV| issUE XlViii
eDITOrIal
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UTHE UBYSSEY
The Ubyssey is the offi cial stu-dent newspaper of the Univer-sity of british columbia. it is published every Monday and Thursday by The Ubyssey Pub-lications society. We are an au-tonomous, democratically run student organization, and all students are encouraged to participate.
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WHaT’s ON THis WEEk, MaY WE sUGGEsT... PIC OF THe WeeKMONDAY 25
WRIte YOuR eSSAYlet’s be real here, guys. There are no full weeks of school left *gasp* and you likely have anywhere from one to fi ve essays due soon. Time to take that Facebook hiatus and buckle down, stat.
TUESDAY 26
KARAOKe9 P.M. @ THE GALLERYif you either don’t have any essays to write or exams to prepare for (in which case, stop lying to yourself), or need some chilling out time, just go belt it out. Fly your freak fl ag high and let everyone know you still love that one Third Eye blind song.
WEDNESDAY 27
tIMe MANAGeMeNt WORKSHOP
This may not be the most formal workshop you have att ended before, because it’s one you can do at home!
step 1: pull out your sullabi. step 2: reread class goals and assignments.
step 3: make Google calendar with study schedule. step 4: feel success-
ful for having managed your time.
ON THE
COVER
For this issue’s spread (pg. 6), art director kai jacobson created a mini studio in his kitchen. by ex-perimenting with diff erent lighting scenarios, he was able to create the gloss and fi nish that is oft en found in recipe books, but not necessarily in home photography. josH cURRan PHoTos/THE UbYssEY
Members of the Ubc varsity nordic ski team train at cypress Mountain last weekend.
josH cURRan PHoTos/THE UbYssEY
Members of the Ubc varsity nordic ski team train at cypress Mountain last weekend.
kai jacobson PHoTo/THE UbYssEY
sam, a carpenter for biRD construction, pictured on the site of the new student Union building, slated to open in 2014.
FEATURE PREVIEWFACES OF CONSTRUCTION
APRIL 8TH
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 | 3EDiToRs WILL MCDONALD + LAURA RODGERS
Sarah BigamStaff Writer
On March 20, the UBC Senate passed a proposal to establish a college on campus for international students who do not meet UBC’s English language requirements.
Many of the specifics of this pro-ject, including the name of the col-lege itself, are still under discussion. It has been referred to as “Bridge to UBC” and “Pathways.” The program is intended to increase diversity of the student population and fill gaps in UBC’s central budget.
If the Board of Governors also approves the proposal at their next meeting, 300 students will start the 12-month program in August 2014. These students will be split into arts and science programs.
Students will be required to meet minimum English language require-ments and have averages equal to at least 70 per cent in the B.C./Yukon secondary school system. Students studying science through the program must have an equivalent of B.C. Grade 11 chemistry and physics.
The college will not use broad-based admissions.
According to student senator and AMS VP Academic Kiran Mahal, UBC Admissions is still trying to figure out the best way to assess students for admission, given the level of variation in curricula around the world.
Mahal said that admissions will be very selective in order to choose students with the best chance at success. “We are going to be bring-ing in students halfway across the world and asking them to invest a lot into this program, and UBC wouldn’t want to bring people to campus unless they actually have the potential to be very successful and to get into second year out of this program.”
The college has a $4 million start-up budget to cover the preparation of curriculum and the recruitment of students and faculty. Tuition is proposed at $30,000 per year, and seven per cent of all tuition revenue will be used to create scholarships and financial aid for the program.
The college has the ability to create its own courses, according to Mahal, but students of the college will mostly be taking existing UBC courses and writing the same exams as other first-years. It is still under discussion whether the students will be in the same sections as other
first-years at UBC proper. The students will also have additional English education integrated into the rest of the program.
According to Mahal, the science segment will have a stream for both physical and computational sci-ences, and no life science or biology courses will be offered to students in the program. Janet Giltrow, the senior associate dean of the Faculty of Arts, said that Arts Studies 150 (a standard course about academ-ic writing), geography, political science and psychology are being considered for the arts courses.
After their year at the college, students who get high enough grades will be admitted to second year at UBC. The cutoff is still to be decided by the faculties, Mahal said, but the goal is to have at least 80 per cent of the students who are admitted into the college move on to second year. She said the current plan will require students to renew their visa when going into second year, because their initial
visas will only be granted for the one-year program.
To advance into second year, students will need to meet trans-fer admission requirements as determined by the Faculty of Arts or Science. “[If] a student would end their first year at Langara, [they] would need to meet a certain grade point to transfer to UBC, and i think we’re looking at that standard,” said Giltrow. Once in second year, students will already have at least 24 UBC credits and will be able to transfer to other faculties if they choose. Vice-Provost Angela Redish said in an email interview that the proposed Orchard Commons, a hub containing student residences as well as academic facilities, will help house these new students, although the idea of the building predates the proposal. If the Board of Governors approves this building, construction will begin in 2014.
