UBC Insiders

UBC Insiders 2.0

2009-09-01T10:38:00.001-07:00

UBC Insiders has re-launched with a new site, new editors, and a new mantra.

Check out the new site at ubcinsiders.ca!!

A Shout Out

2009-08-25T12:46:00.000-07:00

To the AMS, and Fincom in particular for helping fund my trip to Ottawa to attend the CIS AGM.

You can read the articles I wrote about it here and here.

If you are hoping to go to a conference, event, or have a special project in mind, I strongly encourage you to apply for one of their Student Initiatives Fund grants (which is what I got).

If you are an AMS club looking to do something special, they also have an option for you: the Clubs Benefit Fund.

Finally, another good funding option they have is the Innovative Projects Fund, which exists to provide seed money for new projects of direct benefit to students.

I am a huge AMS fan and it's not only because they just gave me money. It is easy to criticize them when they make mistakes, but in the end it is full of great people who do good things, and UBC students are definitely better off for it.

AMS Council: August 19, 2009

2009-08-20T01:08:00.001-07:00

It's so nice out today. Can't we all just go sit on the Knoll and have council there?

Highlights:

A visit from Pierre Ouillet and Brian Sullivan
Tom Dvorak's EPIC Sunglasses tan

Bonjour Pierre Ouillet

Pierre Ouillet (UBC's VP Finance, Resources and Operations) is here with Brian Sullivan to talk about structural deficits in the UBC budget. These must be the hot new thing in institutional finance this year, since we also got a presentation from Tom Dvorak about it last month.

This presentation plus question period went for almost two hours. I'm going to not summarize anything and say that the discussion was frank and interesting and you had to be there. For further coverage see the live blog on the Arts Caucus blog. Or just look at the hash tag #amscouncil. There may also a summary from KatDov, her council summaries can be found here.

Some memorable moments:

(*)B.Sul (to Matt Naylor): "You were involved in Senate at the time?"
Naylor: "I ran for Senate."

(*)Tom Dvorak walks in late. Immediately in the AMS council chat room:
[19:58] alox: SUNGLASSES TAN
[19:58] alox: EPICEPIC
[19:58] alox: EPICCCCCC
I can't tell you what happened next as I was doubled over in laughter for a good minute, since Tom's sunglasses tan is EPIC!

Blake's Broadcast
Please encourage all reps to show up to council; looking at ways to improve communications in society for consistent branding; spent a lot of time doing media interviews; hoping to attend as many firstweek events as possible; hoping to create lots of connections with as many groups on campus as possible; need to provide more support to grad and undergrad societies

Johannes's Jargon
First Year Seminar Program: Anna Kindler said this will now be included in strategic plan, hopefully get program by next year; working with greeks about potential lawsuit/arbitration deal with university regarding code of conduct in lease agreement; Proposal came to PPPAC about building expanded tennis centre; Faculty of Medicine has proposed a new palliative care training facility on campus which would be beside Vanier; met with VP academic caucus

Crystal's Chat
All SUB all the time: Jensen will consolidate all the possible ways to integrate SUB into classes; SUB booth at imagine day; fencing around U-Blvd will have a poster to promote SUB project; working on mission statement and project goals; continue negotiations with university; SAC is organizing clubs days, looking about involving constituencies; working on deans' debates; working with Tim on application to be exempt from SUB fee and U-Pass fee; looking to install baby change table in gender neutral washroom; some more renovations coming soon

Tom's Tirade
Interviewing HR director candidates; finished up review of catering; meeting with UBC on the books with their catering practices; looking at how to handle demand for Whistler lodge lottery

Tim's talk
Tim is on vacation riding the train.

Pavani's prose
Pavani is not present.

Education Cuts Motion
You have probably heard by now about the BC Government cutting $16M of education funding, which came unexpectedly and with no announcement. A motion came to formally oppose the cuts and do some lobbying.

Tom asked about the terminology about the clause that "AMS Council authorize an awareness campaign in regards to the cuts" without any budget about the proposed campaign. Eventually it was amended to make it clear that supporting an awareness progrm was not equivalent to allocating funds to it.

Next meeting Sep 2. Now time for pitchers of Hatchet at Mahony's.

The Downside of Automatic Enrolment

2009-08-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

The Faculty of Graduate Studies (FoGS) recently implemented "automated continuous thesis registration", which works as follows:

"Starting in Summer 2009, when students register in a thesis or dissertation course once, their registration in that course will automatically roll each term until the end of the student's program (excepting if they are on leave).'

On the surface this seems pragmatic. In the original email which went out last May they hoped that it would make life easier for students, faculty and staff. They also allege that students not registering was a common occurrence, causing UBC to lose out on some tuition fees and provincial funding.

Some red flags started going up when this email arrived in July from FoGS (excerpt):

"Evidently there is a problem with the online graduation application system. There seems to be a problem with the new SSC they launched and the application only works for about half of those applying. The graduation department at Enrolment Services is responsible for this and the Faculty of Graduate Studies has no control over it. They are aware of the problem, but will not be fixing it anytime soon..."

It seems quite risky to put students in the situation where they are enrolled for courses automatically while at the same time the graduation application system is not working properly. What happens if the student's graduation application is somehow mishandled or lost and the student ends up automatically enrolled for the next term?

Unfortunately, something similar to this has already happened and the answer is that UBC takes the student to court in an attempt to collect the fees. See this 2008 decision: UBC Enrolment Services Office vs. Gregory Magolan.

It's a pretty easy read for a court document, but the executive summary is as follows: a student in engineering deferred his registration in the co-op program and was told he would not be charged tuition fees as long as his registration was deferred. Notwithstanding, the faculty automatically enrolled him in co-op courses and fees were levied. He didn't even find out he owed fees until after the term in question was over. When he didn't pay, UBC Enrolment Services took him to court.

The bright side in this is that UBC ended up losing the case. However, the fact that UBC Enrolment Services would even pursue legal action in the first place against a student in these circumstances is worrisome. I won't deny it's convenient never having to sign into the SSC to register for courses. But when I think about it realistically, it only saves me about 30 seconds on the SSC twice a year. I think that amount of effort is worth having peace of mind that I won't be taken to court by UBC.

Of course, maybe I'm a bit more cautious than others because I have also experienced the fact that even though rules exist, it doesn't mean they will be followed. I have been trying every year, unsuccessfully, to get UBC to follow Senate rules surrounding university awards, and no one was willing to acknowledge that their procedures were inconsistent with the rules. (Finally the rules were changed at February's senate meeting so I'm glad to report the system works albeit slowly. Thankfully not as slowly as Credit/D/Fail.)

I'm very interested to hear more from UBC Enrolment Services and the Faculty of Graduate Studies about what safeguards are in place within the automatic enrolment system to prevent graduate students from being wrongly enrolled in thesis courses and then pursued for payment, especially given difficulties with the graduation application system.

Campus Shows: Fall 2009

2009-08-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

This year, the Ubyssey will have more resources invested in their culture section (one editor last year; this year there are two), with fewer resources going into news (two editors last year; this year only one). They now have a culture blog and, I believe, ~~a paid culture staffer over the summer~~. Correction: Apparently the grant the Ubyssey obtained went news and coordinating editors. Over the summer the rest of the staff is volunteer.

A quick look at their recent culture content reveals entries about other websites, and coverage of things happening around Vancouver which are already covered quite competently by Vancouver's other media outlets. Events happening or upcoming on campus or put on by the AMS? Not a peep.

I do realize I am crazy for thinking that my school newspaper might focus largely on things happening, you know, on campus, or put on by campus groups. For anyone interested in those things, AMS Events has been getting busy putting together shows for the fall. Their announcement about the line up for this year's Welcome Back BBQ got a lot of attention, but they are also putting on some other pretty sweet shows coming up.

By far the one I am most excited about is Savage Love Live! For those who don't know who Dan Savage is, he writes the sex column "Savage Love" in the back of the Georgia Straight every week. If you are wondering why it should be a good time...

Date: Sat, Nov 21, 2009
Time: 8:00 PM
Tickets: $15 for students, $25 for others, on sale now
Tip: Buy tickets from the Chan Centre Box Office to avoid Ticketmaster charges (but you can still buy from TM if you want to pay extra.)

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Get those W's out!

The GZA is coming to the Pit in September. Founding member of the Wu-Tang Clan, The Straight was extremely impressed with the show he put on last year. Compared to other venues the GZA plays in Vancouver, The Pit is by far the most intimate one you'll find.

Date: Thurs, Sept 24, 2009
Time: 9:30 PM
Tickets: $20, available to students only, on sale now at the Outpost

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Finally, fresh off an appearance at the Vancouver Folk Festival, Basia Bulat will be dropping into Vancouver again. How many other concerts will you go to this year that will feature a large complement of autoharp?

Date: Wed, Sept 23, 2009
Time: 7:30 PM
Tickets: $14, available at Ticketweb, Zulu, Red Cat

Koerner's Pub Patio Project

2009-07-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

At the last GSS Council meeting on July 23, 2009, a plan to expand Koerner's Pub came up for council approval. However, before it could be dealt with quorum was lost for the third month in a row and no decision could be made. This project has been on the table for quite a while now, and many people have put a lot of work into refining the design and financing options of the plan.

Most graduate students and other patrons of Koerner's Pub are unaware of the planned pub expansion. Since it represents one of the biggest and most meaningful projects the GSS has considered in a number of years, this post is meant to inform all of those people about what the project's all about, why it's worthwhile, and what the current situation is. Most of the information in here represent the findings of the Pub Patio Project Task Force (PPPTF) and its presentation to council, which can be viewed here.

The following is a guest post by Dan Beaton, a PhD student in Physics and GSS Councilor.

Project History

In 2004, GSS council created a task force to look into the possibility of turning Koerner's into a brewpub, an idea which came from the manager at the time. Although we do try, grad students (and other Koerner's patrons) don't drink enough beer to make having our own brewpub feasible. If this plan was ever to work, it would be necessary to get more customers into the pub. Two options were proposed to increase traffic: food service and expansion. The taskforce at the time recommended both, with no recommendation as to which should happen first.

About a year and a half later, the current manager, Rick Carre, was hired and a GSS survey indicated that students felt Koerner's could be improved by providing food service. Rick made it happen and as a result Koerner's is now much busier, especially at meal times.

What happened next was some discussion within the GSS about two capital projects: expanding Koerner's pub and renovating the ballroom and the latter was ultimately chosen. At the same time, another group of councilors looking into the society's mandate concluded that Koerner's needs to be expanded in order to continue to meet graduate student expectations since the grad population had increased from 6,000 to 9,000 students. Last year the society felt that the project was sufficiently important to spend several thousand dollars on designs and plans - not to mention countless hours of the manager's time.

The Project

The basic idea is that some outdoor patio space currently containing a few picnic tables would be get a pre-fab, glassed-in enclosure to make space that would be useable all year round. (See pictures) Since this is not actually new space, it is already included in the existing liquor licence.

Sitting outside at Koerner's in the summer is one of, if not the best pub experience at UBC (it was voted one of the best patios in Vancouver by the Georgia Straight). Although this would eliminate some outside patio space, there would still be lots of outdoor space available. Even though we are currently in the middle of the hottest Vancouver temperatures ever, remember that most of the year has miserable weather. Space needs to be enclosed if it is to be useful for more than 3-4 months of the year.

Two views of the area that would be enclosed by the new patio.

Conceptual Rendering of glassed-in patio.

Capital Costs

Currently, the total cost of the project is about $177,000, broken down as follows:

$98,000 (due upon completion)
$41,000 (interest-free loan – to be paid to contractor $1,700/month for 24 months)
$38,000 (for Plant Ops electrical, plumbing, safety work; furniture and fixtures)

The project was actually ready to go last November but delays have pushed the cost of the project up more than $20K. The current quote is/was good until the end of July. The contractor is so keen to see the project go ahead they are willing to provide a $41,000 interest free loan to be paid off over two years.

Projected Revenues

Of course the underlying assumption with this project is that it would eventually pay for itself through increased revenues. Based on projections, it could add an extra $180,000 of revenue each year, resulting in an extra $50,000 in profit.

The assumptions made to arrive at this figure are that with the patio, Koerner's will get 25 more people (in the added 40 seats) for 2 hours during lunch time and 2 hours during dinner time for each of Monday, Thursday and Friday spending $10/hour. In other words and extra $125 spent in Koerner's per hour to 40 seats; or even simpler $3.15/seat/hour for meal times three days a week. If you've ever been to Koerner's on a Monday or Friday night, you know how busy it can get - this is not included in the estimate (neither are other days of the week) and therefore I think, and many agree, that the numbers are quite conservative.

The costs associated with providing the product these seats is 46% of the revenue and the cost of servicing these seats (2 extra staff and some other expenses) is 47% of the remainder. So of the revenue collected, 71% goes to cover costs; the rest would go either into paying down the cost of the expansion, or to profits. That's where the extra $50,000 comes from.

The payback period was also examined, and is simply the total cost of the project divided by the annual added income. Five years was identified as a suitable payback period, and the project should fall within this criterion. A best case scenario would see the patio paid off in 3.3 years and an absolute worst case scenario gave a payback period of 13 years.

Funding

The GSS is capable of paying for the whole project itself. Each year every graduate student pays a $5 fee for capital improvements (CPIF). Between the surplus from 2008 and the 2009 funds, there is $65,000 in CPIF funds available. General revenues for the GSS also had a surplus in 2008, from which up to $40,000 is available. That could cover the upfront $98,000 payment to the contractor.

The two-year $41,000 interest-free loan from the contractor could be paid off from extra pub revenues once the new patio is up and running. This leaves the GSS still short $35,000 on the project, but that could be paid for with a loan, more of the 2008 surplus (which was $69,000 in total), outside funding, or sponsorships.

This project may result in some short term cash flow problems, but all of the GSS's programs and services should remain unaffected. The GSS makes annual budget including all the annual projects, parties, events, etc the GSS puts on which would remain intact.

Current Situation

While council did have the opportunity to discuss the issue at the last meeting, the discussion got severely side-tracked by a lengthy Economics 101 lecture necessitated by a very few people at the meeting who either did not understand, or were presenting confusing information to council. These people were former and current executives. Although the GSS executives are against the project, council is ultimately the body to make this decision, a decision that will have to be made at some point. Too much work has gone into this plan from too many people for it to fail due to continued lack of quorum.

AMS Council: July 29, 2009

2009-07-29T19:21:00.002-07:00

Highlights from AMS Council tonight:

Art Gallery gets $23,000
New pricing policy for Whistler Lodge in February 2010

Long overdue, you can now get the agenda and documentation on the AMS's own website!

Geoff Costeloe wants everyone to know he is hot and sweaty. But I'm pretty sure he didn't mean it in the fun boy-girl way.

Art Gallery Renovations

Jeremy Jaud gave an in camera presentation

We were let back in just in time to learn about humidity control... oh the intrigue and secrecy of the AMS Art Gallery. Motion to allocate $23,000 to the Art Gallery for reasons unknown passes unanimously.

Budget Increases

Due to a miscommunication, Speakeasy training budget was only set to $5,000. This was upped to $10,732.50.

Voter Funded Media budget was set this year to $3,500, but code specifies the budget should be $8,000. Full budget restored! YAAAAY!

Blake's Broadcast

Looking at plans to use UBCcard at food outlets, will be looked at more in depth by Business Operations Committee; Working with code and policy re: electoral code changes; Visit from UBCSUO (UBC-O student union); Met with Anne Dewolfe and Alnoor Aziz about McInnes Field issues, later spoke to Brian Sullivan who said that UBC will open up the field to student bookings, still waiting on specifics; Working on SUB, HR

Johannes's Jargon

Went to Montreal for 22nd annual Conference on First Year Experience; Met with Anna Kindler re: First Year Seminar Program; Met with Andrew Parr about housing; UBC Bookstore in the past has been closed the Sunday before classes start, now they will be open; Progress on liquor issues; Internationalization report generated

Crystal's Chat

SUB Renew coordinator working with faculty deans about integrating SUB into classrooms; All president's dinner; FirstWeek; Renos at art gallery “as we heard about” (um... we didn't); Creating more club offices in IFPO/copyright space.

Tom's Tirade

Interviewed for HR Director; Got pulled over by Washington State Patrol but talked his way out of it; Met with Simon Fraser Student Society, hosted by health plan reps; Business Operations Committee still doing marketing and promotions; Spent some days in catering kitchen to see how things work and see what can be improved

Pavani's prose

Putting together professional development workshop for coordinators and assistant coordinators; Shinerama team got started; Tutoring working on training tutors, putting together exam database and updating LEAD website; Speakeasy working on training; Food Bank recruiting volunteers

Tim's talk

On July 23, BC Gov't cut $16M in PSE funding: BC Gov never released info, only found out when people tried to apply for newly non-existent programs, external policy committee will look at it their next meeting; Creating Transportation-Olympics committee to suggest things for Translink to look at when considering Olympics reroutes; 40th anniversary of UBC childcare – attended block party; Simplifying U-Pass exemption application; Working on Imagine day, will have U-Pass costume walking around; Working with UBC Pride for pride parade entry this Sunday

Catering Motion

Ever since UBC Food merged with UBC Housing and Conferences, staff in the department have been instructed to recommend only Wescadia (the university's catering company), and not present AMS Catering as an available option. They would like to pressure them to at least present AMS Catering as an option and have AMS council endorse these efforts.

Tom Dvorak made the point that the AMS uses catering income to pay for services that the university should provide, but doesn't. He has addressed this issue with both Brian Sullivan and Stephen Toope. B.Sul was decidedly on UBC's side, while Toope was much more sympathetic to the AMS, but the end result was "we'll look into it." The motion was passed unanimously and now the exec can go back to them with a council motion in hand.

Noise By-law

Johannes sits on a campus development committee where a lot of stakeholder groups on campus come together to talk about development issues. At a recent meeting David Grigg (with C&CP) presented a proposed noise rule for campus. This would require any group booking space on campus through Classroom Services or UBC Athletics to pay a deposit to make a booking which would be refunded only if there were no noise issues with the event. Where it gets worse is that they wanted to impose a limit of 55 decibels between 7:30 am and 7:30 pm, which is the level of a noisy office, and a level which council certainly exceeded at certain points tonight (mostly when Dave cracks jokes). In addition it would limit overnight noise to 35 decibels, which is the volume of a bird chirping.

This would have made for a ridiculous rule for a number of reasons (one is that nobody on campus even has equipment to measure decibel levels) and Johannes put a motion on the agenda for AMS council to oppose it. In the meantime, David Grigg and Anne DeWolfe quickly back tracked, saying that they will review it further, and also saying that it was intended to apply to "outside" groups like film crews, but not to students. (I have read the draft, and nowhere in the proposed rules is that distinction made.)

Since it was taken back for further review, Johannes instead wanted the motion referred to the Campus and Community Development Committee (an AMS committe), rather than opposing something that was being revised anyways. And that is what happened.

Whistler Lodge During the Olympics

Ordinarily, to manage the demand for beds during the winter break and reading week, the AMS runs a lottery open only to UBC students. If you win the lottery, you can book up to six nights during these periods at $30/night. (No lottery system the rest of the year.)

The agenda has the full details but the basic idea is that during February 2010, only half of the lodge (21 beds) will be operated under the lottery system. The other half (also 21 beds) would be rented out on a first-come, first-served basis at market rates, between $150-$200 per night. Students who don't win the lottery will have first crack at these rooms at the market price, but if it still doesn't fill up, these bunks would be made available to the general public. The idea is to capitalize on the Olympics to bring in some extra cash.

For further background, in 2007 VANOC presented the AMS with a plan to rent the entire lodge for two months encompassing the Olympics and Paralympics for a sum between $128-224K. At the time, AMS council turned it down because they believed it would be better for students to have access to the lodge during that period. Now the proposal on the table is a hybrid: allow student access and make profit.

Tom compared the potential revenue under the status quo versus the proposed system. If the market price was $149, the expectation was an extra $61,000 and at $199 that would go up to $91,000.

So where would this extra cash go? There are some projects at the lodge that are worthwhile, but never deemed worthy of dipping into other funds or savings. Examples include: trimming some trees that are in violation of fire code, a new TV, and the installation of lighting and a camera in the hot tub area. (It's for security, how dare you suggest otherwise?! But, uh, chances of the live feed going directly into Tom's office are probably about 50/50.)

The extra income would be especially welcome this year since business is down about 30% because of swine flu. Apparently the lodge regularly welcomes groups of Mexicans over the summer months, and due to swine flu and the recent decision of the federal government to start enforcing visa rules more strictly for Mexicans, there have been a lot of cancellations.

Of all the questions I was not expecting to hear tonight, Colin Simkus wanted to know why we weren't planning on charging even more than $200/night as a market rate? Tom reminded everyone that what you get is a bunk in a communal lodge. BOC felt that over $200 would qualify as highway robbery. In the end, the motion passed as presented.

Conflict of Interest Motion

If you are a keen reader of UBC Insiders, you'll remember that a very similar motion came to council at the June 17 council meeting but it was tabled because Matt Naylor, who submitted the motion, was not there to motivate it. Matt's back and so is the motion, but this time it's coming from Code and Policy, outlining the exact changes they'd like to make to Code. Matt's underlying motivation for this is that it would protect the society from a legal perspective.

Dave took the opportunity to give us all a primer on Robert's Rules, which I won't go into here. His main point was to make people aware about what Robert's Rules already say about conflicts of interest and to point out that the proposed amendments go beyond what is prescribed in parliamentary procedure.

Bijan spoke next, pointing out that this would be problematic for BoG reps. (that was kinda the point...) He brought up Mike Duncan's situation as an example. Under the proposed changes, he would not be allowed to participate in any discussions about the New SUB project since those negotiations are between the AMS and UBC. As director of both UBC (as BoG rep) and the AMS (as councilor), Mike would be considered to be in a conflict of interest. But the silly part of this is that the AMS appointed Mike as a lifetime member of the New SUB committee.

For the record, Mike Duncan doesn't even come to council anymore. That's not meant as a dig; simply information. After sitting on council for a number of years, and being "Mr. AMS" 24/7 for his entire year as president, he has certainly put in his time and has earned a reprieve from council meetings.

Bijan also pointed out conflicts with Johannes being on the UNA board of directors and Tom being on the Alumni Association board.

Geoff Costeloe wanted clarity about what the definition of a "director" is. The answer from Matt Naylor is someone who has a fiduciary responsibility towards the group in question. Tahara got clarification that this policy would indeed apply to all motions, not just ones in camera.

Tom pointed out that one of the main reasons he is on the Alumni board is to act as a liaison. How can he possibly liaise if he is removed from the discussion? Colin Simkus wished that there was more flexibility in the wording to allow more discretion in determining what is and isn't a conflict of interest, and with that Andrew Carne motioned for it to be referred back to Code and Policy. And that's where it went.

Electoral Code Changes Consultation

Code and Policy is currently doing consultations about Electoral Code. They have even set up a wiki where you can give your thoughts about electoral code.