Mahal said that the AMS and VP Students office are working together to ensure that students of the col-lege are integrated fully into UBC student life. To help with this, they will be housed not just in Orchard Commons but in student residences across campus.
Mahal said Bridge students will be AMS members, with access to AMS facilities, school libraries and the U-Pass.
“I think if the AMS and the VP Students office work very closely over the next year, we’ll be able to create a really, really strong experi-ence for these students coming in so they feel like they’re part of the community,” said Mahal. U
Colin ChiaStaff Writer
The AMS is once again on track to sell the Whistler Lodge after Council rejected an allocation of funds to begin necessary repairs to the building.
The executive committee was seeking up to $30,000 to obtain cost estimates for repairs from third-party consultants. But with 14 councillors in favour and 11 against, the motion failed to obtain the two-thirds majority required to approve expenditures from the Stu-dent Spaces Fund, which currently has a balance of $366,000.
AMS President Caroline Wong said this signals Council’s rejection of plans to operate the lodge as a
service rather than a business, and make the repairs needed to keep the lodge running.
“We made it very clear to councillors that if they failed this motion, it is with intent to sell the lodge or sell the land, basically. And they did fail it, so that’s the direction we’re taking right now,” she said.
But it’s unclear if it’s the direc-tion students want to take. An AMS survey released on Jan. 5 showed a majority of UBC students would prefer to maintain the Whist-ler Lodge. Forty-eight per cent of students consider the lodge a service, while 14 per cent view it as a business.
The lodge lost $5,626 last year and $40,500 in 2011. Although it
made a profit of $279,000 between 2005 and 2010, the student society spent $500,000 on capital repairs in the same period.
Some AMS councillors don’t accept the validity of the survey, although it was meant to gather in-formation on what students wanted after the referendum on selling the lodge failed in 2012.
Arts representative Anne Kessler said the poll was mislead-ing because it assumed student fees wouldn’t be affected and didn’t specifically explain how students might benefit if proceeds from the sale were placed into an endow-ment fund to generate interest.
“I understand people’s attach-ment to the lodge.... I just think there’s so much more that we could
be doing that would be more mean-ingful to students,” said Kessler.
“Why are we keeping this build-ing that’s wasting a lot of money simply for the idea of liking it? Yes, it’s something unique, but that uniqueness isn’t bringing people up there.”
Kessler also thinks the lodge can’t be considered a necessary service in the category of the Food Bank or the Sexual Assault Support Centre.
“I don’t think that partially sub-sidized ski trips are something that students need,” Kessler said.
UBC Ski and Board Club presi-dent Braden Parker said he believes the AMS is taking a short-sighted approach and hasn’t adequately considered options like engaging a
third-party operator. The lodge is an asset that can never be regained once sold, he said.
“Selling wouldn’t even provide a long-term benefit; that money is going to go back into the estab-lishment and students aren’t even going to see it... Maybe [the lodge is] not a need, but I think it is still something that students want, and something that was built by students,” said Parker.
Wong now plans to ask Council on April 3 for funds to maintain and secure the property if the lodge were to shut down. AMS director of finance Keith Hester told AMS Council that demolishing the lodge would cost an estimated $400,000.
There’s also the possibility of the lodge being stuck in limbo if Coun-cil fails to pass the motion, or if the student referendum that would be necessary to sell the land fails.
“We would still cease oper-ations, of course, and have it a sitting duck, and that costs money to maintain it and secure the site,” said Wong. She added that there is still “wiggle room” to change direction.
“This is a little football we’ve been passing around for a long time and I’d like a firm decision on this,” she said. U
universe may be older than we think: uBC study
The universe is 100 million years older and expanding more slowly than previously thought, according to research by a canadian team led by Ubc astronomy professor Douglas scott .
The data comes from the Planck space Telescope’s measurements of cosmic microwave background radiation, cosmic remnants of the big bang.
scott said that a “precise recipe” for the universe is also emerging, thanks to new data from the tele-scope about the density and lumpi-ness of dark and normal matt er.
14.9 per cent of Vancouver con-dos unoccupied: uBC study
Research into the eff ects of foreign investment on Vancouver’s hous-ing market shows 14.9 per cent of condos in downtown Vancouver are occupied by foreign residents, according to a study by andy Yan, an adjunct professor with the Ubc school of community and Regional Planning.
The data doesn’t diff erentiate condos sitt ing empty from those oc-casionally lived in by a foreign owner.
although unoccupied residential units mean property tax revenue without using municipal services, it can also have a negative eff ect on local businesses and could be distorting housing prices. U
No thaw yet on Whistler Lodge debateThe aMs won’t spend the money to look into renovating the lodge, but they don’t have students’ permission to sell it, either.
kai jacobson PHoTo/THE UbYssEY
sTuDeNT lIFe >>
NEWS BRIEFS New international college gets Senate approval
aCaDeMICs >>
jEFF ascHkinasi GRaPHic/THE UbYssEYThrough a new international college with intensive English instruction, Ubc hopes to recruit more students from countries like those listed above.