AMS Engagement Levy

I haven't looked at the proposal for this, but from what I understood, the idea was to introduce a $5 fee that students could opt out in one of two ways. One would be to apply for an opt-out in the normal opt-out period at the beginning of the school year and the other way would be to vote in AMS elections. If a student did neither of those, the money would be put back into projects meant to stimulate engagement with the AMS. This plan was not up for any decision tonight. The motion was merely to refer this to an ad hoc committee to look at it and report back which they will do in October.

Of course, the obligatory Lougheed joke was made that for him the levy will be $35. And no Alex, we're clearly not ready to drop it yet... until you come up with another equally fertile source of AMS council humour.

Ad Hoc Representation Engagement and Reform Committee

Since the AMS Engagement Levy was referred to this committee, it suddenly became necessary to actually have people on the committee. The membership appointed was:

Matt Naylor
Will Davis
Maria Cirstea
Ekatrina Dovjenko
Jeremy McElroy
Tim Chu
Geoff Costeloe
Colin Simkus (at large)

Did The Killers Kill the Liquor at Thunderbird Arena?

2009-07-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

The new Thunderbird Winter Sports Centre is currently applying for an amendment to their liquor-primary licence. The matter will be coming before Metro Vancouver's Electoral Area committee for approval this Friday and there seems to be a significant hurdle in the way: as a result of past violations, the RCMP does not support it.

Read the letter from the RCMP about problems Athletics has been having controlling alcohol and drugs at concerts held in the arena.
This letter was posted yesterday on the the @ubcinsiders Twitter feed. For up-to-date news, follow us!
The full agenda package can be found here, and contains a wealth of documents about the application, though hopefully I will be able to save you the trouble of reading through it all.

Thunderbird Arena currently has a liquor-primary licence which covers the seating area in Father Bauer arena as well as the location of the former Thunderbar. When the new facility was erected around Father Bauer arena, the new areas were not covered under the existing liquor licence. As a result, UBC Athletics is applying for an amendment to the existing liquor-primary licence to cover the seating area and floor of the new arena. This application is not only in UBC's interests, VANOC wants it too. It's in the venue agreement, and so UBC does as VANOC wants.

As required by Metro Vancouver, some public meetings were held to discuss the plans and get feedback. Predictably, and in this case fortunately, the UNA objected to some of the items in the application. Because the process of obtaining an amendment to a liquor licence is tedious, Athletics threw in everything they think they might want at some time in the future, even if they don't need or want it at present, to leave themselves more flexibility. This resulted in some absurdities, such as proposed serving hours stretching all the way from 9 am until 2 am, and the licencing of an outdoor patio area that they currently don't have any use for.

The 9 am start is interesting to me; I don't think there was any particular reason for it other than that they were asking for everything they could. By doing so, UBC is now on the record as not objecting to morning drinking, starting as early as 9. On the application form the reason put forth for the early start time was so that people can drink mimosas – maybe it should have listed Beerios instead.

Regardless, things were going relatively smoothly until the RCMP dropped a bombshell. In a four-page letter (linked above; highly recommended reading), S/Sgt Kevin Kenna outlines some serious violations that have occurred at past events in the arena and that they do not feel Athletics is capable of living up to their responsibilities. What happened to prompt this strong objection?

"In order to promote events in the interim while the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch is considering the application, UBC has been granted a Temporary Change to its existing licence in order to allow a beer garden during certain events at the arenas. Management of the Temporary Change licence has been problematic and the Licensing Branch has had to rescind its approval after complaints about beer garden use at a recent concert." - David Boote, planner with Metro Vancouver

So Athletics got a Temporary Change, but that was rescinded due to poor management. At the next concert, they instead got a Special Occasion Licence (SOL). How did that work out?

"At a recent event where a Special Occasion License was obtained for a beer garden, there was such blatant abuse of liquor service (operating two beer gardens, poor security, over service) that all future events were not allowed to apply for a Special Occasion License." - S/Sgt Kenna, RCMP

Strike two. Without the Temporary Change licence and no chance at an SOL, the next event had no alcohol service. Problem solved, right?

"Despite the fact that the next concert was [non-alcoholic], both drugs and alcohol did make their way into the event. The police encountered minors in possession and consuming both alcohol and narcotics. As well, there were many inebriated persons either on the main floor or in the stands or back stage. Numerous patrons were observed smoking marijuana in the "mosh pit" as well as parts of the stands. During this event a male was "head butted" and required an ambulance to take him to the hospital. Before this event even started, there was a lot of "pre-drinking" outside the Centre and in the nearby Thunderbird Parkade." - S/Sgt Kenna, RCMP

Well, shit. There's no way these people should get a liquor licence. Ultimately though, the RCMP concludes they are willing to work with UBC to resolve the outstanding issues, but until it is all resolved, the RCMP does not support any liquor licence amendments. Brian Sullivan penned a response acknowledging past problems and promising to do better, but also trying to claim that they have an "established record of success" running licenced events. Can you imagine the fallout if such serious violations occurred repeatedly at student-organized events? I can't imagine saying "my bad" and promising to do better in the future would get you anywhere at all with the RCMP and the University. Someone please teach me how UBC gets away with this stuff.

All of this makes me worried. With liquor issues, one bad apple spoils the whole bushel. The RCMP would like to enforce every group the same way so they are not seen as playing favorites, though this doesn't happen in practice. While this approach is both fair and unfair at the same time, the result is that a small subset of troublemakers has the potential to cause real problems to the majority of groups that do follow the rules surrounding liquor regulations. Of course Athletics has promised to clean up their act, but why didn't that happen when any of the major infractions occurred in the first place? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Not only that, these are only the issues only from Thunderbird arena. Athletics also gets SOLs for Varsity games and does not follow the rules in getting those either! Their track record is established and it's dismal. Students get a bad rep for being irresponsible with alcohol but the worst violations are arising elsewhere.

The other way I see this liquor-primary licence as a problem is that currently the RCMP puts a cap on SOLs, based on how many people are supposedly attending these events in a given night. Once that cap is hit, they stop giving out SOLs for that day. For example, the RCMP will not approve SOLs for August 14th due to the Warped Tour occurring at Thunderbird Stadium even though the Warped Tour will not have any liquor service. Any night with a large event at the arena will lower the capacity for student-run events. I am also going to assume that the revenue from these concerts is going into Athletics's bottom line but that very little of it ends up going back into student programs. I would love to see evidence which suggests I'm wrong about this, but I don't think I will ever see that. The university is catering primarily to non-students, having negative impacts on student-run events; this is the War on Fun in a nutshell.

Finally, this warms my heart:

It is my belief that the UBC Athletics Department is moving too fast with their planned events at Thunderbird Centre, especially music concerts; and that profit is the main objective rather than ensuring that community interests are taken into consideration and looked after now and in the future. - S/Sgt Kenna, RCMP

HALLELUJAH!!!

Sing it, brother! This is the gospel I have been preaching far and wide. I don't want to start off on an even longer rant, but the ancillary model for UBC Athletics is broken. Too much of the department's attention is focused on increasing revenues without considering whether it is actually serving the UBC community effectively. There is not nearly enough accountability to those ultimately paying the bills and shouldering the impacts. I am immensely pleased to see that others see it the same way as well and I hope UBC is paying attention.

AMS Council: July 8, 2009

2009-07-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

Big party tonight! Highlights:

Olympics, Olympics, Olympics!
We support Iran... being referred to committee
2009-2010 budget

There was a very full house tonight, 90-100 people for the hour-long Olympics presentation by Michelle Aucoin, UBC 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat, Kristen Harvey, PR person for VANOC (and former AMS president!) and Manon Chouinard, PR for the Integrated Security Unit. Although those were the speakers, the delegation was much larger including two RCMP officers, three ISU members and other Olympics Secreteriat staff.

Olympics Presentation

Michelle Aucoin and Kristen Harvey started off with some facts about the arena and spoke about the fields that will be paved over starting next week. There were questions asked about the impacts the paving/unpaving processes will have (not really answered), the arrangement to put grass back on the fields (Athletics is doing it, VANOC's paying). I asked why they were being handed over 5 months before the date specified in the venue agreement (because paving has to be done while the ground is dry).

They also gave a daily schedule of when games would start/end in terms of higher traffic around the arena and gave wishy-washy answers about how they would handle the crowds.

At this point, Kyle Warwick asked Michelle when the AMS was first contacted about these things and what input they had. Her answer was that she had extended an invitation to Blake and Tim to sit in on the sessions, provided they sign a confidentiality agreement; they refused. Kyle explained to her why they refused: they are acting on behalf of the AMS and must be able to communicate with the rest of the society. They also receive direction from council, which is impossible if council has no information. Michelle's response: "I understand that is your perspective." In the end, the answer (inferred but not stated) was that the AMS was not involved up to this point, nor was an offer extended for them to be. The point is that involving two execs as individuals (which is the effect of the confidentiality) is completely different than involving the AMS, or "students".

It should be noted at this point that Michelle Aucoin is a former executive coordinator in the VP Students office (the position Anne DeWolfe now holds). She described herself as having always been an advocate for students, while also letting us know "This is not a stakeholder process and this is not a consultation process. Tough decisions had to be made," later adding "To expect major changes to these plans, you will be disappointed." Disappointed only scratches the surface for this presentation.

They discussed the road closures for the period of Feb 4-12, which includes Wesbrook Mall between Thunderbird Road and 16th, the northbound portion of East Mall for the same stretch, and Thunderbird Road from Wesbrook to East Mall. The areas will all be open to pedestrians, but not vehicles. Access to the UBC Hospital, and emergency vehicles at the RCMP and Fire Hall will remain intact.

They described alternate parking arrangements for Fraser Hall and the Frats/Panhel will be provided at the Thunderbird parkade, saying that these stakeholders are pleased with this arrangement. Kellan Higgins, who was there on behalf of one of the fraternities, later stood up to clarify that the fraternities are actually not pleased with the arrangement.

Colin Simkus wanted to know whether environmental assessments had been done, as required by law. Kristen answered that they had been working with Joe Stott on the permit process. Oi.

Adrienne Smith (who, it must be noted, was "unimpressed with the mention of herself in the May 6th Meeting minutes") is going to mentioned here anyways because she wanted to know about the impacts to Acadia Park residents. Michelle said they will always be able to get in an out of Acadia Park. They might not be able to use their normal route, but access will always be maintained.

Jeremy Wood (who is working for the AMS on Olympics issues) wanted to know about access to Osborne. VANOC has apparently scaled back their security perimeter so that Osborne will be completely accessible.

Andrew Carne wanted to know how soon the presentation and all the info in it would be available online. They promised it would be soon and that they wanted to get info out there as soon as possible. Kristen wanted to stress that they don't sit on information; they get it out there fast. (I am extremely skeptical about this.) Michelle mentioned that we are one of the first groups to hear about this and provide feedback, before naming a number of other groups who they already presented to.

They then outlined how they will be doing consultation (they called it that, but it is not real consultation) with groups throughout the summer and will be having open houses in the fall for people to find out more.

So you might be wondering what the plan for Translink is. How are they going to reroute the buses to get around the closures of Wesbrook Mall and East Mall? That's a good question, because Translink has not released their plans for that yet and we probably won't know until the fall.

At this point, Manon Chouinard got up and spoke about how the Integrated Security Unit will be doing security for the games. Police officers from across Canada will be coming to join the ISU. She spoke about how their number one priority is keeping the venue, the athletes and the fans safe. She also mentioned how they had to "make some tough decisions to lessen the impact on stakeholders," which came across to me as defending the huge cost overruns for Olympic security (currently five times the original budget!)

Bijan spent a bit of time putting some lips to some posteriors then Tim asked for clarification of the residence contract. Michelle deflected to Stephen Owen and housing having to answer those questions.

Geoff Costeloe asked what the AMS can do to help UBC make things easier for students. The answer: "I wish I had an answer to that," but that they hope to talk to students in small groups to see what they think.

Tahara Bhate asked about security and the security perimeter, because it was redacted in the Venue Agreement. Michelle said ther perimeter will not go around Osborne. Manon took the floor to talk about searches. The ISU will only search you if you are trying to enter a venue. They pledged not to do random searches, though they also stated that the RCMP is still on charge on campus during the games and what the RCMP does is up to them.

A guest and UBC Alum listed a number of concerns with the lack of consultation, the limitation of free speech and the vague wording of the residence contract. She pointed out that if you wear a Pepsi shirt to an event, they might kick you out because Coca-Cola is an official games sponsor, and brought up a big incident from the APEC protests where a Tibetan flag was removed from the GSS, which prompted Dave Tompkins to ask what would happen if he were to walk into a venue in a T-Shirt with pepsi on the front and a Tibetan flag on the back. Kristen Harvey admitted that he could be kicked out for the Pepsi shirt. Manon said that from the ISU's perspective, a T-shirt does not constitute any kind of security threat; they want to be on the lookout for actual threats.

The guest then brought up the subject of protest pens. The answer wasn't totally clear, but they will provide "Safe Assembly Areas" that will be visible and won't be fenced in. Protests will not be limited to these areas as long as they aren't disrupting others or traffic. Manon: "We will respect the Charter of Rights and Freedom of Speech, as long as you're doing it peacefully."

Dave Tompkins noted that nothing in the past or present had addressed the AMS Whistler Lodge.

Rory Green asked about the overall communications strategy. They basically admitted they didn't have a great plan on how to reach students and would like advice on that.

I asked about the $10M donation to the arena. Earlier in the meeting, Michelle had wanted to clarify that no UBC money was going into it, that it was from a donor, that the arena would be named after someone, but wouldn't say who (because they don't sit on information, remember?). This super, top-secret information can be found in last month's Board of Governor's documents: it's going to be named after Doug Mitchell. However, the document also implies that the money is coming from a variety of sources, not just the Mitchells. So I told everyone who it would be named after and asked exactly where the money was really coming from. Michelle "can't disclose that."

There were a few more questions about how it would affect grad students, involvement in Translink's transportation planning process and more warnings from the UBC Alum guest about the ISU using surveillance tactics on anti-Games activists.

It must be stated that Michelle Aucoin has a tendency to be condescending in answering questions. The 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat is basically a PR office. They exist solely for the purpose of communication and it isn't done very well.

I am particularly annoyed because the question I asked about the dates being pushed up for field usage was something I had already emailed her over the weekend, and had gotten no reply up to that point. The venue agreement was used many times as a defense about why things are the way they are, but in instances when they've chosen to deviate from the venue agreement, are dismissive of the concerns.

I'm pretty sure many of the people in the room who asked questions tonight had a similar sentiment: all spin, no actual information or communication happening. While the presentation was useful in terms of having the opportunity to look at Olympics impacts, I certainly don't feel very much more informed than I was before.

Iran Motion

You care about the debate? Really? It went exactly the way you imagine it would.

Voting time. Bijan's clicker isn't working...

Bijan: I can't vote.
Dave Tompkins: That's because you're Iranian.

Funny? Lacking in taste? Everyone in the room laughed...

Ultimately, it was referred back to External Policy Committee from whence it came.

Blake's Broadcast
Executive Committee got a presentation from Pierre Ouillet and Brian Sullivan about UBC's budget which has a $20M structural deficit; looking for solutions, Blake and Johannes will be on university working group to look at this issue; an issue with the Aquatic Centre not letting in students over the summer was resolved, students let in free over the summer; AMS involvement in orientations: presence at residence events, imagine materials, rebranding firstweek events; Gayle Stewart – former UBC olympic secretariat passed away, sent condolences on behalf of AMS to family

Crystal's Chat
Sub negotiation meeting frequency increased to see better progress: want less of negotiation and more of a conversation; rejigging photocopier/IFP area in SUB basement; working on All-President's dinner, meet the execs event, clubs days with SAC

Johannes's Jargon
Vancouver Campus Plan now targets 35% student housing, question is: what kind?, want it to be more than just beds and desks; LEAD initiative working with Sage/Kotter, "change management consultants" to work on implementing things stemming from CWSEI; partnering with FoGS for career services for grad students; Internationalization issues now go through UBC's VP Research office, may see change in strategy as a result; meetings with Kevin Kenna (RCMP) and Anne DeWolfe (VP Students office) about liquor licence issues

Tom's Tirade
Spoke to other universities about how their business operations work, learned about other models and how they work; went up to Whistler lodge to look at some issues; Business Operations Committee will talk about what to do with Whistler lodge during 2010 Olympics; branding and marketing continue to be looked at

Tim's talk
UPASS subsidy applications almost done processing; met with committees; dealt with press regarding the Olympics and the residence contract; the colour of the UPASS this fall: BLUE!; setting up meetings with politicians to do some lobbying; U of Calgary execs coming to visit, Tim will host; working with Tahara Bhate on transit issues; working with GSS on a childcare conference

One thing that came out of constituency reports: in response to concerns raised during the debate over the ACF debt repayment motion, the AUS will release their budget publicly this year so people can see where the money goes and can see that they are trying to be fiscally responsible.

2009-2010 AMS Budget: Tom Dvorak

You can look at the materials here. Audiences, used to the mediocrity of Powerpoint, never fail to be impressed by the use of Keynote and its style and panache. The most impressive moment was when Tom made the Alma Mater Society go up in flames. But onto the content.

The AMS has a structural deficit in their budget. The money allocated in the budget is greater than the expected revenues. However, that's only a problem if all of the money allocated is actually spent. In practice, not all the money allocated to things gets spent in a given year.

This year the structural deficit is estimated at ~$250,000. According to Tom, the AMS currently has about $7M in reserves. So in the short term, this is not a problem to lose sleep over. However, it's irresponsible and potentially unsustainable to be constructing budgets with structural deficits built in. The budget committee has proposed some ways in which this issue can be looked at.

This includes a structural audit and a fee referendum to index the AMS fee to CPI, something the SUS just did recently. They also want to promote more volunteerism, rather than having so many staff that are paid. New business opportunities are also something to look at. (Tom's suggestion: JAPADOG!)

Due to an error in the wording of the NEW SUB referendum question last year, the AMS is also looking at deficit problems in the long term.

Council launched into a quite detailed examination of the budget and asked about why certain line items were changed, about the structural deficit and questions about how the various funds and funding sources work. It went on quite a while and showed that people really read through it. I also think it helped that the document that was prepared (linked above) was constructed and presented very clearly.

Budget passed.

Council was $1,337 under budget for Food and Refreshments last year. Next meeting we should definitely have ice cream.

Structural Audit

Motion #1: Council passed a code change allowing council to direct the budget committee to do things.

Motion #2: Council then used its newfound power to direct the budget committee (in conjunction with the oversight committee) to perform a structural audit of the AMS. This is connected to the AMS's structural deficit and provides an opportunity to have an even deeper look at where the AMS spends money and why.

Olympic Report Update aka Tahara's Motion

The AMS made an Olympic report in the past. Since that time, a lot more information has come to light (and more continues to come out). This report will be updated to reflect the new information available. This is useful because there is a lot of documents to sort through -we want to try and make it more accessible.

Video Surveillance

The AMS wants video surveillance in the SUB, primarily for security purposes. Their policy lays out why the cameras are there, what the cameras do, who gets to see what, and when, etc. People monitoring the cameras also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Interesting tidbit: By provincial law, if you have been recorded, you can go and request to see the image that was recorded of you. Finally, someone is thinking of self-centred commerce students!

Code and Policy

Motion #1: Currently the deadline for circulating the agenda and materials for council meetings is 48 hours in advance of the meeting (ie. Monday at 6 pm). The code change proposed making it 3 business days in advance (ie. the Friday before). The background for this is laid out in the May 6 council recap: Blake ceasing and desisting. This now formalizes in code something that Blake was trying to encourage to happen informally.

Motion #2: Some language in code was simplified to define who does and doesn't have to pay AMS fees. The end result is that some more people now have to pay AMS fees who previously didn't.

McInnes Field Motion

The EUS tried to book McInnes Field in order to hold a charity concert this school year. They were told that they could not book it. Instead, they were offered the football practice field, which is not Thunderbird Stadium, but rather beside it, at an exorbitant cost of $12,000.

The reasons for this aren't totally clear, but it has to do with field shortages. It is also related to the fact that the person within UBC Athletics handling concert bookings was recently let go and bookings now go through their finance director who is focused solely on maximizing profit with little regard to how it affects students.

Blake will be meeting with athletics and the VP Students office to try to bring dialogue over how this is completely unacceptable that students cannot reasonably secure any space to hold large events and wanted a council resolution to make his point.

Next meeting: July 29. Check out this Facebook event!

A special congratulations goes out Rory Green, who was pleased that the external office was not the centre of attention for all the wrong reasons this meeting.

AMS Council Agenda: July 8, 2009

2009-07-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

Since the AMS has not yet mastered the art of putting meeting dates and agendas online yet, the next one is:

Wednesday, July 8, 2009. 6 PM. SUB 206.

Agenda

The most interesting thing will be a presentation from Michelle Aucoin, Director of the UBC 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Secretariat about what to expect when the Olympics happen on campus. If you or anyone you know is curious or concerned about the impacts of the Olympics at UBC, I encourage you show up, and to spread the word! TIP: there's also free food. If you spread the word about that as well, you may have more success.

For example, UBC released a memo outlining how fields in Thunderbird Park are getting paved over for the duration of the Games. The fields will be handed over to VANOC July 17, 2009.

Curiously, the most recent UBC-VANOC contract regarding the arena specifies that VANOC's "exclusive use period" (ie. when they can take control of the fields) is not supposed to start until December 13, 2009. That's a pretty big five-month discrepancy, given that the original date would have allowed student/intramural use of the fields for the entire fall semester. That's no longer the case.

Of course, it doesn't end there. If you look further down the agenda for this meeting, you'll see a motion outlining how the EUS attempted to organize a charity concert for the upcoming school year. These plans unraveled because UBC Athletics would not offer them a suitable field for the concert, which was in part because of a shortage of fields. Wow, really? I wonder how that happened!

Also on the agenda: a motion about the unrest in Iran. You can read Matt Naylor's take about why this motion (and others like it) is utterly pointless.

More from the CIS AGM

2009-06-21T00:29:00.001-07:00

The Coles notes version of this post was already published: CIS restricts dual membership with NCAA.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the organization that governs high-performance sport at the post-secondary level, held its Annual General Meeting from June 8-12 in Gatineau, Quebec.

When UBC decided to defer its decision on NCAA membership until at least 2010, one of the reasons cited was unresolved issues reagarding CIS. In the context of potential NCAA membership, the three main issues identified were (1) Dual membership rules, (2) Athletic Financial Aid rules and (3) Quality of competition within Canada West. The CIS AGM is the only time of year where these issues can be dealt with formally by the CIS membership.

Due to my inordinate interest in athletics at UBC, and the NCAA isssue, I went to check it out.

FYI, the 90-page agenda package is here, including all of the committee reports and background documentation for the few of you who might care. I will pull out things that are more pertinent. Also, the CIS put up their own summary of happenings at the AGM. Their summary is very incomplete, so keep reading.

DAY 1

Day 1 started with some of the more preliminary activities: approval of minutes, and reports from individuals and committees.