$40,500 OPeRAtING lOSS IN 2011
$5,626 OPeRAtING lOSS IN 2012
$400,000 tO De-MOlISH tHe lODGe
5626$420,000 PRe-VIOuS eStIMAte FOR ReNOVAtION
1,617 NIGHtS BOOKeD BY StuDeNtS IN 2011
by the numbers
4 | NeWS | MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013
college for interdisciplinary studies to shut down
graD sCHOOl >>
Veronika BondarenkoStaff Writer
As the UBC College for Inter-disciplinary Studies prepares to close its doors, students in a handful of science graduate pro-grams will soon have a full-ser-vice faculty to call home.
Starting in September 2013, the college’s interdisciplinary programs, like bioinformatics, oncology and software systems, will be transferred to either the Faculty of Science, Medicine or Applied Science.
According to its current presi-dent, Hugh Brock, the College for Interdisciplinary Studies was founded in 2006 in order to maintain department-span-ning research units and provide graduate programs for students who wished to focus on more than one area of study. But the research units were brought over to individual faculties last year, and Brock said it is no longer worthwhile for the university to maintain the stand-alone graduate programs.
“[The college] was small and it seemed unfair to deny the grad programs the same bene-fits that the units got when they were transferred to faculties,” said Brock.
Brock also stressed that while the change will involve some shifts in administration, it will have very little effect on the over-all course of students’ degrees.
“There’s no change in the academic part of the program,” said Brock. “They [the students] will be working with the same graduate assistant, the same director, have the same funding. Their transcript and academic rules and regulations will be the same, so really, they won’t even notice.”
When it comes the college’s remaining goal — promoting interdisciplinary research more generally on campus — Brock expects to continue striv-ing for it from his new pos-ition as the associate provost, academic innovation.
Chris Roach expressed con-cerns about the suddenness of the change at the March 20 Sen-ate meeting. Roach is president of the college’s student association, Graduate Student Society presi-dent and current Ph.D. student in the college’s former genome sci-ence and technology program. In a later interview, Roach said that while the switch will break up a tightly knit campus community, it will also allow students to take advantage of the greater num-
ber of opportunities, whether academic or social, offered by the larger faculties.
“It’s great to get those stu-dents together, so it’s sad that we won’t have something like that,” said Roach. “At the same time, I think it’s going to be much more beneficial to students to have them in faculties that can better support these graduate student programs.”
Paul Harrison, associate dean of the Faculty of Science at UBC, also feels the switch will provide more students with the support they need to make the most out of their degree.
“The faculties are the strong-est academic units on campus, the most long-lived, and they can provide administrative support as well as academic nurturing,” said Harrison.
When it comes to the admin-istrative budget formerly used for the College of Interdisciplin-ary Studies, Harrison said that the remaining money is being redistributed among the faculties based on the total number of new students transferring. Part of the budget will also be used to sup-port interdisciplinary initiatives at UBC through an associate provost, academic innovation position. U
More scrutiny coming for AMS executives’ bonuses
sTuDeNT POlITICs >>
Ming WongSenior News Writer
The AMS is changing the bonus system for their five executives to make it more accountable — but they still refuse to release how much money the execs are getting.
The total bonus money allowed for each executive is $5,000, on top of a regular salary of $27,500 per year. Now the AMS has tweaked the bonus rules to clarify that the money is an extra incentive to go above and beyond, not a method of withholding part of what would otherwise be a $32,500 salary.
Some bonus money was paid out to the 2012�2013 executive team, but neither the committee deciding on the bonuses nor the execs themselves are willing to say how much.
The bonus plan was initial-ly pitched as a pay raise for the executives along with a “performance accountability restriction” — a way to withold some of the money if the AMS Council thinks an exec failed in their duties. Many saw the exec pay raise and bonus structure as a contentious move when it was introduced in 2011, and an unsuccessful petition was circu-lated to stop the measure shortly after it was introduced.
But according to Hans Seidemann, engineering rep on AMS Council and head of the AMS legislative procedures committee, withholding part of somebody’s pay doesn’t jibe with employment law, so the system was actually implemented as a bonus plan from the start.
“It is not possible � for some-one to have a salary and then [for Council to] claw it back,” said Seidemann.
The five AMS executives set a series of goals at the beginning of their terms. Those goals are approved by an AMS oversight committee, and how successful the execs are at achieving their goals determines how much bonus money they get at the end of their term.
But Seidemann and others felt the bonus plan needs some polishing after its first full year in effect.
The new guidelines will
require the bonus oversight com-mittee to meet more frequently and to be more involved in the execs’ goal-creation process. They will also require executives to make their goals clearer and easier to measure.
“A goal like, �I’m going to increase engagement,’� you can have that goal, but you would have to have some metrics to define how that � was a success or not,” said Seidemann.
Some critics wondered wheth-er the bonus system kept this year’s executives from attempt-ing far-reaching goals that might not be successful. But manage-ment consultant Glenn Wong, who initially recommended a bonus structure for AMS exec-utives, said the bonuses were actually intended to make the execs more ambitious.
“I didn’t recommend it as a holdback or a penalty system. It was meant to be more of a posi-tive incentive and for things that are over and above,” said Wong.
Seidemann concurred, saying the bonus payments are “suppos-ed to reflect accomplishment of projects above and beyond the day-to-day.”
The new changes to the system mean execs will be eligible for part of their bonus money even if they don’t achieve their goals, so long as they can show concrete steps toward them.
The oversight committee will release summaries of how they evaluated this year’s AMS executives on their bonus goals, but Seidemann said they won’t release how much money they received because of employment standards law.
Of the 2012�2013 executive, VP Finance Tristan Miller, VP Academic Kiran Mahal and VP Administration (now President) Caroline Wong all declined to disclose to <em>The Ubyssey</em> how much of the $5,000 bonus they received. Former President Matt Parson and VP External Kyle Warwick did not respond by press time.
Seidemann said he was pleased with the evaluation of this year’s executive, but another committee member, Barnabas Caro, dis-agreed with him. “There’s a lot of room for improvement,” said Caro. U
inDiana joEl anD kai jacobson PHoTo illUsTRaTion/THE UbYssEY
students in interdisciplinary grad programs will soon fi nd themselves in the Faculty of science, applied science or Medicine.
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 | 5EDITOR C.J. PENTLAND
rugby >>
World Cup trophy going back to CalUBC rugby can’t overcome 10-point deficit, loses second leg of annual series
baseball >>
T-Birds hit their way to victoryUBC baseball overcomes slow start to take three wins over College of IdahoC.J. PentlandSports + Rec Editor
It didn’t look promising at first, but the UBC baseball team over-came a slow start to their week-end series at Thunderbird Park and took three of four games from the College of Idaho Coyotes in regular season action. The ’Birds eventually got their bats going after the first game, and received strong pitching over the final three contests to win the final three games and improve to 9-3 in conference play.
Game one didn’t start well for UBC as the T-Birds came out flat, with defensive mistakes and weak pitches. The offence wasn’t able to make up for it, and Idaho took the opening game 3-0. Alex Graham started and gave up the three runs, while Connor Smith did his best to keep UBC in the game by giving up no runs over four in-nings of work. Only Andrew Firth was able to get much going on offence, racking up three hits.
“That was one of our poorest games of the year,” said UBC head coach Terry McKaig. “Their guy threw quite well, especially in the first four or five innings. I thought he got a little tired after that and started elevating the ball, but we couldn’t take advantage with a disciplined approach.”
But in the second game, the T-Birds got the bounce-back effort they needed. James Stewart
made a diving catch in the first inning to get UBC some momen-tum, and backed by a seven-run fourth inning, the ’Birds rolled to a 9-0 victory to split the Saturday series. Starter Jeremy Newton was “outstanding” in the eyes of McKaig, giving up only one hit over seven innings. Reliever Tavis Bruce threw two perfect innings to seal the deal.
It was a balanced effort on offence, with six players picking up multiple hits. Greg Densem led the way with three hits, while Mike Hole went 2-2 with two doubles. Tyson Popoff, Kevin Biro, Austin Fruson and Tyler Enns all had two hits apiece.
After a slow start for both teams on Sunday, the ’Birds used some clutch hitting to power
ahead come the fifth inning and win 8-2. All of UBC’s runs in the game came while there were two outs.
Jerod Bartnik sparked the two-out rally in the third inning with a triple to the right-centre gap that brought home Stewart. That was followed up by a Densem single and a Firth double, giving UBC an early 3-0 lead.
That lead was pushed to eight in the fifth inning, when UBC took advantage of some fielding errors and score five more two-out runs. Fruson, Biro and Jeremy Kral all racked up hits, and from that point on the ’Birds were in complete control. Freshman Bryan Pawlina was solid over six innings, giving up only one run to earn the win, and Connor Lillis-White pitched the final three and gave up only one run on one hit.
UBC picked up where they left off in the fourth and final game, scoring five runs in the first in-ning to get out to an early lead and finish with another 8-2 victory. It was another balanced offensive effort, with five players recording more than two hits and four con-tributing RBIs; Firth once again led the way with three hits, four RBIs and two runs scored. On the mound, Sean Callegari pitched five solid innings to pick up the win, and Alex Webb and Miles Verweel threw the final four to preserve the win.