Dick White, Athletic Director at the University of Regina and outgoing CIS president, and Marg McGregor, CIS CEO, gave opening remarks. Both of their speeches addressed many of the points contained in the CIS's Ten Point Plan (TPP). This is a collection of priorities which are designed to help the CIS achieve its vision of being the "destination of choice for Canadian student-athletes." It is essentially their version of a strategic planning document and was a very central theme throughout the meeting.

Both speeches were based around the idea that the CIS is not meeting its potential and that changes must be made to help the CIS improve. Dick White spoke mostly about the future and about the need for member buy-in to make change happen while Marg McGregor, who at times was extremely quotable, summarized the CIS's recent activities. In reference to the TPP, she said she wants it to be "CIS's elevator music: it's always playing in the background." When addressing the issue of the NCAA she portrayed them as Wal-Mart, with CIS being the mom and pop corner store.

For the most part, committee reports did not deviate significantly from the written reports in the agenda package. A quick wrap-up of some of the developments from the speeches and reports:

Edmonton's bid for the 2015 Universiade lost out to Gwangju, South Korea
The CIS launched new logos (top) to replace their previous one (bottom)
A planned expansion of the Women's Basketball championship to 16 teams was pushed back for another year. The stated reason was prudence due to the current economic situation.
CIS secured a major sponsorship deal with Research in Motion
They are trying to catch up to new media with a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, a Flickr page and a channel on Youtube.

A few things that are on the horizon for the upcoming year:

Clint Hamilton, UVic's athletic director, taking over as CIS president.
Conduct a thorough exploration of how the CIS can partner with the CCAA (Canadian Colleges Athletic Association). This is awaiting government funding.
Continue trying to adapt how the CIS deals with media. With many writers now doing blogs (holla!), press releases may not be the best way anymore.
Leverage big national championships (basketball, football) in order to ensure a minimum level of service to national championships across all sports.
Continue looking at governance reform and financial aid rules in the CIS.

The afternoon of Day 1 was then devoted to discussion sessions. The structure of the AGM is a little curious, since there is a lot of time devoted to these sessions, but at the same time, there are very few bona fide motions coming to the floor to deal with those issues. Lots of interesting ideas regarding eligibility, CIS championships, branding and governance were expressed, but whether any follow-up will occur on these ideas is anyone's guess.

DAY 2

Day 2 started off with a presentation from UWO's football coach Larry Haylor, on Canada's participation in the 2011 World Football Championship, which would in all likelihood involve CIS football players. After that, there was a presentation on a new system for locating football and hockey players in order to administer drug tests.

On a side note, the stats surrounding drug testing in the CIS really surprised me. Last year, four players were caught doping: one for steroids, three for marijuana use. My initial reaction was that university sport in Canada must be very clean, since there was only one violation (I disregard the pot violations since I'm sure it was not used for the purpose of boosting athletic performance). A closer look at the numbers seems to point in a different direction: the CIS boasts having over 10,000 student-athletes across Canada, but only 269 drug tests were administered last year. I realize administering these tests is probably costly, but it strikes me as being extremely low! Is the lack of violations really because the players are clean, or might it have to do with inadequate testing?

At long last, the discussion turned toward my raison d'être, the NCAA.

Background: A motion was brought to the 2008 CIS AGM which would have prohibited all dual membership. This would have been a very problematic policy not just for UBC, but for a number of schools in Canada. Ultimately, this motion was laid on the table while more discussion on the issue could occur. In the year since, during the entire process of examining the NCAA issue, UBC has been waiting patiently to find out what, if anything, the CIS would say about dual membership restrictions. In the last year, the CIS commissioned a report about the NCAA which was based upon both research and feedback received from members (I haven't read it). The NCAA was also discussed in depth at an April 2009 members meeting. The results of that meeting, in the eyes of the CIS board, was a call to action. Theresa Hanson (director of varsity sports at UBC) told me that in her opinion, the results of the April members meeting were inconclusive at best, only reaffirming that the NCAA was a divisive subject. Nevertheless, the motion that finally came from the CIS is board was:

CIS members are not permitted to play in the NCAA in sports that are offered by CIS.

The first speaker was Dr. David Murphy, athletic Director of SFU. He said that the posturing coming from the CIS was that they are trying to go forward with strength and boldness, but when he looks at the motion it reeks of insecurity and protectionism. In sports, all the schools in the room are in the business of competition. Why, then, should the CIS be afraid of competition, rather than using it as a catalyst to step up their own game? He also brought up that in the academic realm, being worldly and looking globally is considered a virtue. It's recognized as a good thing to broaden people's education and this motion flies in the face of that idea. He added that he doesn't think the NCAA will ever result in a mass migration of schools and that SFU is a very special case. To him, this motion is simply a knee-jerk reaction to a perceived threat.

The response from Katie Sheahan (Concordia) was that she didn't think this motion was borne out of a defensive reaction, but instead that it is the responsible thing to do since the NCAA has the potential to seriously damage the financial health of the CIS. She also held the view that Dr. Murphy had oversimplified the issue and that the CIS board truly feels that the motion reflects the feelings of members at the April 2009 meeting.

Ivan Joseph (Ryerson) then expressed his view that the CIS's "destination of choice" mantra was more about keeping Canadian student athletes in Canada, not necessarily in the CIS. In that sense, this motion would not help that goal. To him, allowing institutions to have more options would also give Canadian student-athletes more options, hopefully keeping more of them in Canada.

Gord Grace (Windsor) brought up an interesting point that CIS membership is separate from membership in the regional associations (AUS, QSSF, OUA and Canada West). His example was thus: supposing Windsor joined the NCAA and were prohibited from being CIS members, they would still be allowed to do all their league play in the OUA. In theory, Windsor's football team could end up winning the OUA championship, but be ineligible to play in the Vanier Cup because Windsor was not in the CIS. If something like that were to ever occur, it would be embarrassing.

Ken Schildroth (York) asked why this motion applied only to the NCAA and not the NAIA.

Dick White responded that the CIS board felt there was a clear distinction between the NCAA and the NAIA in terms of how powerful their brands are. The NAIA does not pose a big threat to the CIS, but the NCAA does due to their extremely high level of recognition. As a result they didn't think it was appropriate to lump them together.

Theresa Hanson (UBC) had the floor next and acknowledged that the NCAA issue is extremely complex, but that one of the great things about the CIS has been its respect for the autonomy of the individual institutions. If UBC ultimately decides that the NCAA is best, UBC's autonomy should be respected.

Clint Hamilton (UVic, incoming CIS president) wanted to make it clear that the CIS board has been devoting a lot of time to this issue and has been taking it quite seriously. Through the entire process, he has repeatedly heard how it's good for institutions, but has never heard any argument about why it's good for the CIS. The board wants to do what's best for the CIS, and the evidence seems to show it would be damaging to CIS from a number of angles (ex. sponsorship, marketing, recruiting) by allowing a stronger brand to get a foothold here.

Dick White (Regina, outgoing CIS president) then acknowledged that the motion may appear to be protectionist, but in his opinion that would only be true if this was done in isolation. To him, it's just one part of a bigger campaign to strengthen the CIS. Allowing the NCAA to enter Canada would put the CIS in a position of weakness and the fact that schools want to put some of their sports in the NCAA and some in the CIS says to him that the CIS is viewed merely a league of convenience. He also stated that he didn't think this is an issue of autonomy since there are many instances where people give up autonomy. He encouraged everyone to support the motion and thought it was one of the most important motions in a number of years

Pat Murray (CIS VP Marketing) pointed out that they just want schools to show commitment to the CIS; that you're either in or you're out.

David Murphy (SFU) took the floor again to express his worry that there may be a lot of misinformation out there and that SFU's move to the NCAA won't be painless for anyone involved, including SFU. They just support the ability to choose. Rather than trying to shut out competition, the CIS just needs to learn to adapt and will ultimately be successful.

Marg McGregor (CIS CEO) then took the opportunity to respond to a number of point that had been raised. She acknowledged that the CIS was being protective of their interests and that they were doing so in the best interests of the CIS, stating unequivocally, "I make no apologies for trying to protect the CIS." She also acknowledged that choice is important at the institutional level, but that everyone also needs to take the national interests into account. On the topic of looking globally, she said that the CIS already has rules in place about foreign players, so recognizing and protecting Canadian interests is nothing new. She ended by warning that if the motion was defeated, it would make the CIS a weak and vulnerable organization.

The last word went to Leo MacPherson (St. FX) who said that his institution, and all those Atlantic Canada, were largely ambivalent about this issue since there was no threat of losing AUS members to the NCAA. He urged every school who felt ambivalent about this motion to show their support to the CIS board and vote in favour.

Phew. So there you have it. I was quite surprised that UBC did not speak up more, or offer a more compelling argument than the need for institutional autonomy. (Bob Philip was not present to give his take: he had to fly back to Vancouver earlier in the day.) However, at the same time, I kinda doubt it would have made any difference. It really seemed like everyone had made up their mind beforehand; no one was about to be swayed either way by the arguments put forth. That comes as no surprise. That's the pattern you see whenever you talk about the NCAA in Canada.

The two discussion periods that followed were about Athletic Financial Aid (AFA) and partnering with the CCAA. I won't go into to much detail, suffice it to say that it seems unlikely that there will be any significant movement on the AFA front in the near future. They are going to 'explore' a flexible scholarship model, but the AFA committee did a survey of schools and found that there is little traction for major changes to AFA policy.

In the afternoon of day 2 is when the voting finally occurred (like I said, AGM structure is a bit odd where discussion and voting happen separately). For the record:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
CIS members are not permitted to play in the NCAA in sports that are offered by CIS.

For: 55 Against: 20
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
CIS members are not permitted to play in the NAIA in sports that are offered by CIS, unless they also compete in that sport within CIS, effective September 2011.

For: 64 Against: 19
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
CIS support in principle the exploration of a flexible scholarship model in concert with striking a Board Task Force to do further study and review to address the challenges and issues that CIS members have identified.

Carried
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The AFA motion is pretty toothless, but the NAIA motion has the potential to further complicate things for UBC. Theresa Hanson identified Cross Country as the sport it would affect most.

So what's next for UBC on the NCAA front? As far as I can tell, not much. Trying to get some clarity on accreditation seems to be the only major outstanding issue that needs to be addressed. (Of course, I still consider the distribution of funds from the athletic fee, and the structure and transparency of UBC Athletics major outstanding issues that need to be addressed - but I am probably alone on that.)

What will be helpful over the next year is that SFU, apparently completely undeterred by the accreditation requirement, already submitted their application. Over the next year, UBC will be able to simply watch from the sidelines to see how the application process unfolds. During that time, it may be possible to reach the point where nothing except careful deliberation is standing in the way of hearing the outcome. However, I'm not sure anyone is in a hurry to get there quite yet.

AMS Council: June 17, 2009

2009-06-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

AMS council tonight. Highlights:

Provincial Elections campaign budget revealed
Executive quarterly reports released
Student Court appointments

It's a proxy party tonight. Low turnout, lots of substitutes. Leftover food also means a weird dinner combination: Pi-R-Squared with smoked salmon appetizers.

CASA Conference Recap

First up was a presentation to recap the recent CASA policy conference in Calgary. However, the presentation by Blake and Tim, which lasted just shy of forever, spent a lot of time outlining a laundry list of complaints about CASA, all of which have been brought up before. Less time was devoted to what actually occurred at the conference. Summary: Tim and Blake don't like CASA. I would also suspect CASA doesn't like Tim and Blake.

Some division within the executive was made apparent immediately when Tom Dvorak stated that CASA sent a letter addressing the AMS's concerns in late April and that this letter was not shared with other executives or council. Hmmm.

Plenty of boring discussion (if you really care, I can send you notes), but the quote of the night came from Bijan:

"When students go to conferences, they like to have sex. There's something about having sex with someone you'll never see again that's exciting.”

I could put it in context, but it's so much better without it. Another great quote came from Jeremy McElroy, who noticed Blake's constant negativity about CASA and asked: Did you have any fun in Ottawa?

In a show of more executive division, Johannes questioned where the numbers came from which outlined the cost of being CASA members, saying that the actual cost is much lower than claimed by Blake and Tim.

Lots of discussion; not much concrete came out of it, other than that documents need to be made available to everyone, and not hoarded. Also, this will continue to be an issue this year.

Provincial Election Campaign Presentation

Tim got up and gave a recap of the provincial election campaign that he ran. While there were successes including lot of work put into awareness and over 500 voters registered by the AMS, the most hotly anticipated part of this presentation was the budget for this campaign.

For background, I'll refer you again to this Ubyssey editorial as well as a related radical beer tribune post. You can also read the recap from two council meetings ago about how part of this campaign was botched. And, as was confirmed tonight, it was at no small expense.

Without further ado, here is the budget breakdown:

[no idea why the huge gap is here]

Banners	616.85
Printing Costs	3,652.92
Ads in 24 Hrs	18,484.28
Bus Ads	3, 715.25
Website	2,627.29
Buttons	1,220.80
Design Services	445.70
Stickers	195.36
Hand Stamps	33.89
T-shirts	440.99
Videos	1,500.00
Campaigners	3,340.00
TOTAL	36.273.22

The ads in 24 Hrs (the newspaper) are absolutely mind-blowing. Geoff Costeloe was particularly enraged over this, calling it a crazy waste of money. I... concur.

Personally I also took issue with the fact that it took $2,600 to build this webiste. Andrew Carne pointed out that it was based on Wordpress. I just buried my head in my hands at that point. Still, nothing compared to the money wasted on ads in 24 Hrs.

The budget is the subject of a Ubyssey article, but here's the bottom line: it was a waste of money.

Executive Remarks

Blake's Broadcast: 1st Quarterly Report available here; everything is in there.
VP External: 1st Quarterly Report available here; went to CASA conference; over 300 applications received for U-Pass subsidy; Translink is running "Be Part of the Plan", encourage everyone to participate; looking forward to external policy committee meeting
VP Academic: 1st Quarterly Report available here; met with residence coordinator at UWaterloo, want to not only increase residence space but also its relevance; met with Michelle Aucoin about Olympics issues; hired student court; remodeled offices; working on TA training, university has allocated funding for it; met with fraternity and sorority representatives; reinstated University Commission
VP Finance: 1st Quarterly Report available here; AVP Catherine Metrycki did a lot of work to get a lot of stuff online; orientation for clubs with how to navigate AMS finance; looking at marketing for the upcoming year; attended alumni association retreat regarding alumni centre; looking at online payment systems to enable clubs to process credit card payments for memberships or events; Business Operations Committee is looking at Point-Of-Sale options, and AMS businesses contributed $1,114,981 to the AMS last year; preliminary budget prepped, found deficit, looking at budget reductions; budget will be presented next council meeting.
VP Admin: 1st Quarterly Report available here; met with student development about proposed renovations to Brock Hall; hired assistant
ECSS: missed this, but 1st Quarterly Report available here

Some Appointments-review stuff about salaries passed

Student Court Appointments

Emmanuelle Frederic – Chief Justice
Sara Askari – Judge
Feruza Abdajalieva – Judge
Alexander Cooke – Judge
Wilfred Chan – Judge
Adam Flanders – Alternate Judge
Jordan Snel – Alternate Judge
Constance Chan - Clerk

Conflict of Interest Motion

A motion came to council which would have required any member of council who also serves as a director of an organization which the AMS conducts business with to remove themselves from any In Camera sessions of council dealing with the other organization.

The goal appears to be the exclusion of UBC BoG reps, specifically Bijan, from In Camera sessions. However, while BoG is the most obvious example, there are probably other people on council who would also be affected by this and would also be required to sit out of In Camera sessions from time to time.

This was a Matt Naylor motion, who was not present tonight. His proxy, Alex Lougheed, did not feel comfortable motivating the motion since it was not his. It was eventually sent to Code and Policy. Should be interesting to see if this comes back to council sometime in the future.

Olympics Motion

Bijan brought a motion to invite Michelle Aucoin, who is in charge of Olympics stuff at UBC to present at the next council meeting for an hour. There should have been no discussion about this, but there was some. This also should have never been a motion in the first place, but it was. (Council doesn't need to pass motions to invite people to present to council.) Anyways, next meeting, look forward to an hour of Olympics presentation/discussion.

Committee Appointments

Fundraising and Sponsorship Committee: John MacLean

Dave Tompkins: "Like the guy from Die Hard?" (Different speling, unfortunately. Dave looked it up on IMDB as a distraction from council.)

External Policy Committee: Dusty C.

Next meeting: July 8.

CIS restricts dual membership with NCAA

2009-06-12T15:17:00.000-07:00

The Ubyssey-edited version of this can be found at ubyssey.ca.

Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS), the organization which governs high-performance athletics at Canadian universities, sent a bold message to schools looking to join the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at their annual general meeting on Thursday. Voting 55-20 in favour, CIS members instituted a policy which places stringent restrictions on schools who pursue membership in both the CIS and the NCAA. Under the new rule, member schools are only allowed to play in the NCAA in sports not offered by the CIS.

“The NCAA is a gigantic, multi-sport business entity and quite frankly the CIS is not. So we believe that it could be a threat to the existence of CIS and we reacted accordingly,” said Dick White, University of Regina athletic director and outgoing CIS president. “I hope it at least creates some pause for thought, but I also understand that the school and its athletic director and its president will ultimately make a decision which they think is best.”

The two schools in question are UBC and SFU, the only CIS members who have openly expressed interest in the NCAA. SFU's senior athletic director Dr. David Murphy spoke passionately against the membership restrictions during the meeting, arguing that it “reeks of insecurity and protectionism,” and that the CIS shouldn't shy away from competition, but rather use it as an opportunity to better itself and grow stronger. Dr. Murphy expressed his regret that the new rule was adopted, but that SFU's plans are already in motion:“The [NCAA] application form is in. We wait, and we find out in July whether or not we have been accepted.”

For UBC, which deferred its decision regarding NCAA application until at least 2010, this provides one more piece of the puzzle. Uncertainty over what action, if any, the CIS would take regarding dual membership has long been one of the sticking points in the university's consideration of NCAA membership. While the new rule is not an outright ban on dual membership, it essentially makes the pursuit of the NCAA an all-or-nothing proposal since the pool of sports offered by the NCAA but not by the CIS is very narrow.

“We're not saying 'you can't join',” explained CIS CEO Marg McGregor. “UBC and SFU and any university that wants to can join. But as a result of that, we will not be the league of convenience. We want to be the league of choice.”

The issue of personal choice was indeed one of the key reasons UBC opposed the new rule. “I speak in favour of dual membership because I believe it does provide universities choices,” said Theresa Hanson, director of varsity athletics at UBC. “From a dual membership perspective, we could still make a commitment to CIS sport, continue some sports in Canada as well as move a considerable number of sports to the NCAA.”

UBC and SFU were not the only schools to oppose the new rule, with a handful of other schools also expressing their disapproval. Ivan Joseph of Ryerson opposed the change because he thought allowing dual membership would enable more Canadian athletes to stay at Canadian schools. Jennifer Brenning from Carleton was also opposed, pointing to the fact that the CIS now has three different sets of dual membership rules depending on whether you want to play in the NCAA, the NAIA, or the CCAA. Before this year, the CIS had no policy at all on dual membership.

While uncertainty surrounding dual membership has finally come to an end, the result doesn't make UBC's NCAA decision any easier. One of the biggest issues, academic accreditation, remains unresolved and Theresa Hanson acknowledges that the closer you examine the issue of NCAA membership, the more complex it becomes.“I think it provides more challenges, the outcome, but I really think that [Toope] will make a decision that's in the best interests of the university and of our student athletes.”

Gordo In Da House

2009-05-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Ah, election day. The day I walk into the SUB for my morning coffee and notice over a dozen cameramen and reporters just milling about in the concourse. Were there more bonfires last night? Another murder in the park? Doesn't seem likely.

Who's that grey-haired man with snazzy glasses walking in with an entourage? Why it's Gordon Campbell, coming to the SUB for his voting photo-op!

I wish I had had my own camera on hand, but I suppose you can watch some footage on any newscast this evening. It was interesting to see the news machine at work.

He brought the full entourage, including the seldom-seen wife, kids and grandkids, with one big burly RCMP officer dressed in black, constantly standing on the periphery.

As he entered a voting booth, he had his back to the reporters. Being hopelessly naive, I expected the cameras at that point to turn away, or stop filming at least temporarily, to respect the fact that voting is supposed to be private. Instead, they stepped it up a notch. The CityTV cameraman was particularly shameless, holding his camera aloft above his head in hopes of getting a better shot. For Christ's sake, do you want him to just pass around his marked ballot? It's not like you don't know who he's voting for.

Then came the posing with his ballot half in the box. If the photo-op nature of this event was not yet obvious enough to observers, he asked everyone if they had gotten the shot they wanted before actually putting it in the box. Then the scrum moved outside for a brief Q&A.

At this point I was thinking: where's the AMS? Let me first say that I absolutely don't have any expectations that it is the AMS execs' duty to constantly harass Gordon Campbell or other politicians. That should not be one of the primary duties in their job description.

However, the external office did put out a press release in April bitching about how ministers made themselves unavailable, (followed of course by the obligatory NayloRant™). The AMS has told the world that they are quite eager to meet with politicians, and are unhappy that they were not able to. So you might think that having the premier walk into their own god-damned building on election day followed by a gaggle of reporters and cameramen might represent a good chance to ask him some questions! No such luck today, though Blake and Crystal did leave whatever they were doing to catch the very end of the scrum.

I couldn't actually hear most of the questions and answers since in the interest of informing the public about this absolutely vital story (Premier ♥ voting and democracy!) the media formed an impenetrable wall around him, keeping the actual public away. He pimped out his grandkids, and gave some pretty stock answers to some pretty milquetoast questions. Then it was off to the parking lot by the bookstore to do... whatever else he is doing today.

Edit: Well, there it is. Gordo and his ballot, currently the lead picture on globeandmail.com. You can even make out the out-of-focus AMS logo in the background.

AMS Council: May 6, 2009

2009-05-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

After a month-long break for exams, AMS council met tonight. Highlights:

AMS to reimburse AUS $35,062.04 for accumulated Arts County Fair debt.
Azim Wazeer, Joel Mertens and Josh Sealy recommended as new student senators
Lots of committee appointments
Whistler Lodge improvements
External Office to stop distributing some provincial election campaign materials deemed partisan, must remove some already-posted campaign materials deemed out of line with lobbying priorities

Since this is the start of a new year, in a way, there were many new faces and lots of introductions to be made. Dave Tompkins is speaker for another year. Sheldon proudly mentions that he and Dave are the only ones in the room who have been with the AMS since since the last century (last millennium actually, as someone else astutely pointed out.)