UBC has now won eight of their last nine games, and is now second in the NAIA Cas-cade Collegiate Conference. The T-Birds will head onto the road next weekend to take on Simpson University in California, and will come back home on April 12 for a four-game series against Corban University. U
C.J. PentlandSports + Rec Editor
The UBC men’s rugby team needed to win by more than 10 points to bring home the World Cup trophy for the first time since 2006. But the ’Birds couldn’t take advantage of their opportunities and ultimately fell 38-6 to the University of Califor-nia Golden Bears in the second leg of their annual series. UBC lost the series by an overall score of 68-24.
It was a tight, low-scoring affair in the first half on Sunday after-noon, with neither team able to get much going on offence or score a try. UBC took an early 3-0 lead off a penalty kick from Brock Staller, but Cal tied it right up with a kick of their own shortly after. The teams exchanged penalty kicks for the remainder of the half, and the Bears took a slim 9-6 lead into the final 40 minutes.
Cal came out flying at the start of the half, diminishing any chance of UBC bouncing back and silencing the large crowd at Thunderbird Stadium. They tacked on two tries to push the lead to 15, and came up big on defence to maintain it. UBC had numerous chances to cross the try line, but stalled just short of it for several minutes and was unable to break down the Golden Bear defence. After that period of intense pressure, Cal took control for the rest of the game and sailed to a convincing victory.
“I think in the first half, the Thunderbirds did a good job of
keeping possession, keeping us on the back foot, which is never easy. And I think we went into the locker room and realized that we needed to get more possessions and make the most of the possession that we did have and not give away easy balls, and I thought we did that,” said Cal captain Seamus Kelly.
The score does not fully reflect how close the game was for the majority of the contest, as UBC had many chances to take the lead or even the score. But a few missed kicks and the T-Birds’ inability to cross the goal line eventually cost them, and a few late Golden Bear scores put the game well out of reach.
The win gives Cal, consistently one of the top teams in the NCAA and 16-0 this year, the series victory for the seventh straight year and the 14th time over the past 17 years. Overall, the series has been played every year since 1921 and is one of the most intense and competitive cross-border rivalries in North American collegiate sports history.
Despite the tough loss, the re-mainder of the season looks bright for the Thunderbirds. They have an overall record of 13-4-2 and sit near the top of the Okanagan Spring Brewery League One standings. They have five more games left be-fore the postseason starts in May.
UBC’s next contest is against the University of Victoria on March 29. The game is at 2:30 p.m. at Lord Rugby Field on campus. U
kai jacobson PHoTo/THE UbYssEYinfielder kevin biro had six hits on the weekend to help Ubc to three wins over the college of idaho.
kai jacobson PHoTo/THE UbYssEY
Ubc had trouble penetrating cal’s defence and could only muster six points.
6 | CultuRe | MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013
loW-fat Yogurt With granola and froZen fruit
This isn’t really a recipe at all, but it’s all too easy to forget that there are alternatives to Pop-Tarts. You can replace the granola with walnuts or almonds if you’re on a tight budget. Not only are yogurt and nuts filling, but they are full of protein, calcium and other nutrients. Make sure to leave the frozen fruit out for at least 20 minutes beforehand for pristine softness. Add maple syrup for a classy dessert.
sWeet potato fries
Sweet potatoes are full of fibre and potassium. (Note that some supermarkets incorrectly call sweet potatoes yams — chances are, if your “yam” was grown in the United States, it’s actually a sweet potato.) Slice the potato up into thin wedges, leaving the skin on. Coat the wedges with olive oil or cooking spray and add your preferred seasoning. Then coat a micro-wave-safe plate with more oil and arrange the wedges on it, being careful not to let them over-lap. Depending on the thickness of the wedges and the strength of the microwave, cooking time takes anywhere between two and 10 minutes, so keep an eye out. The fries are done when they begin to turn brown at the edges.
ants on a log
A childhood favourite, ants on a log is a tasty, filling source of protein, minerals and vitamins. Simply slice some celery sticks into miniature “logs,” spread peanut butter on top and add raisins. In addition to portability, the other great thing about ants on a log are the endless variations: instead of peanut butter and raisins, try sun-dried tomatoes and cream cheese, gua-camole and beans, or hummus and olives.
minutes, so keep an eye out. The fries are done minutes, so keep an eye out. The fries are done when they begin to turn brown at the edges.when they begin to turn brown at the edges.
sNaCK aTTaCKSimple snacks to help you studySimple snacks to help you study
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 | CultuRe | 7
Rhys EdwardsSenior Culture Editor
the exam season isn’t kind to the body of a student. The mental duress of exams and the exhaustion of all-night cramming sessions can turn once-balanced diets southward. You most likely know that the refined carbohydrates and saturated fats in most processed snacks can leave you feeling unsatisfied, accelerate tiredness and cause weight gain. But with so much stress and so little free time, the principles of economics displace gastronomics, and you reach for the Hot Pockets.This doesn’t have to be the case. It’s possible
to get a good grade and eat well with just a little prudence. At three ingredients apiece, the following recipes are stupidly simple, cheap, easy to prepare — and, most importantly, they’re good for you. U
8 | CultuRe | MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013
Local fashion insiders share style tips
Reyhana HeatheringtonContributor
It can be hard to see the fashion forest through the Lululemon trees.
As Vancouver Fashion Week wrapped up this weekend, it may have been difficult for people to identify with the staged shows in a city where comfort and athleti-cism rule supreme. And many students, lacking bottomless bank accounts, dismiss the notion of being fashionable altogether.
But <em>The Ubyssey caught up with a couple fashionistas attending Vancouver Fashion Week to talk about how vintage clothes are the
key to affordable style. Instead of ignoring fashion, students can separate the trendy from time-less, look beyond the brand-name retailers and combine pieces for an eye-catching wardrobe.
Tiffany Murray, store man-ager at Used House of Vintage on Granville Street, said that fashion in Vancouver is often more under-ground. But that doesn’t mean there is a shortage of diverse options for stylish people on the hunt for an original look. Murray said her customers approach fash-ion like a jigsaw puzzle.
“They like coming in here, be-cause they can actually use their brains and say, �I can mix this
with that,’” she said.She said people can find
unlimited potential in used cloth-ing, and noted that a small budget shouldn’t be an excuse. “You just have to have your eyes open,” she said.
Fashion designer Blake Hyland has kept his eyes open for 10 years in the vintage clothing industry.
“I want to sort of show people that just because it’s old or it’s been disregarded or whatever, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a beauti-ful thing.� [I’m] trying to change people’s mentality towards fash-ion in general,” Hyland said.
Hyland, an Australian-born men’s wear and accessories
designer, showed at Vancou-ver Fashion Week in 2010 after graduating from design school. Now, he is responding to custom-er requests and expanding his grunge looks to women’s wear. Hyland is drawn to re-working material to create new pieces; his deconstructed aesthetic has a sustainable component.
“It’s sort of like helping the earth, helping the world a little,” he said. “If I can help contribute by taking or eliminating some of that waste out of these places, and creating them into something new that can be reused or re-worn again in a different way.”
Mass consumerism and trends
of the moment do not drive his design philosophy.
“Stay true to yourself and it’s gonna come across stronger than if someone’s buying into some-thing that is popular or in demand or seen as a trend,” he said. “I always pay attention to the people who stand out, as opposed to the people who look the same.”
And though top fashion labels are synonymous with hefty price tags, Hyland finds value in indi-viduality rather than price.
“It comes down to how some-one wears a certain garment.� You don’t need to have a lot of money in order to be able to feel comfortable about yourself.” U
next time you’re reaching for those stretchy pants, take a cue from Vancouver Fashion Week and strut into spring with style. ED nG PHoTo/THE UbYssEY
FasHION >>
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 | CultuRe | 9
Lizzie Borden took an axe...Sidney HryciukContributor
Children’s nursery rhymes often have dark roots. The children’s rhyme that is
echoing through the Freddy Wood Theatre for Theatre at UBC’s last production of the season, <em> Blood Relations</em>, is no exception.
“Lizzie Borden took an axe/ Gave her mother 40 whacks/ When she saw what she had done/ She gave her father 41...” So goes the sing-song rhyme that haunts the heroine, Lizzie Borden — and the audience — throughout the play.
<em> Blood Relations</em>, which pre-miered at UBC in 1986, follows the dark drama of the notorious real-life Borden axe murders. Liz-zie Borden, then 32 years old, was acquitted of two charges of mur-der. To this day, the case remains a mystery.
Though the question “Did you, Lizzie? Did you?” is posed more than once, Sharon Pollock’s play is less interested in whether she actually committed the murder. In-stead, the plot revolves around the psychological question of whether a “gentlewoman” living under the oppressed conditions of the 19th century would be capable of such a crime. The sheer lack of control Lizzie Borden has over her life raises a slippery series of questions on morality, blame and power.
As the play begins, the audi-ence is greeted immediately with a foreboding curtain that reads, “Home, Sweet Home.” Very soon, however, it becomes apparent that there’s not much sweetness in the Borden household.
A colossal birdcage unfurls as the audience is transported into
the dim household of the Bordens, years after the murder of Lizzie’s parents. Fourth-year UBC acting student Courtney Shields portrays an older Lizzie, whose nasally dialogue is peppered with dismay at her societal repression. She is supported by her alleged partner and only friend, the Actress, who begs for some answers.
The play then flashes back to the past, before the murders, and a sense of sympathy for the younger Lizzie begins to develop. At 32 — “spinster” age, in those times — Lizzie is trapped in the family home with a pushover father, a cal-lous stepmother and a feeble sister (well supported by fourth-year act-ing student Georgia Beaty). Adding tension to the plot is a controlling uncle, looming over the family’s fortune and threatening to take away what is rightfully Lizzie’s.