Executive Remarks:

Blake's Broadcast: Lots of meetings with UBC admin; Block Party and Great Farm Trek; Hired a new assistant; Held student-staff appreciation lunch; New SUB negotiations with university are progressing, albeit slower than hoped for.
VP Finance: Looking at some renos to get some more office space; Block Party brought in ~$100,000 in revenues, but expenses were a bit higher than that; recently resolved a student fee issue that resulted in AMS getting ~$500k they were due; Blue Chip will be getting renovations to be fully equipped to do chilled drinks over the summer.
VP Admin: New SUB survey completed and results will be posted online soon in condensed, more readable form; new water fountains coming this month and will encompass both drinking fountains and bottle-filling stations; AMS will try to phase out bottled water at their outlets and sell AMS re-useable water bottles.
VP Academic/UA: Has been liaising with RCMP regarding olympic security and liquor policy issues; Sgt. Dan Wendland is gone with replacement coming this month; UNA and RCMP are working on a noise by-law to bring to the province; has been talking to provost and CUPE about TA training issues; NSSE founder will be making presentation tomorrow; who wants ice cream?
VP External: Lots of work on provincial election campaign; Translink AGM is coming up; looked into applicability of residential tenancy act on campus.
ECSS: mostly has been doing a whole lot of hiring for the upcoming year.

Code and Policy: Will look into why Code places restrictions on holding more than one AMS position at a time.

Senate Appointments: Student Senate Caucus went through a number of applications, did some interviews and ended up picking Azim Wazeer, Joel Mertens and Josh Sealy. There was some concern about whether the advertisement for this position was done, but given that way more people applied for the appointments than for the elections seems to indicate something was done right. Motion passed unanimously. Joel Mertens returns to council as Senate rep. Awkward moment: Guillaume Houle tried to get Geoff Costeloe to say that the meeting to pick the new senators took place during a hockey game, to no avail.

SUS Referendum Results: SUS recently had passed a referendum to index their student fee to CCPI (Canadian Consumer Price Index) and needs AMS to rubber stamp this. There are multiple versions of the CCPI; some debate over which one to use since it was not specified in the referendum question. Although SUS finances were admittedly fine, they feel is more sustainable and hopefully saves them from going to referendum every few years to raise it. SUS is the first constituency to index their fee to inflation. Motion passed.

Arts County Fair Debt Repayment: As expected, discussion on this item was quite lengthy. I won't summarize it right now and the arguments for and against are already known, I hope. Before I give myself carpal tunnel typing it all out, let's see what the Ubyssey comes up with. End result: 23-7 in favour of repaying $35,062.04 to the AUS for accumulated Arts County Fair debt.

Commitee Appointments: Sorry for the lack of last names, but Dave generally doesn't put them up, so if I don't already know it, it won't be there. Also, I apologize in advance since I'm certain there is a mistake or two in here.

CiTR: Duncan McHugh, Aaron Nakama, Tahara Bhate, Bijan Ahmadian
Irving K. Barber Library Stewardship Committee: Crystal Hon, Kyle Warwick
LEAD: Tahara Bhate, Bijan Ahmadian, Lin Watt
Oversight: Jimmy Yan, Joel Mertens, Laura Silvester, Kyle Warwick, Tony Yang
Budget Committee: Kyle Warwick, "Ben", "K"
Appointments Review: Kat, Aaron Sihota, Tim Chu
Business Operations Committee: Guillaume Houle, Laura Silvester, Aaron Sihota, Joel Mertens, Hafiz Dossa
Impacts: Hannes Dempewolf, Madeleine Schaefer, Kyle Warwick
Sexual Assault Support Services Fund: Elena Kusaka, Pavani
Code and Policy: Andrew Carne, Tahara Bhate, Matt Naylor, Blake Frederick, Jeremy Wood, Emily Griffiths
Campus events committee: Fraser, Carolee Changfoot, Tony Yang, Lin Watt
Fundraising and sponsorship committee: Madeleine Schaefer, Tony Yang, Tagg Jefferson
Campus Planning and Development: Jeremy McElroy, Andrew carne, "Pierce"
Renovations Planning: Andrew Carne, Jimmy Yan, Carolee Changfoot
Sub Renew: Luke(GSS), Jeremy McElroy
AMS/GSS Health and Dental Plan Committee: Matt Naylor
Equity: Geoff Costeloe, Tim Chu, Kat
Executive Renumeration: Aaron Sihota, Jimmy Yan
External Policy Committee: Matt Naylor, Kat, Tahara Bhate, Kyle Warwick, Elena Kusaka, Kiran, Iggy Rodriguez

SAC Appointments:

SAC Member: Elin Tayyar
Bookings Commissioner: David Le
Buildings Commissioner: Kyle Lai
Special Projects Commissioner: Cindy Zhan
Art Gallery Commissioner: Jeremy Jaud
Club Commissioner: Elaine Chin
Administrative Commissioner: Sima Shoker

AMS Preliminary 2009/10 Budget: 2008/09 highlights include higher than expected business operations revenue ($1.165M) contributing to an extra $440k which is to be allocated to other funds. However, with the food-housing merger, the AMS expects to lose some of its conference catering business to UBC Housing and Food next year. 08/09 ended with a small surplus.
09/10 forecasts $13.8M of revenue, with another small surplus at the end of the year. Point of interest: Rogers will no longer be providing free Blackberrys to AMS executives.

AMS Whistler Lodge/ AMS Office Renovations:

$21,900 for the Whistler Lodge, including: $1,800 for bunk bed improvements to combat bed lice; $6,600 for painting and patching walls; $9,000 for carpeting; $3,000 to build a boot storage area near the lodge entrance.
$16,000 to move, divide and create some new offices in the SUB for some of their employees.

Code Changes 2009: VP Admin Assistant: Crystal gets to hire an assistant to maintain her sanity.

Appointments Review Committee: Concern expressed that $8/h is too low; how wages are set and hours calculated; differentiation between wage and salary positions; whether some positions are necessary. Mostly however, I was going through a post-11pm zone out for the majority of the discussion. Wages set for the following positions:

Equity and Diversity Coordinator – $9.62/hr
Assistant to VP Admin - $8/hr
Executive Projects Assistant –$8/hr
Internship Coordinator (AMS Connect Assistant Coordinator) – $10.23/hr
Campus Development Commissioner –$8/hr
First Year Seminar Commissioner - $8/hr
International Students Commissioner - $8/hr
Childcare Commissioner - $8/hr
Olympics Commissioner - $8/hr
AVP External - $10,380 per annum”

Blake ceasing and desisting: You should probably just read the motion for yourself:

BIRT AMS Council direct the President to cease and desist any imposition of deadlines regarding the submission of motions above and beyond what is specifically enumerated in the AMS Code of Procedures, Bylaws and Constitution

This motion came from Matt Naylor. Background: AMS council meetings are always Wednesday evenings. Sometimes, motions would come up and councilors would claim that they were previously unaware of the motion or had not received supporting documentation. At Blake Frederick's first meeting as president, he asked that agenda items be in by the previous Friday.

This was misinterpreted as being a hard deadline imposed unilaterally, when Code actually says agenda items must be in 72h prior to the meeting, which would be Sunday 6 pm. Blake stated that he was merely trying to give councilors the courtesy of extra time to look things over; he has never rejected motions that come in after Friday but meet the 72h timeline; he will gladly follow council's wishes on this topic; felt a bit slighted that the motion came the way it was, he thought it would have been more appropriate as an informal discussion period.

Matt simply felt that sometimes committees need a bit more time to work on items and Friday was too early; he also didn't intend the motion to sound as confrontational as it does; also felt that if the deadline needed to be changed it should come from Code and Policy, not the president.

A lot of councilors appreciated having the weekend to go over agenda items and the extra time available to consult with constituents, if necessary. Andrew Carne advocated for the pragmatic solution: send out preliminary agendas on Friday with as much as possible included (especially the more involved motions) with the final agenda sent out Monday. Sounds like a good plan. Motion failed 15-3.

External Lobbying: So maybe that $30,000 was not spent so well. This entry is too long already, so for background I will direct you to this Ubyssey editorial as well as a related radical beer tribune post. There was quite an in depth discussion, but I will kept it shallow cause I'm tired.

The AMS external office recently released a report card on the parties' platforms in this election which was up on the AMS website. It has now been removed, but I've uploaded it here. Rating the parties? That makes the AMS look partisan when they are not supposed to be; extremely partisan since the BC liberals got a big fat F. Council decided to pull the report card off their website, and not distribute it anymore.

Also, have you seen ads like this around campus?

Well, AMS council never said that lowering tuition fees was one of the principles they were lobbying on in this provincial election, so these posters are misrepresenting the AMS's priorities. Not to mention only the Greens are promising tuition reduction so it could also be considered partisan. All of these posters are to be taken down.

Essentially, this boondoggle was all due to the fact that the external office didn't follow proper procedures when putting together the campaign. It made a campaign based on the VPX's priorities and judgement, not council's or the External Policy Committee's. So, the $30,000 spent on the provincial election campaign? A waste of resources on a partially botched campaign and the AMS admits it.

Class dismissed. Next Meeting May 27.

UBC in the news

2009-05-04T23:30:00.001-07:00

I definitely don't want to turn into a news aggregator blog, but there have been a number of UBC news items lately that I thought were interesting and wanted to share. And trust me, I think it's totally lame when I read something that is just a recap of other stories I've already read or heard about. So hopefully there is something in here you didn't know about yet...

The NDP wants to give $200,000 per year to the UBC Farm.

But only if they form a government. That's a rather large 'if'. Hooray for pandering!
Hwi Lee, the student who sent email threats resulting in a lockdown of the BioSciences building, was given a conditional sentence of one year, as well as a six month curfew. In addition, he has to stay away from UBC, will have two years of probation and has to write a letter to the Ubyssey explaining the incident.

I guess the judge doesn't read UBC Insiders - too bad.
The family of Karol Jaholkowski, a man who fell off a fraternity house roof at Arts County Fair 2007, is suing UBC and a fellow fraternity brother for the injury.

I guess they don't read UBC Insiders either. Otherwise they'd know lawsuits like that don't work.

Incidents like this no doubt contributed to the RCMP crackdown on alcohol. However, I am 99.9999999% sure this did not occur at a licenced event, so if incidents like this are used to justify the stricter rules, it's a red herring.

A Vancouver Sun story with more details from right after the accident can be found here.
Metro Vancouver won't be getting compensated for land in Pacific Spirit Park that was expropriated by the province. The two parcels of land in PSP, and the University Golf Course were to be given to the Musqueam First Nation in a land deal reached in 2007.

There is still hope that one day Hampton Place can be expropriated and turned into student residences.
It costs >$200K to rent the arena for a weekend. That's according to a lawsuit UBC launched, claiming they were not paid for an Anthony Robbins appearance on campus last fall.

I'm not sure The Power Within will be welcome at UBC again. This was one of the first non-hockey events to be held at Thunderbird Arena and a test of how disruptive these types of events would be to UNA residents. Everything was going fine until, unbeknownst to UBC, they decided to set up drumming and fire-walking outside the building...
On my walk towards the bus recently, I noticed someone had kindly disposed of their UBC parking ticket on the ground. If anyone is curious, they have now started writing *WARNING ONLY* tickets, with threats of towing. I'm guessing they are doing it in order to log the plate numbers so they'll know if you are making a habit of not paying. That's strike one for you, Mr. Silver 4-Door Nissan.

The best part of the ticket is the last line on the back: "This Traffic Notice is issued by authority of the Board of Governors of The University of British Columbia." Whoops.
In NCAA-related news, Western Washington University (in Bellingham) folded their Div II football team last year due to financial constraints. Some of those ex-WWU players are coming to UBC to join the Thunderbirds.

From the article: "If you can get school paid for just for playing football, that is awesome. But the whole point of college for me, is to get my degree," says Kelly Kurisu. There was nothing stopping him from getting his degree at WWU since the university did not go under, to the best of my knowledge. I wonder what incentives Athletics offered him to come here.

Pierre Shakes It Up

2009-05-02T00:43:00.000-07:00

Pierre Ouillet, UBC's recently hired VP Finance, Resources, Operations is getting down to business. In a memo dated April 2, significant changes to the structure of many units in his portfolio were outlined. At first, it may seem strange that one of the stated aims was "an imperative to streamline and simplify our organizational structure to improve impact and efficiency" when in fact it could be argued that even more layers of bureaucracy were added. Nevertheless, let's press on and find out more about these changes.

There used to be a log-linear graph in the Physics department of the number of Presidents, VPs, AVPs, students and faculty over time, extrapolated to the point where there'd be more AVPs than students. Adding more admin positions? Is it Thursday already?
- Darren Peets

The revised organizational chart can be found here. Although there are a number of blank spaces on the chart, no positions are actually vacant. Other than, that, it's a pretty standard, boring org. chart.

Wait a minute... Al, is that you? Al Poettcker?! OH MY GOODNESS, what are you doing there? UBC will be going to court to claim that your organization is not under their control. But somebody snuck you and Philip Falls onto that org. chart anyways, perched right beside Pierre in the top middle. This must be some sort of conspiracy.

The Bare Necessities: Food and Housing

The merger between Food and Housing is already running full speed ahead with Andrew Parr, formerly Director of UBC Food Services, on top of the combined unit. UBC Food is now moved into the VP Students portfolio and the UBC-O food and housing units are also included. This merger coincides with the departure of Fred Fotis, former director of UBC Housing, for greener pastures. Most student politicians I have talked to were not fans of Mr. Fotis and Andrew Parr will bring a more student-focused approach with him.

The merger makes sense in that there is obviously a lot of interplay between the departments already. Cafeterias in residence are already integrated, while conferences and catering certainly do plenty of business together as well. However, Andrew Parr has no experience dealing with housing and childcare issues. While he considers housing a functioning department already (meaning that there is no need for any major overhaul; just continued management), long-standing challenges remain. The childcare situation is still at the top of many people's minds, while the length of the waiting list for residence still poses problems.

Two different strategic planning processes are now underway: one for childcare and one for housing. We'll see how much of a priority the AMS and GSS truly put on these issues, since there is a much bigger opportunity to drive change at this point in the process rather than simply bitching about the results later. The strategic planning will also be influenced by the results of the ongoing campus plan process. As we all saw during the last round of consultations, C&CP was hedging their bets on being able to use the "future housing reserves" (aka the UBC Farm) in every one of their plans. Now that that appears not to be an option, don't hold your breath waiting for C&CP to come up with some wonderful plan for all this stuff. I'm going to tentatively say that Andrew Parr's lack of experience in housing and childcare issues may actually be a good thing if he's able to cut through the bullshit and end up with a plan that could actually work.

Pierre puts UBC on a diet: Let's lose those LBS!

Some ancillaries have operated in an environment where funding had to come from charging services to other units. While it sounded like a good idea at the time, it had [created] some adverse behaviors - overcharging for services, creating internal bureaucracy.
-Pierre Ouillet

The Land and Building Services portfolio, which was responsible for infrastructure at UBC, has been dispersed among a few portfolios. UBC Trek and the Sustainability Office now find themselves under Campus and Community Planning. Building Operations takes over Plant Ops and Utilities. Infrastructure Development comes into its own with former Plant Ops head John Metras on top. I'll let Alex explain this one:

Putting the former director of Plant Ops responsible for liaising with Properties will hopefully fix one of the problems with Properties: they don't give a shit about life cycle--just capital costs.
-Alex Lougheed

Not only does this help advance UBC's sustainability ethos, it just seems like common sense at this point. One of the themes of this shakeup is having UBC's departments working together as a team towards a common goal. The point that Properties Trust needs to adjust their way of thinking about how they do business has been brought up before. This appears to be the follow through. I again feel compelled to point out the complete lack of control UBC has over Properties.

I guess any reform of Plant Ops at this point is a lost cause. They get shuffled, but with no real changes.

Despite the disappearance of Land and Building Services, the former AVP in charge isn't leaving, he's leading. Geoff Atkins is now UBC's "Leader of University Sustainability". I hope to expand on Geoff and his new role in a future post, but in short: Geoff is free to use UBC as his playground to test and implement new ideas about sustainability. What strikes me most about Geoff is that he takes problems and thinks about them completely differently that most people would. This is an amazing quality and makes him seem well-suited to a blue sky position like this; it also leads to his ideas sounding alternately brilliant and crazy (and sometimes both). He is truly passionate about sustainability issues which makes me hope he will be able to make the most of this opportunity.

HR moved under Toope

The VP Ops/Fin portfolio lost some more weight by having HR now report to President Toope. I honestly haven't a clue why this change was made. Pierre Ouillet's charming assertion that it "reflects the importance we are putting on our people," definitely does not fly with me. This is where you are supposed to help me out in the comments section.

There were other changes as well; this post touched on the ones I found most interesting. The original memo is linked at the top, so read it for the full list.

Freedom of Information Applies to UBC's Corporate Entities

2009-04-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

UBC just got a little more transparent.

A very recent ruling from the Office of the Infomation and Privacy Commissioner for BC has ruled that UBC must release records requested under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) for three of its subsidiaries: UBC Properties Investment Ltd., UBC Research Enterprises Inc. and UBC Investment Management Trust.

The FIPPA request was initiated by Stanley Tromp, a former UBC student and Ubyssey reporter who, in 2001, also managed to force the release of Coca-Cola's 12-year exclusivity contract with UBC and the AMS.

The initial request asked for the annual report, salary of the highest ranking employee and meeting minutes from 7 organizations associated with UBC:

UBC Properties Investments Ltd., and UBC Properties Trust
Discovery Parks Inc.
UBC Foundation
University Golf Club, and University Golf Course
UBC Research Enterprises Inc.
BC Research Inc.
UBC Investment Management Trust

UBC denied the requests, asserting that these organizations are private organizations, and therefore FIPPA does not apply. Mr. Tromp then requested a review by the Office of the Infomation and Privacy Commissioner for BC resulting in the ruling linked above.

In the end, it was found that UBC Properties Investment Ltd., UBC Research Enterprises Inc. and UBC Investment Management Trust are "under the control of a public body" and therefore must fulfill FIPPA requests. While UBC tried to pull out all the stops in arguing why the records of these bodies were not under their control, the adjudicator seemed distinctly unimpressed with their arguments and rejected all of them as being irrelevant, contrary to the spirit of the law, or inconsistent with precedent.

The adjudicator pointed out that the three organizations were incorporated by UBC, 100% owned by UBC, must report to UBC administration and/or BoG, and most if not all of their directors are UBC employees or BoG members. That constitutes "control".

The other four organizations were found not to be under UBC's control and not required to disclose the requested documents. UBC has thirty days to appeal the ruling.

Update April 27: UBC does intend to appeal.

Want chairs? Perhaps... 99 of them?

2009-04-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

In case you were unaware, 99 Chairs and Trek Express will be closed for the summer in order to undergo renovations. 99 Chairs is kaput, to be replaced by a White Spot. Pizza Pizza and Timmy's will be staying put and the sandwich place will get a new name familiar to those in Vanier: Stackables.

So, without further ado, here's your Craigslist ad of the day. Chairs and tables from Trek Express and 99 Chairs can be yours for as low as $5! Not only that, Andrew Parr, the head honcho over at UBC Food Services is actually volunteering to take calls on the weekend to sell their stuff on Craigslist. Folks, that is what is known as dedication, or possibly just workaholism. Give this man a promotion!

Actually... UBC did just promote him. But that is another topic for another post!

A few weeks ago, I went to 99 Chairs for the first and last time, mostly to be able to write this post without being completely uninformed. (According to my co-worker, the main reason most people went to 99 Chairs was to buy beer on your meal card.) Although the food was passable, I did get the sense that this was a worn-out restaurant - no pizazz or excitement. It could certainly use some sprucing up. But... a White Spot?

Really?

I don't think UBC Food Services runs franchises very well. Like many university campuses, with a near-monopoly on campus food service, there is only a token effort to be competitive. (Check out this other Craigslist ad too . They go out of their way to tout “No competition” as one of the best qualities of their UBC business.) Personally, I thought the whole idea of having a franchised restaurant is that all the locations are pretty much the same. UBC Food is running the black sheep of all of these corporate families. (For the record, UBC Food describes their franchises as being “non-traditional”.)

Much like my beloved Shopper's Drug Mart which refused to honour Shopper's Drug Mart flyers, nowhere except A&W accepts coupons. The Subway in the SUB doesn't ever participate in the never-ending Subway promotions and in fact, their regular prices are slightly higher than average. The Tim Hortons at Trek Express doesn't accept Tim Hortons gift cards which are being heavily promoted chain-wide, though I'll note they do participate in Roll Up the Rim; there probably would be a revolt if they ignored that one. Have you ever been to another Manchu Wok that closes at 2:30 pm and is never open on weekends? How about a Tim Hortons that closes at 3:30 pm and is likewise restricted to Monday to Friday? Heck, McDonald's in the Village is open to 3 AM!

So you may have guessed by now that I'm not terribly excited about White Spot. Don't worry, there will be no Durganesque rant about the horrible dangers of corporations. Instead, I am wondering how much time and effort is going into this plan. After all the dust has settled, what real changes will we see? My prediction: not much. The food will still be mediocre, the hours terrible, they won't participate in White Spot promotions, and you'll have to start tipping. It seems like a completely lateral move from what 99 Chairs was, except that it will take a large amount of money (franchise fee of $75,000 and an initial investment of $750,000 - $2,500,000) and effort to get there. What's the point?

UBC's ancillaries, UBC Food included, could definitely serve students and the larger UBC community better with a different set of priorities. If you read the documentation of UBC Food's visit to BoG in February, there is a long list of objectives they are working on. Reading it as a potential customer of theirs, I could not find a single objective where I read it and thought “Oh, that's a good idea.” I guess potential customers is not a market segment they are hoping to attract.

Some things about ancillary structure are indeed changing soon, driven by UBC Admin. The full details aren't out there quite yet, but I'm sure you'll hear more as it develops.

I will give UBC Food some brownie points for the simple fact that they are not Aramark or Sodexo. Still, I can't help but thinking that they are wasting a lot of resources on initiatives that, in my opinion, have no real benefit in the end. If they really have so much money and time they wish to expend to improve food service on this campus, I have ideas for some more tangible ways to do it:

Lower prices. That's pretty self-explanatory. While I would not describe myself as a poor, starving student, I am cheap and would love the food to be more affordable.

Keep longer hours. As a grad student, I habitually work evenings and weekends. I also work year round. Over the summer, dinnertime service at UBC Food outlets stops. Surprisingly, my body's need for dinner does not.

Stop running “non-traditional” franchises. Start accepting coupons and participating in specials at ALL of the chain locations. Please stop abusing the fact that there is very little competition at UBC.

Follow the AMS's lead and invest in water fountains at any location big enough to handle it. Put a fountain in Trek Express over the summer, and follow it up with some more around the dining area of Pacific Spirit Place.

From the Archives

2009-04-15T23:27:00.000-07:00

Please accept my apologies in advance to those who find copy and paste posts offensive.

I was recently introduced to CanLII, a site that archives court decisions. After a brief search for "UBC", I found this one which was too funny not to pass along.

"The plaintiff says that U.B.C. should not have left a goal upright on McInnes Field at night. I reject the suggestion that the goal as it stood was an allurement or trap to the plaintiff, an adult male, to use as a kind of jungle gym."

An excerpt, condensed and edited to remove extraneous information:

The plaintiff claims damages for injuries suffered when, after clambering onto the crossbar of a portable soccer goal at the University of British Columbia, the goal tipped forward, the plaintiff fell and the crossbar hit his face.

The plaintiff, aged 33 years, is an unemployed mill worker living in Prince George. On Friday, 10 March 1990 he was staying with a friend in Vancouver. He went out with his friend early in the evening for Chinese food. He drank two bottles of beer. After returning to his friend's apartment he left to go out for the evening with another friend, Brian Saarela. They went to a cabaret for an hour or so where the plaintiff said he had one bottle of beer. After waiting in a line-up to get into the Kitsilano Pub, the two friends decided instead to drive to the Pit, a drinking establishment for students at U.B.C. They arrived there shortly after 11 p.m. and stayed for an hour and a half or so. The plaintiff said that while there he drank three or four pints of beer.

The plaintiff had not visited the U.B.C. campus before. He was taken there in Brian Saarela's truck. Saarela parked his truck in a parking lot at the side of McInnes Field, a large grassed sports field adjacent to the Student Union Building which houses the Pit. The plaintiff and Saarela walked across McInnes Field to get to the Student Union Building. There were portable goals on and around the field (perhaps four in total).

The two friends emerged from the Pit at about 12:30 a.m. and began retracing their steps across McInnes field to get to their vehicle. The two men approached a portable goal which was standing upright on the field. The plaintiff began to walk across the front of the goal. Saarela saw his friend put his right hand on the goal's left upright post. He saw nothing more until a few seconds later he heard a thump and saw his friend lying face up on the ground with the goal's crossbar across his chest. Saarela's attention had been diverted when he was fumbling in his pocket for his watch and then dropped it.

The plaintiff says that he jumped up and grabbed the crossbar with both hands. He was facing along the line of the crossbar. He pulled himself up to the bar and then threw his right leg up and around it. Then says the plaintiff, "I think I felt it let go - something give...it happened so fast, I didn't have time to do anything...I was on the ground...with the crossbar on my face".

Brian Saarela assisted the plaintiff back to his truck and drove him to the nearby emergency ward of the U.B.C. Hospital. The plaintiff was found to have suffered severe facial injuries. It was the view of both the emergency ward doctor, and the plastic surgeon intern who saw him later that night at the Vancouver General Hospital, that the plaintiff had been drinking heavily.

The plaintiff says that U.B.C. should not have left a goal upright on McInnes Field at night. I reject the suggestion that the goal as it stood was an allurement or trap to the plaintiff, an adult male, to use as a kind of jungle gym.

Even if it can be said that U.B.C. should have reasonably anticipated that the occasional nighttime visitor, inebriated or not, might try to do chin-ups on an encounter with the portable goal while crossing McInnes Field, that I find is not what happened in this case.

I regret the plaintiff's serious injury, but must conclude that he was the author of his own misfortune.

The plaintiff's claim must be dismissed with costs on scale 3.

AUS Election Results

2009-04-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

The AUS Elections happened quite recently, and the results are posted below. I'm a little bit saddened, in general, by elections of both the AUS and SUS- a fair number of the positions this year were uncontested or were yes/no votes. In fact, the UBC Debate Society's election was more contested than either election (only 2 yes/no votes), just to use an example that I'm familiar with. I don't know much about the candidates in this race, but I do recognize some of the names of the AMS reps- Matt Naylor will be continuing on in student politics, and I'm pleased to see Mike Silley there as well. Kristian Arciaga will be taking on the VP Fin job, which he should also be fantastic for given his enthusiasm about student governance this year. I'd just like to see more names and fewer yes/no votes next year!

Referendum
Yes 157
No 224

President (1)
Guillaume Houle 150
Ryan Trasolini 147

VP Finance (1)
Kristian Arciaga
Yes 232
No 47

VP Internal (1)
Tracy Leung
Yes 199
No 24

VP External (1)
Kyle Warwick
Yes 194
No 26

VP Academic (1)
Regina Tay
Yes 187
No 15

VP Administration (1)
Cheryl Kornder
Yes 196
No 19

Social Coordinator (1)
Uncontested

Promotions Coordinator (1)
Katie Fedosenko
Yes 175
No 17

Student Services Coordinator (1)
Laura Manyari
Yes 182
No 21

MASS Coordinator (1)
Alina Kwan
Yes 179
No 24

AMS Representatives (5)
Kyle Warwick 182
Mike Silley 152
Matthew Naylor 141
Carolee Changfoot 137
Jeremy McElroy 132
Jeremy Wood 126

General Officers (2)
Sarah Bihis
Yes 178
No 40

Kelsi Biring
Yes 187
No 32

Social Officer (1)
Richa Sharma
Yes 169
No 22

Promotions Officer (1)
Uncontested

Student Services Officer (1)
Judy Yuen
Yes 173
No 19

MASS Officer (1)
Pelican Mann
Yes 197
No 40

Introducing Neal Yonson

2009-04-07T20:34:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I would like to extend a warm welcome to Neal, who will be joining the Insiders team! Neal has already done some writing for us, as you all well know by know, and has been really passionate about some of the things going on at UBC, particularly those to do with the NCAA. He is a graduate student in chemistry who is familiar with the way the university works, and I'm really glad to have him on board!

Apologies for my lack of posting, by the way- my 7 courses caught up with me and I'm now trying to catch up on about 10 chapters of reading that I put off to do my papers/lab reports/midterm studying! I will resume writing once things have settled down a bit.

Stay Safe

2009-04-04T21:05:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have heard the news today about a woman who was killed in Pacific Spirit Park on what appears to be a random attack while she was out for a run/walk around 41st and Camosun. I just wanted to make a quick post in relation to it, as I know that with upcoming exams, lots of people seek exercise as a form of stress relief. I would like to remind everyone to stay safe, to not go to places where you may be vulnerable, to not run with headphones if you are running in the woods or by yourself, and to stay alert and aware of your surroundings and preferably not go out on your own if you're going somewhere isolated. This incident has affected me personally, and I would hate to hear any more news about anyone getting hurt. So please- be aware, follow some of the suggestions laid out by the police: always jog or cycle with a companion, do not wear headphones, carry a whistle or personal alarm, wear visible clothing, and take a cell phone.

Link to the story: "http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Tragedy+Ladner+family+park+murder+victim+identified/1462387/story.html

Please take care.

Collect $200 As You Pass Go

2009-04-03T00:45:00.000-07:00

As a number of media sites have already reported, UBC lost its parking case at the BC Supreme Court. The court found that UBC has no authority to issue parking tickets or collect money for parking violations. I know what you're thinking...

Well, not necessarily.

The suit focused on UBC's ability to issue parking tickets and collect money for parking violations. And as it turns out, they can't. However, UBC's ability to regulate parking, charge for parking and enforce parking were not at issue. UBC can still legally do all these things.

What will be interesting to see is whether of not UBC comes up with a genuine, reasonable response to this. From the beginning, it never seemed like they were taking this lawsuit very seriously and were basically trying to bully their way out of it. It's never a good sign when you abandon your main defense right before the trial. And so far, after the decision, everything they've done has merely been posturing. They've already said they'll appeal. They also released a bulletin which I can't help but snicker at.

"Nothing to see here, folks... business as usual... here is some legalese to obscure what's really going on... continue overpaying us for parking... if you do not continue to pay us you will unleash a traffic Armageddon... and if we do have to tow you, please know we're only doing it for your own good."

The result of the ruling is that now, the only way UBC can enforce parking regulations is by either 1) asking everyone nicely to continue paying for parking, or 2) towing and impounding vehicles. I really hope UBC thinks long and hard before using option #2 given that heavy-handed application of parking rules is what got them into this mess in the first place. If they start towing cars left, right and centre, they are eventually going to end up with another lawsuit on their hands.

I don't have a whole lot more to add, but was hoping to hear what people think about this in the comments because I think it's a very interesting development. No other campus blog has mentioned it and the Ubyssey won't have the story ready until next Tuesday.

Personally I am interested in learning that if this judgement is upheld on appeal, what are the broader implications? There must be other instances where UBC has granted themselves powers they are not legally entitled to under the University Act. Anybody know?

NCAA Committee Results

2009-03-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

After almost a year, the NCAA Division II Review Committee has finally released its final report regarding UBC-V’s potential application to NCAA Division II. At 588 pages including appendices it’s a monster, but unless you are an absolute nut for documents, the first 28 should suffice, along with the Consultation Summary Report which was posted online earlier this month (also included in the overall report).

So what exactly does it say?

I will mention at this point that I sit on the NCAA committee as a representative of the AMS (and by extension, students at large) and was involved in the whole process of arriving at this final document, so I hope you'll excuse me if I'm very careful in my analysis. I should also point out the obvious fact that I am speaking on behalf of myself only, not on behalf of the committee.

I would also like to say that at the beginning of this process, many people had fears that this would be a rubber-stamp, faux-consultation situation. I hope that after reading the report and consultation summary, no one continues to feel that way.

The first important thing to note in this report is what it doesn't say. While there are recommendations contained within, it does not take a stand on the whole underlying issue: should UBC join the NCAA Division II?

While the committee could not come up with a definitive answer, President Toope will have to (but not necessarily soon.) Publicly he has been very quiet on the subject of the NCAA and it's impossible to guess what the final outcome will be.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Do you agree or disagree that UBC Vancouver should proceed with an application for membership in the NCAA Division II?
Agree – 48%
Disagree – 52%
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

What is clear is that it will take a lot of leadership to simply make a decision - any decision. One of the recommendations contained in the report is that UBC complete its communications plan prior to announcing its decision. The cynical view of this recommendation is that UBC will be trying to use a PR campaign to push through an unpopular decision. Unfortunately for UBC and the cynics out there, any decision they make will be unpopular, which is why this recommendation is vital. If public opinion above is to be believed, the outcome is the same: you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Recommendation A: Should UBC Vancouver decide to proceed with an application for membership in the NCAA Division II, the committee recommends that the University, prior to making any application for membership, seek an exemption from the requirement of academic accreditation.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

This is a BIG DEAL. NCAA bylaws require all member institutions to be accredited by a US accrediting agency. While some faculties like Sauder and Medicine already get US accreditation, most of the university doesn't. As mentioned in the report, the accreditation process would cost, at minimum, $500k-$1M every year. The university would be the one paying for this, diverting these funds from research and learning. Dealbreaker #1.

As well, many areas of the university would have to alter the way they develop curricula to suit the new accreditation requirements. You would need widespread buy-in from faculty to make this happen and that doesn't seem likely. Dealbreaker #2.

Seeking US accreditation simply so that our sports teams can play in the NCAA is absurd. It's possible that the NCAA could exempt UBC from this accreditation requirement, with the recognition that we already have Canadian accreditation and oh yeah, we're pretty reputable to boot. If that exemption comes, the door to the NCAA is still open. If not, that door is slammed shut.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
...members of Division II believe that a well-conducted intercollegiate athletics program, based on sound educational principles and practices, is a proper part of the educational mission of a university or college and that the educational well-being and academic success of the participating student-athlete is of primary concern.
-From NCAA Division II Philosophy Statement
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

One of the things that needs to be made clear is that Div II != Div I, and that's a good thing. Div II does have a strong commitment to academics and it appears this commitment isn't simply idle chatter. It was refreshing to learn that schools in Division II take this ethos seriously and practice it.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The committee believes that were UBC Vancouver to join the NCAA Division II, there would be an inherent pressure to seek membership in Division I.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Of course, it's never that simple, right? UC-San Diego is a fascinating case study and the only academic comparator to UBC in Division II. Formerly a Division III school, they moved up to Division II because they were simply too large of a school to fit with other Division III schools. Despite moving up, they are now facing pressure to move up again, to Division I. Alarmingly, it is believed that if UBC were in Division II, we would also be under constant pressure to move up to Division I. For UBC, the thought of Division I should be absolutely out of the question for so many reasons that I don't have enough fingers and toes to count them.

Much of this pressure to move up is inherent in being an institution which is much larger than your peers. Based on my research, of the 282 Division II schools, only 6 have more than 20,000 students (UCSD is second most populous, at ~29,000). UBC would easily eclipse those schools in size. If UCSD were to move up to Division I, UBC would be left with no academic comparators in Division II, likely adding even more pressure for UBC to move up as well.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The student body at the University of California, San Diego, an academic comparator to UBC Vancouver, exhibits a level of campus interest in varsity athletics that is not dissimilar to that seen at UBC Vancouver. This is explained in part by the fact that students do not see the competing Division II member institutions as what can be termed “fraternal institutions”.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

In the consultation discussion guide the only potential benefit listed for regular students is "enhancing school spirit and pride". The committee found that it is extremely unlikely that having the NCAA on campus will have any positive effect on fan support. In fact, it might even get worse since the Division II schools have zero name recognition. Getting people out to games requires marketing, plain and simple, and that can be done regardless of where UBC plays.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
These financial indicators suggest that Athletics and Recreation is in a sound financial position as evidenced by its seven-figure net income in each of the past two years.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The revelation that UBC Athletics is in a good financial situation should come as news to no one. Although Athletics has certain unrealistic financial expectations regarding joining the NCAA (such as >100% increase in gate revenues), in the short term joining the NCAA wouldn't change the budgets much.

What happens after the short term is the unanswered million-dollar question (or more likely a multi-million dollar question). UBC's varsity budget currently stands at about CAD$4.5M. The average varsity budget of a NCAA Division II school with football in the first quartile is around USD$9M (at current exchange rates, about CAD$11M.) As mentioned above, UBC would be by far the largest school in Division II. In the long term, would UBC Athletics be happy at current varsity funding levels? Or would they try to drastically increase their varsity budget to bring it in line with other large Division II schools?

So what about UCSD, who moved up from Div III? Well, in 2007 they passed a fee referendum that saw their athletics fee more than triple, going from $95 to $329 (!) This increase effectively doubled the budget of their athletic department, in order to put them in the same realm as other large Division II schools.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
UBC Vancouver’s consideration of application for membership in the NCAA Division II has proved a catalyst for opening discussions about changes to the CIS.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) is still a big question mark, in that they have been oddly silent. While there have been meetings between UBC and CIS officials, nothing particularly notable came out of them. CIS did release a document last October in an attempt to demonstrate their commitment to excellence but it isn't clear if action is following their words. While visiting Ottawa in February, I went into the CIS offices to ask if they had released anything else relevant since then. The answer was no.

Whether or not CIS intends on changing anything is still a mystery. Hopefully more will be revealed at the CIS AGM in early June. Bob Philip was asked about whether he would still want to be in the NCAA if CIS were to adopt NCAA-style financial aid rules and a higher calibre of play. The response was a non-committal. For athletics, it seems like the dislike of CIS goes deeper than just the rules on the surface.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The committee observed that the operations of UBC Athletics and Recreation were not well understood by the academic units of the university.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And that brings us to the last recommendation: an advisory committee to facilitate communication between Athletics and the academic departments. UBC seems to be very committee-happy though that might be a symptom of any large organization. All I can say is that it's not a bad idea, but if a committee of this type is formed, it needs to have some real powers, not just talk about things. Being able to report directly to the president, as proposed in the report, would give this committee some much-needed clout.

I encourage you to read the report for the full story and to make up your own mind. I hope the Ubyssey has something upcoming on this report, since they (Justin McElroy in particular) have had lots of meaningful NCAA coverage this year.

ACF Cancelled

2009-03-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

This just in as a press release from the AUS:

UBC BUREAUCRACY AND RCMP CANCEL ACF REVIVAL
March 16, 2009 – Despite months of planning and organization, Arts County Fair will not be not be revived in 2009. Approval for the Arts Undergraduate Society’s (AUS) April 3, 2009 event has been denied by the UBC Classroom Services and the RCMP. This event, a revival of the largest student run event in Canada which was forced to be cancelled due to logistical difficulties in 2007, was to be held on Main Mall between the Flag Pole Plaza and Neil Wyman Plaza. Preparations and early promotions were already underway, in the assumption that an agreement in good faith could be reached with all relevant parties. During the process, the AUS consistently approached concerns with nothing but good faith and a willingness to compromise in order to ensure that this event could take place. Through such a process,Capt. Bill Douglas of Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services and the AUS were able to modify the event plans appropriately, gaining the approval of the VFRS. Similar meeting took place with the RCMP’s Sgt. Dan Wendland. Classroom Services denied the AUS' request to book the Main Mall venue on February 26, 2009, citing “concerns raised by internal parties at UBC.” AUS requests for more information, including suggestions on how to change the event plan to gain approval were not answered. The AUS began an appeal of Classroom Services' decision, finally being granted a meeting with Classroom Services staff. On March 13th, the AUS was notified by Classroom Services that the RCMP's University Detachment has was refusing to entertain any request for the Main Mall venue, despite verbal agreements to the contrary. “I was shocked at the decision,” said event organizer Mike Kushnir, “I had expected that the good word and the handshake of Sgt. Wendland would hold our agreement in principle until other logistical difficulties could be dealt with.”
The AUS and RCMP had tentatively negotiated a capacity of 2,500 patrons, on the clearly stated understanding of the AUS that, in order to ensure sufficient supplementary police resources would be available, the AUS may be expected to cover some of those costs. The AUS is disappointed by the lack of willingness to negotiate and collaborate in good faith on the part of Classroom Services. The inability to secure meetings to engage in a dialogue regarding existing concerns was a significant problem - only after speaking with senior administrators in the VP Students office was a request to meet with Justin Marples, head of Classroom Services, granted. During the meeting Marples was adversarial and disrespectful, displaying the lack of good faith that has characterized this process.
The AUS had been willing to make significant changes to event plans and specifically meet with and address concerns of campus stakeholders. “It seems to me as if we were the only ones in this process with any willingness to come to the table,” said AUS President Avneet ‘AJ’ Johal.

Sorry about the formatting- I'll try to fix it a touch later. Thoughts on the matter? I'm always slightly skeptical when I do hear only one side of the story, and it seems that a statement such as this won't do the AUS too many favours if they would like to hold the ACF in future years (calling someone adversarial and disrespectful is a touch antagonistic, no?). It seems that the only way to really be able to have the ACF again is to demonstrate that the AUS is capable of hosting a big event that does not result in the problems of previous years. It's too bad that Classroom Services was not willing to uphold the verbal agreement, however, as that doesn't do much to strengthen the relationship between students and the university- really, both sides need to demonstrate a degree of trust. And maybe a written agreement would be better next time, given that verbal statements can be interpreted differently by different parties.

SUS Elections

2009-03-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Results are as follows:

President
Jimmy Yan

VP Internal
Amandeep Sehra

VP External
Sumedha Sharma

Director of Administration
Jennifer Fong

Director of Finance
Justin Yang

Director of Sports
Soroush Liaghat

Public Relations Officer
Annie Yun

Senator
Bryan Tomlinson

Social Coordinator
Eugene Wong

AMS Representatives
Tahara Bhate
Maria Cirstea
Justin Yang
Aaron Sihota

SUS Elections- Turnout and Endorsements

2009-03-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

It would seem that SUS elections are facing a record-low turnout this year. So far, voter turnout is only about 1/3 of what it was last year. Granted, elections haven't really been promoted all that much- there have been reminders on the Science-wide email, as well as through other mailing lists. I would thus highly encourage everyone who has not yet voted to vote before noon tomorrow, where the voting period officially ends. So for everyone sitting at home and reading this- you have about 14 hours to match last year's turnout! So go to WebCT and vote- it will seriously take no more than about 1 minute of your time.

I do have some conjectures as to why voter turnout is so low, however. Despite the push for election advertising this year, many candidates are running unopposed, which reduces the incentive to really promote one's candidacy. Sadly, even with yes/no votes, it is highly unlikely that enough people will vote No to keep a candidate out of office, no matter how unqualified. Candidates who do have competition I feel are relying on popularity, to some degree, although there are some candidates who are definitely pushing to advertise elections and do classroom announcements- Jimmy Yan, Andrew Hurlburt, and Tagh Sira are among the candidates who have done so. The problem is that 3 people telling others to vote is not enough- you definitely need a critical mass of people promoting the elections to see a shift in attitude. When many students don't even bother to read emails that come from UBC/their faculty, promotion becomes much more important, and I'm not sure that enough is being done. I haven't seen the same level of posterage as in the past years. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that voting should also happen on paper, as it's much easier to get people walking by Ladha to vote right then and there than to get them to go get their laptops and then log in to do so.

Now, in terms of endorsements... I know some of the candidates too well personally to say definitively who I prefer, but I can do some analysis.

President
This one is tough- it's a hard choice between Tagh and Jimmy. Tagh has the advantage of having been on a variety of committees, he knows how the university works, he's a good team player, and he'll have lots of time on his hands next year (he's delaying graduating in order to run for the position, and last I heard he's intending to take 1 course next year, leaving him lots of time to do SUS stuff). He has been IT Manager this year, but that's also about all the SUS experience he has. Jimmy, on the other hand, has more SUS experience, having been VPI for 2 years, but is also going to be taking a full (or more than full) course load next year and will be writing an Honours thesis (before you all get suspicious of how I know this- we're in the same program, and I'll be in the same boat), which I feel would limit his time. He also has a more aggressive leadership style. That's about as much as I can say- the rest is up to voters, and I'd encourage you all to check out their platforms.

For all the unopposed positions, I am voting Yes. I know all of the candidates personally, and feel they would do a fine job in their positions.

Senate
I would vote for Bryan Tomlinson. I have had the pleasure of working with him in the past, and he is a very dedicated individual, and really does things on time. While Aaron has served on Council for longer, there have been rumblings of unhappiness about the job he has done as Director of Finance this year, and the budget for the 2008-2009 year was only passed at the end of November. He will also have his hands full with SLFS, which I feel would detract from the Senate job should be win that as well.

Director of Sports
Andrew Hurlburt is my pick- he's shown great enthusiasm, which is hugely important in this position, and he's had lots of experience with running similar events. He's also been involved with Council for a while, and knows the ropes, so to speak. He would definitely be my pick.

AMS Rep
This one is hard in the sense that I find it difficult to choose 4 candidates. So I only chose 2. My picks were Tahara, who has had a lot of experience, although I wished she would come to more meetings this year and let people know what's going on with the AMS. My other pick would be Justin, who has shown enthusiasm, dedication, but most importantly a genuine care for students, which I feel is a rare quality among people who run for the position. I know that's a bit harsh, but I think I'd like to see some effort to help the student community from a lot of the candidates, or at least some commitment to coming to Council meetings, getting to know the system, and actually being transparent about what goes on in the AMS. The AMS should not be used as a chance to launch a career in politics, it shouldn't be used as an opportunity to fill your resume up with impressive-sounding committee names, nor should it be joined for the purposes of hanging out with people you might know. The job entails representing students' interests- which can't really be done unless people actually talk to students, or at least attend Council meetings and talk to people there. This isn't a general seat- this is a seat for Science students, and as such, it is Science students' interests that must be represented. I'm slightly disenchanted with some of the other candidates, so please don't make me pick.