Production student Diana Sepulveda-Navarette’s set — a metal birdcage towering over the
Borden household — masterfully emphasizes the trapped nature of the Borden sisters. Deftly com-plementing this theme is Scott Zechner’s sound design, which weaves the sound of birds through-out the play.
The large projection screen onstage is the only out-of-place element. The play follows a non-linear storyline and jumps in time and space without set changes, so it is understandable that the screen is meant to orient the audience. How-ever, it is distracting and seems to suggest that the actors can’t portray their characters without the help of images.
Though not without its minor faults, UBC’s <em> Blood Relations</em> is a noteworthy mystery that questions the audience’s assumptions and adds effective new twists to Sharon Pollock’s well-known play.
Blood Relations <em> runs until April 6 at the Frederic Wood Theatre. U
Did you, lizzie? Did you?HoGan WonG PHoTo/THE UbYssEY
THeaTre >>
Tale of unsolved murder closes Theatre at UBC’s season on a bloody good note
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 | 10STUDENT VOICE. COMMUNITY REACH.
More research needed to address water issues
Most of my former UBC under-graduate students know that I am passionate about water govern-ance. I study water because of the sheer size of the problem.
If you consider that 85 per cent of the world lives in the driest half of the planet, that almost 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, that more than 900 million individuals still defe-cate in the open, and that water availability is expected to decrease whereas water consumption is estimated to grow by about 19 per cent by the year 2050, you can realize now why I’m concerned about improving ways in which we govern the precious liquid.
Why think about water scarcity when we could be thinking about climate change and its catas-trophic effects on human welfare? After all, there is so much concern currently about the effects of an-thropogenic global environmental change that it’s hard to think there are any other pressing issues to study, let alone think about water.
The truth is that, as Donella Meadows demonstrated, every-thing is interconnected, and water governance is inextricably linked to global environmental change (and thus, to climate politics). Yet, when I see discussions around climate policy, water rarely comes up except in the context of how water stress would negatively impact agricultural industries and their need to adapt to rapidly changing climates.
When I did my Ph.D. at UBC in resource management and environmental studies, my Ph.D. advisor taught me to focus on the most important problem, not the most visible one. Dr. Dowlatabadi taught me integrated assessment, a technique that is used to integrate multiple disciplines’ knowledge to develop policy-relevant solutions to complex problems that can’t be studied using only one disciplinary approach. While usually applied to study climatic change problems, I used integrated assessment to build a framework to study indus-trial restructuring under multiple stressors in Mexico.
In applying integrated assess-ment to my own research (post-Ph.D. and now that I have been a professor for a few years), I have tried to stay true to this philoso-phy: to tackle the most important problems, and to develop applied, policy-relevant solutions to these
problems. In the past decade, I have come to realize that water is one of the two most important issues we will face in the next few decades.
Important work on this topic is being done at UBC. While no longer a faculty member at UBC (I taught there from 2006 to 2012), I’m still affiliated faculty with the political science and the Latin American studies programs, and I do collaborate with UBC professors on several topics. For example, with Dr. Hisham Zerriffi from the Liu Institute, I’m work-ing on understanding patterns of water poverty and energy poverty in vulnerable regions.
And with several current or former UBC political science students, I have co-authored (or am co-authoring) a few pieces on topics related to water poverty in Karu, transboundary water conflict, waste water governance in Canada, paradigm changes in urban water systems in Jordan, the politics of bottled water and soft drinks, gender and sanitation, and drinking water patterns.
It was World Water Day on March 22, and while the notion of an International Year of Water Cooperation is a hopeful one (this year’s theme is cooperation in water governance — previous years have had sanitation, trans-boundary water, and water and food as themes), it’s not a perfect one. In fact, conflict for water re-sources has increased, rather than decreased. Some authors even point to the notion of “water wars” as looming sooner than we think.
I think UBC has enormous potential to have a real policy impact on how water is governed, not only in Canada but world-wide. As I said before, the big challenge will be to remember that climate change is one of the most important environment-al issues but not the only one, and that everything is inter-connected. I sure do hope that the work I’m doing with my UBC students and colleagues will have a positive impact in reducing water distributional inequi-ties, alleviating issues of water sanitation and mitigating water shortages. One can only sustain hope from here on.
<em> Raul Pacheco-Vega is an assistant professor in the Public Adminis-tration Division of the Centre for Economic Research and Teaching, CIDE in Aguascalientes, Mexico. From 2006 to 2012, he was a lectur-er at UBC.</em>
PERSPECTIVESDr. Raul Pacheco-Vega
Whistler lodge still stuck in limbo
Last week, Council voted down a motion to fund renovations to the Whistler Lodge. Coun-cil seems to take this decision to mean the lodge isn’t worth fixing and should be sold.