That concludes tonight's verbose discussion of more politics. Stay tuned for results!

SUS Elections

2009-03-09T22:53:00.001-07:00

I have been incredibly busy the past few weeks, but I do want to remind people to vote in the SUS elections. Voting is taking place on WebCT- so be sure to vote this week! I encourage you all to go to the SUS website and check out the candidates, what they have to say, and what their plans are for the next year. I would also encourage you to visit both the Spectator and the RBT to see their thoughts on the election. I will be posting more once my month of ridiculous busy-ness is over!

Also, I am currently looking for bloggers. I can't do it all by myself with 7 courses on my plate (pardon the pun), so if any of our readers are interested, please send me an email!

Frederick Ruling Overturned

2009-02-25T11:22:00.000-08:00

If you haven't already been informed - it looks like Blake Frederick's disqualification has been overturned.

More details to come.

Update 1: Hopefully the president elect will see to it that members of the Appointments Committee be chosen carefully, and the hiring of the EA happens, like, yesterday.

News of the Slate Hearing

2009-02-23T19:10:00.000-08:00

Some blogs are updating with live coverage- check out the Radical Beer Tribune or the UBC Spectator. So far, Blake, Ale, and Tristan have all laid out their cases. The latter two candidates were punished for slate-like behaviour by being fined $200 each. Most of the confusion/disgruntlement seems to stem around a couple of issues:

-what constitutes slate-like behaviour: candidates were told that they were allowed to make announcements together, yet at the same time not in a way that could be construed as slate-like (personal note: I saw several of these announcements, at no time did I feel like these candidates were a part of a slate. Nothing they said or did suggested that they were running together, and each candidate presented their own platforms only). Candidates said that they made announcements together between 5 and 10 times (out of between 25 and 50 announcements that each candidate made individually).

-being notified of disqualification: the EA did not notify Blake in person, and the other two candidates found out only about 1 week later that they had been disqualified. There seem to be some issues with email communication in general.

-Cookiegate and how many votes can be garnered in this way (i.e. by going door to door- the EAC tried it and got something like 4 votes in more than 2 hours, while the allegations were of 50-800 votes being made). Also, Cookiegate and how evidence was handled, whether or not people spoke with one another, and whether or not witnesses were friends of other candidates and were thus biased.

-the impartiality of the EAC and general bias

Decisions that were made:

-the Chief Justice will be looking at code, and a by-election for the SLFS could occur. I'm not totally sure why, but it looks like things may have been muddled with the nomination process- please correct me if I'm wrong, as I wasn't there.

-the Chief Justice also said that Sonia's appeal took too much time. From what I gathered, there was no evidence to substantiate her claims.

All in all, there are 4 appeals taking place- one about the SLFS (launched by Ed Durgan), one about the VP Academic/Uni Affaris race (launched by Sonia Purewal), one about the presidential race (launched by Blake Frederick), and one about the VP Finance race (launched by Ale). The latter two are based on the slate rulings (one is about the disqualification, the other about the fine). The Chief Justice presiding was Donald McIntyre.

2009-02-12T03:39:00.001-08:00

Philosophical ideas on slates, freedom of assembly, democracy etc can and have already been extensively debated on numerous other posts. As of right now, we should depart on a bit of a tangent in examining the system within the post-slate era that UBC students currently find themselves in. It seems to me like there are several issues to the recent disqualification of Blake Frederick.

There is an obvious inconsistency from year to year in the subjective interpretation of code. The question is whether there should be.

The interesting cases always arise when the political meets the judicial, and within this context let us consider the judicial party to be the four 20-something year old bushy-tailed individuals who have been appointed by councillors (last minute as always, is my guess), relying on partial evidence, but not obliged to follow any explicitly outlined procedure except for their own moral guidelines.

Of course, from year to year the Student Court anticipates being busy during this time of year, when candidates appeal the decision of the EA’s office, hoping their luck at a more “legal” or “official” body, traditionally consisting of students with at least some legal training.

Then there is the issue of whether or not AMS council, the highly political body, will decide to accept the appeals decision of the Student Court. It is in poor form not to do so, but as the archives are my witness, Council has overturned or rejected its rulings numerous times as it sees fit, at the moment’s political flavour at hand.

So, when we come back to the specific issue on slates and the recent disqualification of Mr Frederick, how robust should this interpretation of a code be from year to year? Should a candidate be “testing out” the mood of the EA, seeing what he or she can get away with?

Is campaigning alongside other candidates in the same room vehemently slate-like to one reasonable person, but a-ok with another?

Is the EA contradicting her own words when she disqualifies candidates who campaigned together in a cafeteria, but earlier allowed classroom announcements to be made together?

The subjective interpretation of reasonable standard becomes the gray zone in which the EA’s office enters the power play to make or break the political career of the candidates.

From year to year, this interpretation has differed. To quote Spencer Keys, father and founder of the post-slate era, the punitive measures on slate-oid activity has included:
“…in 2005 one candidate was found to have had his website registered and paid on the credit card of a candidate in another race. He got a 24hr campaign suspension.

In a more relevant example, despite lots of candidates doing speeches at the same time, it was ruled (if I recall correctly) that a line was crossed when one candidate told a classroom to "Vote progressive" when numerous candidates had explicitly identified themselves as "progressive." That person also received a campaign suspension (I think) but it hardly mattered anyway when they won by 500 votes. The first guy lost his position so it also didn't matter.”

Should there be a list of precedent rulings to be followed as general guidelines for the candidate’s sake, such that they know what is and is not considered slate-like behaviour? Keep in mind that these rulings themselves may have had their share of controversies, involving the Student Court and lateron Council.

Or perhaps in this post-slate era, there are very few people left who remember how blatantly obvious a slate was like, and the purpose behind banning them has reduced itself into a witch-hunt for even the most invisible alignments, friendships included?

It seems to me the EA’s were given no transition as to the intentions behind this particular section of code, and are now keen for the election to become so puritan to the point where a candidate should run in the other direction if someone else is postering on a prime location, or campaigning in the same cafeteria.

What a precedent.

While Drama continues...

2009-02-11T23:34:00.000-08:00

... the current president of the AMS has made some progress this year, demonstrating that the AMS can accomplish things for the students when it's not trying to sort out elections.

Hello Everyone,

Thank you all for your help and for joining this group. We have succeeded. Athletic fees for students will be dropping substantially starting Sept. 2009. The AMS and Athletics will be issuing a press release tomorrow which I will put on this facebook group. I am sure the Ubyssey will have more info in Friday's paper.

Some examples of the drops are as follows:
BirdCoop fees: 4 month pass $148 -> $25
Intramurals: all sports now between $5-10 per person per team (except hockey, which is being reduced, but not to those levels)
Aquatic Centre: free student access at all times
Thunderbird Winter Sports Complex: public skating -> free \\ all other drop in sports -> $2 \\ ice rentals -> 25 - 50 percent off
Tennis Centre: no deal worked out, still in progress

All these fees will be frozen for 3 years.

These drops have been realized due to the contribution students make to the department and the fact that the business model for the department has been doing quite well. These are also being realized because of the pressure the AMS has put on the department this past year. I would really like to recognize Neal Yonson, who has been integral in helping force these changes.

Now go make use of the reduced costs. Exercise and be merry.

Mike Duncan

I feel like this should serve to indicate to students that the AMS is looking out for their best interest, and that things can get done with some effort. I'm personally quite pleased, although I have yet to use the facilities. However, it's this sort of news that makes me have faith yet in the capacity of the AMS to change things for the better on campus. There are other examples as well, of course, but I want to bring this recent thing up as an indicator of the AMS working.

Vote in GSS elections!

2009-02-11T00:18:00.000-08:00

Ah, what's that in the air? It smells like the seemingly never ending elections cycle. While the AMS elections are sort-of-but-not-really-over, GSS elections are still going strong. This is a reminder that if you are a grad student, please vote! The GSS could do great things, but you need to make sure it has a strong, motivated executive. Voting details below.

Voting for the GSS Elections close on Monday, February 16th at 5pm. You can vote using the "Webvote" option when you log onto the SSC website. Information about the candidates can be found here. Election results will be made public 5pm on Thursday February 19th at Koerner's pub.

results photos!

2009-02-10T12:40:00.000-08:00

I've got them up here; there might be a commentary post up later but it seems sort of silly given what's going on.

My Reaction

2009-02-10T00:06:00.000-08:00

I promise I'll write more, but in the meantime, here's my reaction to it all. Be warned, it's not very sophisticated, but comes in several steps.

1.) Sigh.
2.) Plz growz up. Plz lern electrl code. Thx.
3.) Why am I getting so much email?!
4.) Please don't submit complaints out of spite. Please see number 2 above.
5.) Please make campaigning rules more explicit.
6.) (This is an important one). Please make code more explicit when it comes to slates.
7.) Please don't tell me that candidates who may be friends aren't allowed to poster together. I find that sad-making. We should encourage friendship, not destroy it through campaign rules. A second sigh.
8.) Next year's candidates: please be cautious in your campaigns and don't associate with one another if rules aren't changed. Not only so that you don't get disqualified, but also so that people aren't personally insulted over the interwebs.
9.) To some unknown being/master of the universe/spaghetti monster: please stop things going to student court during every election. Here I think it's legit, but seriously?
10.) Ok, I think that's it. Actually, no. Please stop flaming each other through comments. It's been fine here, but I've been reading some of the other threads, and I'm surprised that university students resort to personal attacks and insults to try to make their point. When I debate according to Cusid rules, this isn't allowed, and that makes me happy. I'd like to know that non-debaters are also capable of debate that doesn't involve yelling at others when they disagree. Ok, now that's it.

Sorry, I'm a touch disgruntled, in case you couldn't tell. I feel like most of the filed complaints are sort of frivolous. It's great to launch complaints, but not in this manner. A lot of it seems like backlash against the EC. I don't agree with their decision, but at this point there's little to be done except for wait for this to go to student court. In the meantime, though, I think people need to take these complaints more seriously and not complain about things that don't warrant complaining about (for instance, slates between VFMs, because those don't count).

Seriously, though, I will hopefully be writing something about slates. I do think they're a bad idea, but only in certain situations, and not just because they give students running for office an unfair advantage. I just think that rules need to be made crystal clear about what exactly constitutes a slate (i.e. not postering/making announcements together, particularly when it's stated that that is allowed. Also, I think there needs to be some recognition that students might just poster together for company. Going around campus by yourself and putting up posters=boring. Getting your friends=more fun). Hopefully, those will be made sometime soon.

More complaints

2009-02-09T17:16:00.001-08:00

Numerous emails have been sent out with complaints. Gerald will be posting those filed by Ed Durgan, as well as the response of the election committee to those, but here is another email I received regarding more complaints.

The Elections Committee received six complaints from Ed Durgan on Saturday, February 7. The Committee has decided to dismiss all complaints. The rulings and the original complaint are included. This ruling is issued at 12:45PM, Monday February 8. An appeal can be made to the Clerk of Student Court by 12:45PM, Wednesday February 10.

The Elections Committee is attempting to respond to all complaints as quickly and as publicly as possible.

The Elections Committee received a complaint from Blake Frederick on Saturday, February 7. The Committee has decided to dismiss the complaint. This ruling is issued at 3:00 PM, Monday February 9. An appeal can be made to the Clerk of Student Court by 3:00 PM, Wednesday February 11.

It was alleged that a Facebook message was sent to members of a group online "KNO TO THE KNOLL" by the group's administrator endorsing certain candidates, including Alex Monegro and Johannes Rebane. The complaint alleges that the two candidates worked as an apparent slate for mutual advantage because the group's administrator, used the group to mutually advantage multiple candidates. The complainant mentions that the Elections Administrator stated that VFM candidates and AMS clubs were allowed to endorse candidates, but that a Facebook group does not constitute either of these entities.

Individuals and independent groups are allowed to endorse candidates without that constituting a slate. The elections committee feels that a group should be not be disallowed from endorsing candidates simply because they did not pay the VFM entry fee or because they are not an AMS club.

The Ubyssey paper is not an AMS Club, nor a VFM contestant and they have endorsed candidates. Furthermore, there are instances of other Facebook groups endorsing candidates; such as, the "Bring Back Arts County Fair" group.

Considering this information and the section of code pertaining to the allegation, the Elections Committee dismisses this complaint.

Note from Gerald: I didn't want to retype and re-lay-out the aforementioned PDFs, so I just put them up for download. Here are the original complaints, and the Elections Committee response.

Update on disqualification

2009-02-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

The following message has been sent out to all VFMs. There's also a list of complains and the EA's response to them that came in another email- I'm trying to figure out a way of uploading them all. Hopefully they will be up soon.

This statement is being released to all VFM contestants on Monday, February 9, 2009 in response to the Elections Committee ruling on Friday, February 6.

The disqualification was ruled in response to two complaints of elections irregularities involving Presidential Blake running as part of a slate. The coordinated and mutual campaigning is the primary point of the committee's ruling. The video evidence indicates that they were coordinating campaigning times and locations together; members of the Elections Committee were provided with photo evidence suggesting that the alleged slate planned poster placement together.

In response to questions regarding why Mr. Frederick was not questioned: The Elections Committee is not a court, and does not hold hearings. Instead, it has the power to issue rulings on complaints. The appeals committee exists for this reason.

Many students have questioned why the EC did not rule to re-do the race. According to the AMS Code of Procedures Section IX A, Article 3 (7), "If serious offences have been committed by more than one candidate in an election, the Elections Committee may declare the results of that election invalid". As stated in the initial statement, the committee felt these allegations were in reference to the actions of only one candidate in that particular race, and thus does not have grounds to entertain a by-election.

The Elections Committee does not consider these offenses minor, and has proceeded with full knowledge of the gravity of the situation. While we feel that this situation is regrettable, it would be inappropriate for the body responsible for enforcing the rules to ignore violations for expediency's sake. The appeals process exists for controversial decisions such as this, and we respect that there will likely be a higher body involved in the final decision on this matter.

The Recent Disqualification and why it hurts the AMS

2009-02-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

For the second time in the past year, it seems like, candidates and winners of the AMS elections will once again be going to student court. My thoughts on this is that the process, and candidates' inability to accept defeat, hurts not only the candidates, but the AMS itself, which doesn't seem to be able to get its act together and spends time trying to create drama instead of getting on with business as usual. What this recent development means is that instead of trying to get on with transitions, Blake is going to have to fight this matter in court, and then wait for the approval of AMS council. If he wins, he's still wasted time, and if he loses, Alex now has to catch up on all the stuff he missed while the matter was being investigated. The result? Less gets done, student representation goes on the backburner, the AMS and election candidates come off looking petty, the AMS looks like it's more concerned with drama than governance, the EA doesn't seem trustworthy, candidates seem unable to handle losing, and in the end, students' interests are set aside. Lots of politicking, little action- have we learned nothing from Canadian politics?

And how do students see it? Well, first of all, it seems like candidates are more interested in their self-interests than the interests of students. Rather than accept defeat and help the new elected official, they refuse to accept election results. Yes, in some ways it's important. But with something like this- a slate? really? a secret one that no one knew about? after complaining when people talked about a Sauder slate, which is about just as plausible? - it just seems petty. Most students don't care for AMS drama. In fact, most students avoid student politics for this reason exactly. This doesn't help the image people have of the AMS in the least, nor does it encourage people to get involved in the student body.

There's also this notion that the number of people who vote for a candidate is actually indicative of who it is that students want. I would venture so far to say as that's not actually the truth. I think it's fairly obvious that a lot of people win on sheer popularity, or because they can get to students first. Lots of students will simply vote for you if you ask them to. I don't think there's really much to be said for 'the will of the majority', when I don't think that all that many students actually research candidates. I know some people who voted for candidates simply based on name, or because they thought that joke candidates were funny. So while a 42 vote win might not say much, Alex beating Blake by up to 50 votes wouldn't say anything either. I feel that what the current system does is give the best campaigner and most popular candidate the win- sometimes it just so happens that the best candidate is also the most popular, or has the best campaign team. Not meaning to knock the candidates here- lots of them would do a good job. I just don't think the electoral system elects people on the basis of merit, so complaining about it as if it does, I feel, is silly. I think it's fairly obvious, also, that faculties often unite behind a candidate- I have a feeling that Science did last year behind Duncan, as Commerce probably did this year behind the Sauder candidates. So again, not really much merit to who gets elected, so much as faculty pride and popularity. This means that students interested in student politics are left feeling like the system isn't working the way it's intended to. Say what you will about Condorcet voting, but popularity still plays into it.

And then there's the notion of slates and the EA. Most students didn't know the candidates, didn't go to the debates, didn't see classroom announcements- what makes you think that a 'slate' would then affect them, especially when it's a super-secret-hush-hush-slate? Most students don't know even know what slates are, and couldn't care less. Most see it as a petty matter, again. If this slate is supposed to be "evident to a reasonable person", and this reasonable person just happens to be the person who is the greatest competition to the winner of the election, I'd also think twice about whether it's an actual slate. It's possible that Alex was just reporting on something he saw as being odd, but I would think that the EA would at least contact Blake to ask for an explanation before disqualifying him. If anything, this makes students wonder about the objectivity of the EA, and further highlights the weaknesses of the system.

Lastly, the evidence, which I'd love to see, and which came from a candidate who is apparently friends with Alex Monegro, and who would also have to work with Blake if this whole thing doesn't pan out- I feel like this could be problematic for the executive's ability to work as a team this/next year.

In any case, I feel like there are several possibilities for what this evidence might contain.

1.) Blake was part of a slate and didn't tell anyone about it. I don't think there's a problem here for obvious reasons- no one knew about it, so it hardly benefited voters.

2.) Blake was part of a slate and told people about it, and told people that he was running as part of a group of candidates. Firstly, we're talking about a candidate who knows the rules, who ran a clean campaign, and who probably wouldn't want to jeopardize his chances of losing. Why he'd do so in front of his opponents or other candidates sort of puzzles me. But if he did, yes, that's problematic, and then the EA has grounds for disqualification.

3.) Blake was not a part of a slate, but talked to other candidates about their platforms and similarities with his own plans. Unless there's a rule that says that candidates can't have similar platforms, or that they can't talk to each other (including talking about how awesome it would be if friends all got elected and got to work on a team together), I don't think it's a problem. Presumably, people who are in the system and know how it works can have similar ways of trying to approach things, especially if they worked together. Unless you make a rule about friends not being able to run together, or people not being allowed to have similar platforms (because it's impossible to have the same issues be important to several candidates?), or candidates not being able to talk to each other, I feel like it's a moot point.

4.) Blake was not a part of a slate, but told people that his platform resembled that of other candidates, so if people were voting for x, then they should vote for Blake because he stood for similar things. Again, not sure this is a problem. It's like saying "if you like lower tuition, and I like lower tuition, you should vote for me". Only instead, you're saying "if you like lower tuition, he likes lower tuition, and you've voted for him, then you should naturally vote for me because I also like lower tuition, and it's only consistent with what you think". And seeing how many candidates campaigned for lower tuition, this sort of thing wouldn't be problematic. And again, it's possible for people to have similar platforms. In fact, a lot of the platforms from this year had parts that were very similar. I don't see this as a huge problem- it's certainly not exactly a slate.

I'm also curious to know what the context of this evidence is. Last I checked, there were no rules preventing candidates from associating with one another, or from talking to others. It's pretty unconstitutional (according to the Canadian Constitution) to bar people from associating with others. Also, apparently "innocent until proven guilty" does not apply to the AMS elections?

Also, for the elections committee: perhaps, if candidates are going to be punished for making announcements in the same class together, it should be made clear that this sort of behaviour won't be tolerated and will be seen as slate behaviour. Giving a go-ahead on this point when asked directly if this sort of thing is allowed then does nothing to show that any electoral rules were violated.

In any case, I feel like this really is an issue for the AMS as a whole. Is there going to be an election at some point where none of the races are contested? Where there aren't any irregularities? People keep talking about representing student interests- I think it's important to keep in mind that most people don't even know the name of the people on the AMS exec, so however this works out, the majority of the student body probably won't care, or even know about it, anyway. As for those student who do care, or who may be interested- this is hardly a way to get them involved. Those of you who talk about greater student involvement- take note.

Breaking: Blake disqualified from Presidential Race

2009-02-06T19:26:00.000-08:00

I have just received the following news:

On Tuesday February 3 around midnight the Elections Committee was given a formal appeal supported by video evidence implicating Blake Frederick and two other candidates as exhibiting "slate" behaviour.

As per Section 9, Article 2(11) in the Code of Procedures, it states that:

"Candidates shall not run in slates, real or apparent, or share expenses for campaign materials, excluding minor supplies as defined in 10(e) of this article. A slate shall mean a group of candidates who run for elected office (including but not limited to Executive positions and positions in the Senate and on the Board of Governors) on a similar platform for mutual advantage."

At the time when the Elections Committee received this allegation, we were already investigating and following up with concerns over false statements Blake provided the committee in regards to allegations towards another candidate.

Furthermore, this morning the Elections Committee received another allegation of slate behaviour.

Recognizing that he campaigned, postered and participated in classroom announcements together with a group of individuals who run a very similar platform, the Elections Committee has ruled that he ran the campaign as part of a slate.

Recalling that slates have been banned by the AMS of UBC due to the advantageous nature of running in a slate, the Elections Committee believes that he was provided an unfair advantage in the elections.

Recognizing that code stipulates "Candidates shall not run in slates, real or apparent.."

The Elections Committee has ruled that we must disqualify Blake Frederick from the Presidential race. We cannot entertain the prospect of re-doing the Elections, as the rules were infringed upon only by one candidate, and thus requiring all candidates to re-run the race would be unfair.

First of all, the email was sent off of Sarina's personal gmail account rather than the AMS Elections account; the email about cookie-gate was sent from this account as well, however. Secondly, Blake talked to her today, and she mentioned nothing about the matter to him. I find this a little strange, and would think that as the elections administrator, she would let him know of this prior to letting the media know. I spoke briefly with Blake, and he told me that the email was the first that he'd heard of the story.

To be honest, I'm kind of shocked. While there were murmurings of a slate of a different sort, I certainly didn't hear about anything of an actual slate. I'm also wondering if it actually means anything if people were running a slate that was "secret", that wasn't advertised, that no one knew about, etc. Yes, I did see candidates come to certain classes together to advertise the elections and talk about their bids- but these speeches were totally separate from one another, and even if they touched on similar issues (things like the Farm), they were issues that were important to the platforms of several candidates.

What I can tell you now, though, from what I personally saw during the elections:
Tristan Markle and Ale Coates came into my physiology 301 class (503 students) and talked about elections there. I know that they also visited a lot of others classes.

Blake Frederick and Tristan Markle came into my psycholgoy 308 class (about 150 students) and both did a spiel on their platforms. The only overlapping points I heard were on the issue of the UBC Farm. I know this is an issue that's important to both candidates, so I'm not sure it constitutes a slate.

I'm a little bit skeptical of this news. From my understanding, if slates are effective, they would only be effective if people actually knew about them and if candidates were telling students that they were either a.) running as a slate or b.) telling students who to vote for. From my knowledge, this did not happen during the election. If this decision stands, I feel a student court appeal coming on. And we all know how much fun those are...

I also find it hard to believe that all the VFMs, all the AMS hacks, and all the people interested in student politics managed to not see this 'slate' while one student did. I'd be very interested to know what the evidence for the slate is- I'd love to see the tape, for instance. Hopefully details will be released soon.

Additional information (from commentary on the Spectator blog):

Blake Frederick, Tristan Markle, and Ale Coates were passing out flyers at the same time at the bus loop, as were Tim, Crystal, and Johannes.

Sarina gave people permission to do classroom announcements together at the all candidates meeting.

Three of the candidates campaigned to the Greek community on the same night.

The question, I think, is where you draw the line of "slate". Even if there were 3 candidates who did things together all the time, it could just mean that they're friends, and not that they're running some sort of slate. I think it's more than possible to have people who may have worked together all year, or in close proximity, who may bounce ideas off of each other, or who may decide to go and make announcements together. I don't think this necessitates a slate. Similarly, if the comments on this videotape were along the lines of "wouldn't it be awesome if the ___ of us were elected", it doesn't say anything about those candidates being in a slate- just that these candidates were friends and may have supported each other in private. A slate, from what I understand, must be a public matter, and must be publicized in order to be effective. Candidates must endorse one another and talk about voting people in as a team or whatnot. Otherwise, I feel like unless there's more concrete evidence that is released, this entire thing doesn't really hold water. As I've said before, even if comments were made in private about there being a slate, if it didn't affect election results, and if no one detected it, it doesn't really make a difference.

Unofficial Results

2009-02-06T01:00:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of the Ubyssey, we have preliminary numbers for the races. These aren't official and haven't been ratified, but here they are for your perusal, regardless.

President
Blake v Paul		Paul v Alex		Blake v Alex
Blake	Paul	Paul	Alex	Blake	Alex
2701	1645	1238	2653	2442	2400

President
Alex > Paul - 1415
Blake > Paul - 1056
Blake > Alex - 42

Blake > Alex > Paul

Board of Governors ( First Past the Post)

Michael Duncan - 2927
Bijan Ahmadian - 2721
Blake Frederick - 1586
Tristan Markle - 1271
Andrew Carne - 1021

VP Finance

Tom - 2540
Ale - 1903

VP Academic and University Affairs
Jeremy v David		Jeremy v Sonia		Jeremy v Johannes		David v Sonia		David v Johannes		Sonia v Johannes
Jeremy	David	Jeremy	Sonia	Jeremy	Johannes	David	Sonia	David	Johannes	Sonia	Johannes
1600	1480	1624	1971	1365	2637	1434	1782	808	2660	1575	2510

VP Academic/University Affairs
Johannes > David - 1852
Johannes > Jeremy - 1272
Johannes > Sonia - 935
Sonia > David - 348
Sonia > Jeremy - 347
Jeremy > David - 120
Johannes > Sonia > Jeremy > David

VP Administration
Tristan v Crystal		Tristan v Keg		Tristan v Water		Crystal v Keg		Crystal v Water		Keg v Water
Tristan	Crystal	Tristan	Keg	Tristan	Water	Crystal	Keg	Crystal	Water	Keg	Water
1876	2374	2197	1884	2151	1764	2132	1642	2854	915	2023	1022

VP Administration
Crystal > Water - 1939
Keg > Water - 1001
Crystal > Tristan - 498
Crystal > Keg - 490
Tristan > Water - 387
Tristan > Keg - 223
Crystal > Tristan > Keg > Water

VP External
Fire v Tim		Fire v Iggy		Fire v Kings		Tim v Iggy		Tim v Kings		Iggy v Kings
Fire	Tim	Fire	Iggy	Fire	Kings	Tim	Iggy	Tim	Kings	Iggy	Kings
1442	2739	1339	2047	1839	734	2737	1543	3180	955	2062	1278

VP External
Tim > Kingshead - 2225
Tim > Fire - 1279
Tim > Iggy - 1194
Fire > Kingshead - 1105
Iggy > Kingshead - 784
Iggy > Fire - 708

Tim > Iggy > Fire > Kingshead

note from Gerald: I don't know what's with the weird table spacing; I'm working to figure it out but in the meantime, sit tight.

If we shadows have offended...

2009-02-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call:
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

I just wanted to thank all our readers and supporters- it wouldn't have been possible without you, and I'm truly grateful for it. Thanks also to Gerald and Steve and Darren for writing for the blog. With that, I'm off to bed to get over the plague!

VFM Results:

2009-02-04T22:38:00.000-08:00

$1800 UBC Spectator
$1500 Radical Beer Tribune
$1200 UBC Student Media
$1100 UBC Insiders
$1000 The Knoll
$700 FairVote UBC
$400 The Devils Advocate
$300 AMS Gossip Guy

a) thank you.
b) this is all Maria. She's a machine; sick at home in bed and she still manages to scoop me on results... and I was there!

Election Results

2009-02-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

The results are in! Over 6500 people voted in this election, which is apparently the highest turnouts in the past several decades. Yay democracy!

The results:

President
Blake Frederick
-apparently he only won by 46 votes- quite a far cry from last year...

VP Academic
Johannes Rebane

VP Finance
Tom Dvorak

VP External
Tim Chu

VP Administration
Crystal Hon

Board of Governors
Michael Duncan
Bijan Ahmadian

I can't say there are any real surprises (at least, for me), other than Crystal Hon- I've heard good things about her, so congratulations for unseating an incumbent! I feel like this will be a good team for next year- a combination of some fresh blood, experience, and what I feel is a fairly diverse group of students. I'm saddened by Andrew Carne not getting a seat on the BoG, as I feel that he would have made an excellent candidate. But there you have it! Congratulations to next year's executive, and congratulations also to all those who ran in the election- you've contributed something valuable to democracy and to this election. So congrats to all!

Thanks also to the Twitter function on the UBC Spectator page- I wasn't able to be there for the announcement due to my being quite sick right now, so it was greatly appreciated.

[gerald notes: this is terrifying; I just came in to write this post and here it was.]

Update on voting irregularities

2009-02-04T10:30:00.000-08:00

The Elections committee has issued the following statement:

On Sunday evening, a campaigning irregularity complaint was submitted to the Elections Committee. The complaint stated that VP Academic candidate Johannes Rebane and friends were in Vanier commons block and going door to door asking students to vote on their laptop, and giving cookies to students. The committee was made aware of this from another candidate, who provided contact information for two apparent witnesses that reported this action to the candidate.

The committee followed up by discussing the allegations with the candidate in question, who denied partaking in such activities, and provided credible accounts of where he was at the times the infraction was alleged to occur. To follow up, the committee contacted the eyewitnesses. The eyewitnesses provided their accounts of what occurred at Vanier commons block.
It is the committee's decision that at this time there is very little evidence supporting the claim that Johannes engaged in such behaviour. As well, there are highly conflicting narratives of what actually occurred, questionable biases, and extremely vague descriptions of the time frames. Specifically, the allegations that they went door to door are unfounded due to the lack of wireless internet access in the residence buildings. In addition, upon contacting a number of different authorities at Vanier, there are no accounts of anyone working witnessing such activities. The residence associations at the residence buildings across campus have been very active in ensuring campaigning follows strict rules within their jurisdiction, and thus the committee trusts that they would have been aware if such actions had taken place.

Signed,
Elections Committee

Looks like the entire thing was a slander campaign. Clap clap. Glad to know that people need to resort to these sorts of tactics to try to win or influence an election. And you ask why students don't like student politics...

A thank you

2009-02-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

I've been a little bit fed up with the most recent scandal, now dubbed "Cookie-gate", so this is a brief note to thank all the candidates for running- we recognize the work you put into it, and appreciate that you're willing to face up to the scrutiny that accompanies running for office.

Most of the average students I've talked to are impressed by your willingness to put yourself out there. In previous campaigns, and in this one, we have seen people make fun of others, to slander them, to spread false rumours and reports. I'm continually impressed by candidates who are willing to put themselves under the scrutiny of bloggers and others who are willing to critique, sometimes unkindly, the candidates. I'm impressed that people are willing to have others launch personal attacks against them, and who still put themselves out there because they want to make a difference. I personally don't believe that campaigns should become personal- I feel like it's enough that candidates have to be educated about issues, put together platforms, defend them, etc.. Attacking people who have decided to try their hand at student politics and potentially improve something on campus only sends the message to other UBC students to not get involved, thus perpetuating the problem of the lack of student involvement in the AMS. We ask ourselves why students don't care, why they don't take interest and don't vote- and perhaps it is because most want to avoid the drama of student politics. So I think it's really important to recognize the candidates who do come out of nowhere, the candidates who aren't political hacks and don't know what they might be facing during an election campaign.

I've talked to a lot of students during this election. Many ask me why the campaigns are so mean-spirited, or tell me they don't want to get involved precisely for this reason. I've also talked to some of the candidates, all of whom have been really nice (and yes, this could be just because they're running, but I've heard the same from people who have known them for longer than I have). I think a lot of people don't realize that things said during this election campaign aren't just lost forever once the campaign is over. As someone right pointed out, things said in cyberspace tend to stay there, so a falsehood could potentially hurt someone in their career rather than just in an election. So I think that treating all candidates with a bit of respect would serve everyone well- not just the candidates themselves, but students at large, and the AMS. People tend to stay away from things that are unpleasant- I don't think this is a big revelation. So perhaps making student politics more pleasant would go a long way in encouraging students to get involved with the AMS.

So candidates- thank you. I realize it's not easy, I appreciate that people are willing to make the effort, and I admire your ability to stand up for yourselves.

Voting irregularities?

2009-02-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

The UBC Student Media blog is reporting that there were people going around Place Vanier last night distributing cookies, carrying a laptop, and asking people to vote for a particular candidate for VP Academic. This is the first I've heard of the matter, and while plausible, I would like to hear more confirmations of the occurrence. It would seem to be a rather silly thing to do, seeing as it's in direct violation of campaign rules, meaning that the candidate would have much more to lose than to gain, particularly when that candidate's chances are pretty good as it is. So what are the possibilities?

1.) This actually happened, and it was intentional. In this case, we could probably expect the EA to not accept the results of the election for this particular race, and to hold another election for the position.

2.) This happened, and someone not involved with the campaign was going around doing this. In the past (and not even in the AMS), candidates have been punished for rules that have been broken by others. I know this is a possibility in SUS, so I would presume that the same can go for the AMS.

3.) This incident didn't actually occur, or it may be possible that people were simply trying to get others to vote, or whatnot- I'm sure there are lots of reasonable explanations.

4.) The incident didn't occur and people are attempting to frame a candidate in a bad light. This would be pretty bad form, and would only serve to make students dislike the AMS and further be discouraged from voting.

I'd definitely like to hear from others on the matter. So far the EA hasn't commented on the incident, although I would presume that it would be under investigation. I would ask some serious questions in general about this campaign rule, however. Candidates aren't supposed to pressure others into voting for them, but I'd ask what constitutes pressure. Yes, people can always say no, but lots of types of campaigning can constitute "pressure". It's not uncommon to see candidates approach people with laptops, for instance, and give them flyers with voting information, and to ask for their support. Candidates will often just go up to people and ask for their vote. They may get their friends to do the same. I'm not sure how convinced I am by the notion that in this situation, people would feel more pressured to vote for a candidate than in some of the other allowed scenarios. I'm not in support of candidates going up to people with laptops and asking for their vote right then and there simply because I see it as bad form and a sort of desperate tactic- I personally wouldn't feel pressure. But then I'm not most people, so I can see how the argument would apply.

The other question, though, is what happens if the candidate wasn't involved in planning this and didn't know about it? It's perfectly plausible that someone wanted to help them out, and didn't know the election rules. Candidates can't be held fully responsible for the actions of their friends/supporters, and even if they say something, you can't necessarily stop people from doing what they choose. If this was the case, then would it be fair to punish the candidate or to hold another election?

We'll see how this develops. Please comment if you witnessed the event taking place.

A voting reminder

2009-02-02T22:56:00.000-08:00

A reminder that online voting on the AMS website closes today at midnight. If you have not yet voted, there will be paper ballot voting on February 4th (Wednesday)- just walk by the SUB! According to the RBT, only just over 8% of the UBC students eligible to vote have done so, so get your friends out there to cast their ballot!

Thank you for reading, we hope to get your support! There hasn't been much going on that's worthy of reporting otherwise. I see posters up everywhere. Some of them are creatively stapled to avoid posters of other candidates. Some of them are colourful and stylized, others have interesting crop jobs. Some fail to let voters understand that voting is no longer a tick mark, but is rather a system of choosing your candidate preference. But I can't really offer more analysis than that at the moment.

Type the rest of your post here.

UBC Engineering prank gets a failing grade

2009-02-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

details are sketchy, but there are multiple reports that five Engineering students were arrested early this morning after their attempt to hang the shell of a VW Beetle off the Second Narrows bridge. More news is available from CTV and The Ubyssey.

Story Time- An Adventure with Poll Answers

2009-01-31T21:44:00.000-08:00

I've noticed a funny thing about polls. If you arrange them such that they seem really random, you can still come up with an interesting story based on readers' opinions. This one is pretty short, and fairly straightforward, but I think works out alright, if you're not too strict with timelines and such.

Once upon a time, the AMS decided to hold an election. Only this time, it would be a very special, novel sort of election, where candidates would be elected on their dancing skills and creativity. Some of the candidates first went to Cold Fusion to warm up their dancing skills. There, Tim Chu was seen breaking it down, while Mike Duncan raised the roof with his boa, wig, and Kanye-West like blue glasses that were so indicative of his dedication to Science. Johannes also showed up, showing everyone up with his fashion know-how. And Kommander Keg was also on the scene, lurking. They then left for the weekend, knowing that Monday they would be back on the campaign trail.

Monday rolled around, and the candidates all gathered for the last show-down. Each had to dance to a song selected by members of the audience. The VP External candidates decided to do a war dance, which they performed in a pool full of green jello. It went over well, but they were sadly overshadowed by Michael Duncan's pole dancing to "I can't get no satisfaction". The audience was eager to cast their votes, but found themselves slightly confused in the new system, although most people seemed to like it. You see, votes needed to be cast by none other than carrier pigeon. Due to the Vancouver pigeon shortage, however, very few could vote, as there was a pigeon shortage in Vancouver. Luckily, votes could also be cast online, which got a few more people out. However, most students couldn't quite figure out what relevance dance had to the elections, and most simply walked by, paying no attention to the contestants, while dancing fans stood around and blogged about their performances.

Senate, anyone?

2009-01-31T00:52:00.000-08:00

While I've been busy blogging about most of the ongoing races, I sort of let it slip from my memory that there aren't any people running for Senate this year. It turns out that only 2 people submitted nomination forms, and as a result they automatically get seats. Currently, the available seats are being offered to this year's Senators. I'm quite frankly astonished by this practice- rather than opening up nominations again, they have decided to simply offer the seats to people who did not apply, and who could take the seats without actually going through an election. I'm sure there's some sort of term for this practice, but I can't quite remember what it is right now.

[ hat tip to, and more analysis from The RBT]

photos!

2009-01-30T02:46:00.001-08:00

I've got photos from Jello Wrestling here, and will have more from the last debates up later today as well as commentary on both events.

Before that, though, I should get some sleep.

A summary of endorsements (so far)

2009-01-29T22:25:00.001-08:00

Here's a summary of the endorsements from all the different blogs!

UBC Insiders

Maria
President - 1) Blake Frederick, 2) Alex Monegro, 3) Paul Korczyk
VP Academic and University Affairs - 1) Johannes Rebane
VP Administration - 1) Kommander Keg (yes, even I'm surprised by this one) 2) Tristan Markle
VP External - 1) Tim Chu 2) Ignacio Rodriguez
VP Finance - 1) Tom Dvorak, 2) Ale Coates
Board of Governors - Michael Duncan and Andrew Carne

UBC Spectator

Kristian Arciaga

President - Alex Monegro
VP Academic and University Affairs - Johannes Rebane
VP Administration - Crystal Hon
VP External - Tim Chu
VP Finance - Tom Dvorak
Board of Governors - Bijan Ahmadian and Michael Duncan

Saša Pudar

President - 1) Blake Frederick, 2) Alex Monegro
VP Academic and University Affairs - Sonia Purewal
VP Administration - Kommander Keg, followed by Tristan Markle
VP External - Iggy Rodriguez
VP Finance - Tom Dvorak
Board of Governors - Bijan Ahmadian and Michael Duncan

Justin Yang

President - 1) Blake Frederick, 2) Alex Monegro, 3) Paul Korczyk
VP Academic and University Affairs - 1) Sonia Purewal, 2) Johannes Rebane, 3) Jeremy Wood, 4) David Nogas
VP Administration - 1) Crystal Hon, 2) Tristan Markle
VP External - TBA
VP Finance - 1) Tom Dvorak, 2) Ale Coates
Board of Governors - Michael Duncan and Andrew Carne

Stephen McCarthy (a.k.a. Serious Steve)
President - 1) Blake Frederick, 2) Alex Monegro, 3) Paul Korczyk
VP Academic and University Affairs - 1) Johannes, 2) Sonia, 3) Jeremy, 4)David

Gossip Guy (kind of endorsements in the form of photoshopped heads)

President - not yet up
VP Academic and University Affairs - Johannes Rebane
VP Administration - Crystal Hon
VP External - Tim Chu
VP Finance - Tom Dvorak
Board of Governors - Michael Duncan and Bijan

Radical Beer Tribune

President - 1) Alex Monegro, 2) Blake Frederick, 3) Paul Korczyk
VP Academic and University Affairs - 1) Johannes Rebane, 2) Sonia Purewal, 3) David Nogas, 4) Jeremy Wood
VP Administration - 1) Kommander Keg, 2) Tristan Markle, 3)Crystal Hon, 4) Water Fountain
VP External - 1) Iggy Rodriguez, 2) Tim Chu
VP Finance - 1) Tom Dvorak, 2) Ale Coates
Board of Governors - Michael Duncan and Andrew Carne

Fair Vote UBC

President - 1) Blake Frederick, 2) Paul Korczyk, 3) Alex Monegro
VP External - 1) Tim Chu, 2) Iggy Rodriguez, 3) Fire, 4) King's Head

Will update with new endorsements as they come in.

Quote of the day

2009-01-29T12:22:00.000-08:00

"I hate democracy."
- Sarina Rehal, AMS Elections Administrator 2008/09

Endorsements!

2009-01-29T10:48:00.001-08:00

Here are my endorsements for the election. I'm trying to have be brief in my explanations. I do have a qualm with this election- namely, there are no candidates that really stand out, or that are particularly wonderful. So overall I find these elections sort of disappointing, but I do feel like there could be a really good exec next year. If only we could combine candidates into a supercandidate...

President

My first choice is Blake Frederick, my second Alex Monegro, and my third Paul Korczyk. I feel like Blake has a stronger platform that covers more issues and lays out concrete ways in which to address them. He also has more experience in the AMS than do either of the other candidates, which means that he'll know how to work within the constraints of the AMS and won't have to spend as much time learning the ropes. Alex is my next choice. His platform isn't quite as in-depth, but I think he has a fair understanding of some issues.

VP Academic and University Affairs Candidates
My endorsement for this one is Johannes. While none of the candidates really stand out for me in this election, I feel like he has the best grasp of the issues and seems to be the best for the job. His platform addresses things like first year education, and lays out ways in which tutorials and labs can be improved, partially by addressing TA teaching reforms. Other candidates do have decent platforms as well, but has particular weaknesses. Jeremy withdrew and re-entered the competition, which makes me doubt his motivation to really do a good job, although I do like his platform and dedication to his cause. Sonia has a good platform, but doesn't work well on a team as was evidenced last year in SUS, and I'm not convinced that she'd really push the points of her platform through (plus, there are very good reasons for why we shouldn't allow people to retake courses they do poorly in, among them things like space limitations- the university shouldn't pander to people who are trying to get into med school, and chances are that students will do better the second time around simply based on regression towards the mean). She's enthusiastic, but doesn't know how things work, and I feel her platform points are generally unattainable. It sounds nice on paper, though. David Nogas also has good ideas, but I'm not sure how effective he would be in implementing them. So I feel that Johannes has the greatest number of strengths, despite his lack of experience.

VP External

I don't particularly like either of these candidates- I'm sure they're great people, but I don't think either of them would be particularly great. That said, I'm voting for Tim Chu. I feel that equity is important, I feel he has more experience, and I feel that he would be better at negotating, partly because he has more tact and is less abrasive, unlike Iggy, who insulted people he would work with, and who I don't feel would be a good team player as a result. He also doesn't seem to care much for equity, which is problematic if he has the one to work on it. Kudos to Tim's team for running a good campaign, as well. I do wish he'd focus on more things than equity and lowering tuition (which I'm pretty sure won't happen). But I feel that he has the ability to learn quickly and do a good job.

VP Administration

My pick is, surprisingly, Kommander Keg. He's said some smart things in this election. Tristan comes in second- he has the most experience, but I feel that he doesn't connect with students. As a SUS AMS rep, he never showed up to a single meeting, for instance, and I feel that that sort of thing reflects poorly. And I'm not sure how much I trust Knollies. Crystal lacks experience, and I feel doesn't have as good of an understanding of issues as Tristan.

VP Finance
I don't feel like either candidate is particularly stronger than the other. Ale has more experience, Tom seems to have a better understanding of issues. Ale has little business experience and wants to focus on things like building a new used bookstore, while Tom wants to focus more on supporting businesses and earning revenue that way. I feel he has a better grasp of what the position entails. I don't feel particularly strongly, but I feel he has just a slight edge.

Board of Governors

My picks are Andrew Carne and Michael Duncan. Andrew really knows the issues, and Mike would be a good advocate for students. Both have experience with the AMS and know how the system works, which is good. I'm impressed by Andrew's attending BoG meetings just for interest- it shows that it's something he's explored, taken interest in, and that he's willing to take initiative to find out what things are about before doing them. Bijan I feel shot himself in the foot with the Farm statement, and I don't really trust him to represent student interests as a result. In fact, I don't trust him at all to represent students, given his most recent shenanigans. Blake would be fine, but I don't feel he's as good as the other candidates. The same goes for Tristan.

I'm going to look into the student legal fund society candidates, but that's it for now!

Vote!

2009-01-29T10:11:00.000-08:00

You can now vote at www.amsubc.ca/elections! It's quick and easy- remember to rank you choices for candidates. Please note that you only have 2 minutes to make your selections before it times out (yes, it's really silly). I'm a little disappointed by how little advertisement there has been of this election, and how little effort has been put in to let students know that voting is going on, and to let them know where they should go to vote (so much Webvote confusion!). Also, the last debate will be taking place today at noon in Ike Barber- please come and see the candidates one last time. I will be posting my endorsements later today. Thanks!