But it isn’t that simple. Even if all of Council agrees the lodge should be sold, students still have to approve the sale in a referendum. Without student approval to sell, the lodge could be stuck in limbo. It will cost around $400,000 to demolish the lodge, and the AMS will have to pay for its upkeep while they wait for student approval to sell it.
The last referendum to sell the lodge failed, but AMS execs want to sell it anyway. It seems the execs are pressuring coun-cillors into selling the lodge. A recent survey shows students want to keep the lodge.
The AMS needs to make a decision now before it loses even more money. At this point, it seems like their options are to make the investment or let the place rot.
Your primer on the annual tuition increase
It’s spring: the sun is shining, birds are singing and if you’re a domestic UBC student, your tuition is rising by another two per cent. Since 2005, the steady increase in tuition fees, de-signed to put students and not taxpayers on the hook for infla-tion, has seemed as natural as the changing of the seasons. The B.C. Liberals instituted the two per cent cap on tuition increases eight years ago, and since then, students have received emails every March indicating that the Board of Governors has decided to raise tuition yet again.
It hasn’t always been this way. In 1996, the B.C. NDP opt-ed to institute a tuition freeze. This meant universities and government had to cover the cost of inflation. In 2002, the
Liberals scrapped the freeze, and tuition skyrocketed. Public pressure forced them to impose some sort of tuition regulation, and the cap was born.
This has a few implications for UBC. For one, it means that UBC has to find new sources of revenue wherever it can. Inter-national students aren’t pro-tected by the cap; they pay the entire cost of their education. So while UBC looks good when it increases international recruit-ment, financial motives are involved. New degree programs are another way to get around the cap — that’s what happened with the bachelor of inter-national economics last fall. The new degree charges students several thousand more than a BA, and that extra money will go towards UBC’s bottom line.
The cap also forces Board of Governors student reps to vote on increasing tuition. In the past, this might have been a real ideological decision on the role of government in education, but not anymore. Now, tuition votes are more or less a rubber stamp; reps either agree out-right and vote for the increase, or agree in principle but opt to abstain from voting.
The tuition cap, in many ways, informs everything UBC does: it’s managed to redefine middle-of-the-road public policy. It’s unlikely that the next government will touch the cap. The Liberals won’t remove it and shift more of the cost of a university education onto the student — they’ve learned that this is not a popular move. And the NDP likely won’t freeze tuition again, because it would force governments to pony up more money or watch their uni-versities cut staff and services.
So the tuition cap is probably here to stay. On balance, things could be a lot worse.
unreported bonuses defeats purpose of program
When the AMS introduced a bonus system for their execu-tives, it was supposed to make
them more accountable.The society was bitter and
burnt out over two years of scandal: first, a president caused a national embarrass-ment by complaining to the United Nations about UBC’s tuition rates, and then another president launched bitter per-sonal attacks on candidates in the next year’s student govern-ment election.
Having a bonus to give or withhold was supposed to discourage kerfuffles like these: executives, out of their own self-interest, would stay in line so they could collect their cheques.
But if the student body doesn’t get to know whether or not their executives get bonus cheques, the rationale for this system dries up. Those dis-graced presidents of yore? The worst part of what they did was acting dishonestly against the wishes of the AMS Council and students at large.
Blake Frederick (the UN complainer) spent thousands of dollars in legal fees on that UN submission, without telling anyone. Bijan Ahmadian (the elections mudslinger) started by misrepresenting AMS Coun-cil in negotiations with UBC, and then moved on to mount an elaborate, secret scheme to smear candidates in a student election.
Their transgressions were, primarily, all about not being accountable and not telling students — or students’ elected Council representatives — what they were doing.
So long as the AMS keeps execs’ bonuses a secret, it’ll just be insular hacks awarding money to other insular hacks. Maybe a good crop of insular hacks on both sides will result in hardworking executives with good projects who deserve every cent they get; some of this year’s team should have earned a full $5,000 or possibly more.
But this is a system that’s supposed to help the AMS avoid worst-case scenarios. And it won’t accomplish that if it’s shielded from public scrutiny. U
LAST WORDS
inDiana joEl illUsTRaTion/THE UbYssEY
Events like World Water Day are needed because the public doesn’t understand how water use and governance affect issues like climate change, argues Pacheco-Vega.
Downside of not renovating or selling the Whistler lodge: students no longer have cheap accomodation in Whistler. Upside: local hippies/wildlife have a new place to squat.
s YUME/FlickR
MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2013 | 11PicTUREs + WoRDs on YoUR UniVERsiTY EXPERiEncE
WriteShootEdit CodeDrinkCOME BY THE UBYSSEY OFFICE SUB 24, FOLLOW THE SIGNS
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PUZZlE coURTEsY bEsTcRossWoRD.coM. UsED WiTH PERMission.