Pit Night!

2009-01-29T01:53:00.000-08:00

There was a somewhat peculiar piece of business at tonight’s AMS council meeting. Should AMS councilors be allowed to sneak into Pit Night via a back entrance after council meetings?

After receiving a number of complaints (from myself included; the Ubyssey also wrote an editorial), the AMS’s Business Operations Committee recently decided to disallow entrance to the Pit via the back door. By eliminating the greasing of palms at the back door, I hope that there will be no more motivation to keep the line at the front door unnecessarily long when the Pit is nowhere near capacity. It will also mean that money that used to go to bouncers for bribes can now be used for more beer! Good on the AMS for being responsive on this issue.

Thankfully, council found a way to fuck with it. A frivolously-worded motion was passed in 2005 outlining that at every third AMS council meeting, councilors could sign up to get preferential entrance to the Pit after the meeting. (They pass a Pit List around the room for people to sign up, then sneak them in a back entrance after the meeting is over.) At some point in time, this started occurring at every second meeting, and then at practically every meeting. Chris Diplock presented a motion tonight to rescind the not-entirely-followed 2005 motion. His motivation was quite clear: everyone should have to wait in line at the front door to get in, councilors included and that it sends the wrong message to reserve this privilege for themselves.

Surprisingly, Alex Monegro defended the practice. He argued that councilors, unlike paid staff, don’t get any renumeration for their many hours given to council. Perks, even very small ones like this, are deserved and should be kept intact. Yikes, I sure hope this is not indicative of his leadership potential.

An engineering rep also argued that being at council meetings meant missing social activities and that preferential entrance to the Pit eased that problem. The rest of the debate was either about indifference to having the Pit List/in support of equitable access.

Side note: If you are not an AMS hack (yet you read this blog, a peculiar combination), you might be amazed that something idiotic like this gets so much debate. Alas, the whole meeting went for more than 6 hours.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to speak before the question was called. The whole thing seemed like a pretty clear case of whether council wanted to put their own interests in front of those of ordinary students who just want a night out at the bar.

Major fail. In the end, council inexplicably decided to keep the Pit List intact, for them alone. I know this isn't the first, nor the last, nor the most blatant display of self-interest, but I'm pointing it out anyways. Despite the result, I hope to never see the Pit List passed around again. I’ll be watching.

Jeremy Wood- must we really resort to these tactics?

2009-01-28T23:45:00.000-08:00

As a member of Jeremy Wood's facebook support group (and please note: I support everyone in the elections if they have a facebook group and invite me to join it), I have received a message with the following excerpt in my facebook inbox:

Just a note: I've heard a lot of you saying that after me you would put Johannes Rebane as a second choice. Given the new condorcet system of ranked voting this is a dangerous choice! Johannes has a lot of his own support and unless you guys put him as your 4th preference, you'll only be helping him out.

Now, I understand that this is an election, and that it's being run somewhat differently. However, I fully do not support these sorts of statements. Dubbing someone a 'dangerous choice' simply because you don't believe in his ideas is a bit extreme. It also makes his seem afraid of a the candidate, which I feel is a weakness- I want someone who won't resort to these kinds of tactics in an election. For shame. Yes, there may be strategic voting involved, but what happens if you put someone competent fourth just because you're afraid they're your biggest competition? Biggest competition often (although not always) means that they're a competent, capable candidate- and putting them fourth only messes up the system. Not that I think it will matter in this race.

Also, this is coming from a candidate who pulled out of the race to then come back in. I know that Kerry was a flip-flopper, but even he didn't go to these lengths. It doesn't say too many good things about a candidate's motivation if they only re-enter a race because their friends/supporters told him to- it means, despite what he may say, that he lost the will to do the job and had to be encourage by people who were ideologically aligned with him to convince him to go back. I think it means that he wasn't that firm in his stance, and that he wasn't doing it to improve the system or represent students. If a candidate is dedicated to his/her cause, it means that they want to change the system, and their ideas are important to them, even if they're not important to others. Someone who can't hold his own and relies on others to persuade him to continue to run makes me worried about how he'll react if everyone else is opposed to his ideas if he is elected- in this case, I'd be worried that he'd give up on his plans. And by "he", I don't necessarily mean Jeremy- I mean any candidate who is elected into a position. But it applies in this case as well.

Condorcet voting

2009-01-28T22:22:00.001-08:00

A brief explanation, in case people don't quite know what it is.

1.) You rank the candidates on the ballot. Tied rankings are allowed, as far as I know.
2.) Each candidate is compared to the other candidates on the ballot.
3.) The votes are counted by pitting every candidate against every other candidate in a series of imaginary one-on-one contests. The winner of each pairing is the candidate that the greatest number of voters preferred. Each voter's preferred candidate is the voter that ranks highest on their ballot. For instance, take the race between Ale and Tom. They are paired against one another, and the number of votes where Ale is ranked higher than Tom are counted, and then the number of votes where Tom is ranked higher than Ale are counted. If Ale is preferred by more voters then she is the winner of that pairing. If Tom is the one preferred, he wins that pairing. In this way, all pairings are considered. If one candidate beats every other candidate in these contests then they are declared the Condorcet winner.

Hope that makes sense! Didn't have time to post this earlier, but take that into mind when you vote. I personally like this system- while it means that popularity sort of still trumps the system, I think it would be beneficial in races where there are either two people getting elected to a position, or else when there are no amazing candidates and voters might actually have to think about who they vote for and consider things like platforms and stuff if they take the time to learn anything about the election- it essentially encourages being informed. Obviously it's not perfect, and people will still vote for whoever their friends are, etc. I just really like the choice of being able to indicate my preference for candidates, because sometimes it's not all that clear-cut of a choice to make.

Debates, January 27

2009-01-28T01:04:00.000-08:00

Today's debates were definitely the most sparsely attended, as seen here:

It's too bad this debate was empty; I thought this was the best chance to get a feel for the candidates, since they'd had a chance to thoroughly adjust their platforms and approaches.

VFM Coordinator Mitch Wright moderated the debates, as AJ was apparently nowhere to be found. He did a capable job, once again requiring candidates to stay within their timeframe, but unfortunately continuing the tendency to disallow actual debate.

First up were the presidential candidates:

After a week of speaking, I felt that they were (finally) on top of their game. Blake's core message was, as Naylor put it, "I am experienced and not crazy", a far cry from his fiery showing at the first debate (which he tempered with an interesting personal anecdote about familial and socioeconomic barriers to university). Alex moved away from his earlier focus on facilitation and team leadership (which are, admittedly, an important part of the role) and opened with commentary on education and engagement. Paul retained and reiterated his desire to communicate and lead via consultation.

Paul clings to his outsider status, and resultantly I still don't understand how proclaiming your lack of operational and institutional knowledge of the society you aim to lead can be spun as a positive. The AMS is a complex and occasionally infuriating organization to work with and/or for, and every day on the job spent learning the ropes is a day that could've been spent getting the job done. Michael Duncan's immense knowledge of both people and procedure within the Society allowed him to very effectively use his time in office and I don't see Paul being able to carry that forward.

As I've watched more debates and read through more material, I've come around to liking Alex more. I spent a year as the President's Assistant, allowing me to see a lot more of the daily happenings in the Executive Offices than most people, and with that in mind Alex's focus on teambuilding and stress on inter-Executive relations while maintaining personal goals and focus items seems both achievable and sensible. While nothing he's said struck me as particularly soundbite-worthy, Alex has a good grasp on the challenges ahead of him. His platform as presented doesn't really say anything, which is sort of strange.

I like a lot of what I hear from Blake, but I don't know how much of it is possible. It's clear that he isn't afraid to play politics, although his occasional tendency to trip over himself could cost him in heated discussions. Blake has a lot of institutional knowledge from his years as AVP Academic and AVP External, but I'm unsure of his abilities to shape a team from a group of people who had just emerged from the concentrated antagonism of elections. Combine with his desire to run for Board and his singular approach to peculiar difficulties of doing either job, let alone both, and I'm left standing in the "damnit Blake you'd be a shoo-in for VPX" camp.

The other debate today was for the two Board of Governors seats:

from left to right we have: Bijan Ahmadian, Tristan Markle, Michael Duncan, Andrew Carne, and Blake Frederick.

Bijan remains mired in his farm endorsement trading scandal. When pressed, he gave basically the same statement as was sent to the VFMs yesterday, and when Serious Steve asked him if he was, right now, committed to the Farm in its current size and location, he demurred and said that he would need to learn more about the farm before making a decision. I'm also curious about his workload; as a combined JD/MBA student, Bijan is taking 131 credits of graduate study over four years (per the Sauder MBA/JD website) to complete two professional programs simultaneously that are far from easy on their own. Frankly, I find it hard enough to make time for everything I do as an undergrad and have serious doubts as to whether Bijan would be able to work out all his commitments, or if something will give (and what that will be.)

Tristan continues to underline the importance of the SUB Renew project, and also uses it as a pivot to increase student engagement and empowerment on campus. His BoG projects intersect with his reelection plans in the VP Admin spot, and while he did suffer a bit of platform overlap (collision?) with Michael Duncan, he was able to stand out from the pack of other candidates. Bijan attempted to lay blame for the freeze in negotiations on SUB Renew since November at Tristan's feet, but Tristan was able to explain how it was a necessary tactic and one approved by council (as per Naylor) but Tristan let slip some items that were discussed in camera which is unwise in the best case and litigatable in the worst.

Mike presented a lot of successes from his Presidency and some goals for his BoG term. As mentioned above, he's had a strong year in office and wants to carry that momentum forward, along with his experience with multiple levels of administration and unique ability to engage. I hope he doesn't show up at BoG painted blue.

Actually, no. I hope he does; I just want to see what would happen.

Andrew was unable to make it to the first debate due to his involvement at the Western Engineering Championships in Regina. He provided a strong showing at this debate, informing students of his attendance of Board meetings out of personal interest for the past 1.5 years, his plans to more effectively communicate about the Board to students, and demonstrating the strong, informed voice he wants to bring to the Board to represent students.

Blake's BoG plans dovetail neatly with his Presidential ones, which led to a question about how he plans to balance the workload and focus of both roles. The question didn't really get an answer, which was disappointing; while Blake did point to Jeff Friedrich (President+BoG 2007-08) as an example, there were no ways or means given. Blake did, again, temper his speech from previous debates, choosing to focus on development and Farm issues rather than his prior goals of reforming governance and changing the way students are seen by administrators. I can't tell if he's worried about claims of idealism or if it's a simple rethinking; either way it's a lot less interesting.

The IBC responds

2009-01-28T00:40:00.001-08:00

Response by Jason Ng to the statement made by AMS Candidates:

Several AMS elections candidates recently issued a statement claiming that we did not speak with them prior to issuing our endorsements for this election.

The International Business Club reviewed all the candidates' platforms, including those of the 6 candidates who issued the statement. Their platforms, as well as detailed discussion of them, are available online through their websites, Facebook groups, and through the AMS elections blogs.

We did not claim that we spoke with all of them. If the original wording on this page was misleading for the candidates, we sincerely apologize.

Our post on this page has been updated to clarify our position.

Best regards,

The International Business Club Team

Jello wrestling

2009-01-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

Jello wrestling is happening tomorrow (Wednesday), contrary to the day listed in the poll. I would encourage y'all to come out and support Science week, even if you aren't science students. Perks include free entertainment, watching live wrestling, and potentially (and hopefully) seeing some of the AMS candidates duke it out in the ring. I mean, pool. Of Jello. It will be awesome.

[edited to add: I'll be there! Say hello? -gerald]

An interesting statement

2009-01-27T23:19:00.001-08:00

I recently received an emailed statement made by some of the candidates running in this election. The statement is as follows:

The following represents a joint statement by Blake Frederick, Paul Korczyk, David Nogas, Sonia Purewal, Iggy Rodriguez, and Jeremy Wood:

Recently, the International Business Club elected to endorse a number of candidates for Executive positions in the AMS races, claiming that their "executive team has reviewed the platforms and spoken with the various AMS candidates." This is blatantly false. None of the candidates who signed their names here were contacted by the International Business Club. It should be noted that our complaint is not specifically with the individuals the club chose to endorse, but rather, the misrepresentation of the process as one involving an inclusive review complete with candidate interviews. In theory, there is nothing wrong with endorsing, or not endorsing candidates simply on the basis of their public statements and platforms, but it should be made clear what the process applied entailed. Students deserve to know the true nature of the process that is used to choose candidates for endorsement. Endorsements are a powerful tool for expressing particular viewpoints, but when they are issued claiming due diligence when none was done, their legitimacy must be called into question. We do not wish to attack the club, the candidates they endorsed, or their ability to issue endorsements. We seek to provide transparency of the process used to students through this joint statement, so that they will be informed as to the dishonesty used by the executive of the International Business Club when describing the methods utilized to determine candidates to endorse.

Now, I'm not sure if the club ever said that they interviewed those specific people- simply that they had "spoken with the various AMS candidates". I understand how this may be misleading, however. My question is, however- do endorsements make a difference? I would argue that they might in an important election (for instance, I felt that Powell's endorsement of Obama was significant- not statistically, but you know what I mean). But on a campus of several tens of thousands of students, most of whom don't even know who most of the candidates are, let alone the endorsers, it seems like it wouldn't actually play that big of a role. If you look at who tends to vote, and how they make up their minds, I find that most people either rely on those more knowledgeable than them to give them advice, or they may go and read candidates' platforms/read blogs/go to debates, or they may be told by candidates or candidates' friends to vote for them. There are very few people who are actually interested in the elections, and those who are tend to get informed- and I find that the more informed one is, the less of a difference endorsements actually make. If anything, they speak only of an issue of trust- that someone in an office trusts you enough to say that you'd be good in the position- and even then, the endorsement is powerful because it's assumed that people reading it know who the person endorsing the candidate is, how well they've done their job, and how much they trust them. So really, it sort of goes back to being friends with a friend of the candidate and to being informed. At least, that's my take. Unless, of course, you're endorsed by Obama. Or Putin. Both would be kind of awesome, especially if they both endorsed you...

Having a business club endorse commerce candidates hardly comes as a surprise. Neither does the fact that some of their "research" was conducted over facebook- limited privacy settings sure are great for journalism! However, it's their right as a club to go about doing their endorsements in whatever way they'd like- doing them wrong (and by wrong, I mean- not actually reading platforms, or not looking at other candidates) simply makes them lose their objectivity, which I find is important, although not always possible, when someone makes an endorsement. You just hope that bias motivates one to do better research- particularly that which involves looking into the other candidates.

The one thing I find rather amusing, however, is that had they not said that they actually had talked to the candidates, or implied that they'd done so (maybe even in person), this controversy wouldn't exist. After all, there's no way of checking to see if someone has read the platforms of the candidates- particularly not when they simply post a list of people they endorse. Secondly, given that it's a club in which execs probably personally know some of the people running for office, should it really be all that surprising that they chose to endorse 3/3 commerce candidates, or that they didn't look into the other candidates? After all, even if they'd done all their research, it's still likely that their initial biases still colour their perception of platforms, no matter how objective they try to be. I understand that the qualm is about representing information accurately, but this isn't something that can usually be proven- it just so happens that in this case, it was a blatant transgression.

In other election news...the BC-STV vote

2009-01-27T20:45:00.000-08:00

Bruce Krayenhoff outlines benefits to students of voting in favour of the STV.

Why is the BC-STV Referendum So Important for Students?

First of all, research strongly suggests that more representative voting systems do result in better government, so students like everyone else will benefit from better, more stable and more accountable government if BC-STV is implemented.

However, there are a few reasons why BC-STV stands to be particularly beneficial for students:

First of all, voter turnout is about 9% higher in countries with proportional representation, and higher voter turnout generally means more even voter turnout, which means that students and young adults, being a low-voting demographic, are likely to turnout in substantially greater numbers. This will be a good thing in itself and it will force politicians to pay more attention to student issues and give the student voice considerably more clout in the legislature.

Secondly, being young and in a place of learning and ideas, many students would like more than two real choices at the ballot box. Indeed, if young people were the only people voting, the Green Party would be one of the major parties, but right now students who support the Green Party either waste their votes or vote strategically.

Finally, research suggests the implementation of proportional representation results in better environmental performance and lower unemployment, to name just a couple areas which matter to many students.

I have heard a number of students say ‘I think this referendum is even more important than the provincial election itself,’ and I have to agree. With a different party in power, we will see some change for the next four to eight years (i.e. until we vote them out again), but with a better voting system we will see lasting change for generations. Plus, a beachhead in BC will make the adoption of fairer voting systems throughout the rest of North America much easier to realize!

Presidential Platforms: Alex Monegro

2009-01-27T20:06:00.001-08:00

After a bit of a delay, Alex Monegro's platform is up and running, and actually looks quite good. The platform outlines some interesting and important points. Below is some analysis of his plans for next year.

The first thing I like about Alex's platform is his approach to issues that are of importance to students- things like hiring/tenure practices, text book prices, and tuition. In some ways, he seems to have realistic expectations of what needs to be done- he doesn't talk about lowering tuition, for instance, but rather about curbing the yearly increases, which I appreciate. He also lays out concrete points that he wishes to pursue in order to achieve his goals, and I feel that his goals are both realistic and achievable. For instance, here's what he has to say about textbook costs:
1. Work with student groups such as IBook Union to create more student driven book exchanges that will decrease book prices to a significantly lower level.

2. Document for students sources of cheaper, used books and learning material in order to decrease the Bookstore’s monopoly on the book market on campus.

3. Demand that the university explain how the high book prices contribute to the student experience on campus.

I quite like the first point- I don't know if it's something that has been looked into previously, but I feel like it's a new idea. The second point and third points I'm not so sure on, however. While I like the idea of providing students with alternatives on where to get their books, I feel like most students already know. Furthermore, there are some things that he seems to lack knowledge of when it comes to the Bookstore- that their general book costs are driven up by classes in which required textbooks are not mass produced, and are therefore expensive. I'm also not sure about the monopoly on the book market- the Village bookstore, while technically not on campus, still provides books and is an alternative. As for the third point, most professors and members of the administration that I've spoken to on the issue are concerned about book costs. I don't want to analyze every point to death, but I think the gist of it is that there are some good ideas and plans that Alex raises in his platform, but I feel that he does lack some knowledge about how things (like the Bookstore) operate. His point on hiring and tenure, for instance, would be a salient one if the university were already not looking at ways to change hiring practices- and they are changing, albeit slowly.

There are some things that, while well-intentioned, I felt were funny (even if they were true). Well, only one thing actually, and it was "Currently many students have to wait ten minutes or more at a bus stop to get on a packed bus." Transit is definitely an important issue, and I am glad that it is addressed in his platform, but I feel like the plan he outlines neglects the problems that Translink is having with its system. When I last talked to a Translink employee, I was told that the problem with people having to wait/not having buses come often enough was caused simply by a lack of buses- that due to the UPass in part, demand exceeded supply. Another idea I liked: mixed-market housing, an approach that I haven't seen mentioned by either of the other candidates.

There are a couple of things I wished I'd see more of, however. I was hoping to see a greater breadth of issues covered- particularly about what happens next year with the Olympics, or what happens if the TAs go on strike when their contracts expire next year. I realize the latter issue hasn't really been talked about at all, but I feel it's one of significant importance. I also would like to see a better understanding of how the AMS works. While some points lay out concrete ideas, other are much more vague or idealistic.

So in overview, my take on platforms is that Blake>Alex>Paul. Blake's platform covers a breadth of issues, and he knows how the AMS works and uses that to his advantage. Alex's also addresses some important issues, but the sense I get from that one is that he lacks the knowledge base, and while he can point out issues concerning students and offer some interesting ideas about ways to address them, he doesn't have the depth of knowledge of the AMS and how it works in order to be able to work to get them achieved. And Paul's is too idealistic for me, and doesn't really lay out concrete plans for how to achieve his goals.

Chalkified!

2009-01-26T23:43:00.000-08:00

I get to campus today, and what's the first thing I notice? Ubiquitous chalk graffiti covering the sidewalks, walls of buildings. I can't seem to escape the bright colours telling me to vote for iRod. It's like being stuck in some sort of psychedelic dream, only one that's not going quite as planned because instead of seeing pretty splashes of colour that one is supposedly prone to experiencing in such times, I am instead bombarded by messages telling me to vote for a candidate who, had I not paid closer attention to the the message (and had I not been trying extra hard to concentrate in order to compensate for running on 4 hours of sleep), I would have confused for iPod . That extra stroke is tricky when you're tired.

As the morning slowly matured into the afternoon, I relocated several times around campus, only to find that, like rapidly replicating E. coli, the chalk graffiti had multiplied exponentially within a matter of hours. Had I more energy, I would have been tempted to try to model the rate of change in surface area covered by chalk, hoping to see a sinusoidal curve approaching some sort of steady state at which candidates had used up the chalk stores of Vancouver. The cloudiness in my mind cleared for a brief moment in which I contemplated the meaning of the messages elegantly written onto the sidewalks and walls of buildings. My first thought was that UBC would be greatly prettified if only it had more colour. I must admit, nothing makes me happier than a tasteful colour palette complete with pinks and blues, and several building at UBC, including, but not limited to, the likes of the Buchanan tower, are quite devoid of this quality. Campus developers, take note. Colours on campus > no colours on campus. There are psychological studies that have shown that specific colours make people happier- I think this is particularly important during election time. In any case, I think this thought summed up to "the campus has been Chalkified". Also, the explosion of colour reminded me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGL0gdEPCtU
Just imagine Buchanan Tower instead of the building in the ad. Seriously.

Momentarily distracted by this thought, my next one fell to the actual messages written on said surfaces. Mostly, I was thinking about how much messages actually said about candidates, and whether they actually convinced me to vote for people. I don't normally succumb to orders that easily, but when they're written in pretty colours? I don't know... it's sort of tempting. However, the quality of the artwork also matters- the more artistic, the better. Which means that creative fonts get bonus points, and scribbles or boring fonts like Times New Roman or Arial take you into the negative domain. Furthermore, you definitely lose points for assuming that I'm going to vote for someone based on the number of times I see their name. In fact, the more I see a name, the more annoyed I get with seeing it. There's a delicate balance to be struck- I need to see your name in order to know you exist, and to be interested enough to look into your platform. But seeing your name too many times makes it seem like you went crazy with the chalk. Which is great if you're playing hopscotch or drawing amazing works of art on the sidewalks. But not so much if you're just writing "Vote _____!". Where are the catchy slogans? Things like "Vote for Iggy, it's no biggie" or "Vote for Tim on your whim". Or something catchier, because I've never been good at poetry or catchy rhymes. In any case, I was impressed by Iggy's ability to coordinate a chalk onslaught. I was similarly impressed by Tim's rapid response team quickly getting on the ball to also launch a campaign chalk ad. Most interesting, however, was the person who wrote something along the lines of "The university is making money off of student loans! This must be stopped!". I also enjoyed the chalk ads referencing one another, in perhaps the best display of debate (instead of Q&A sessions) we've seen so far, where candidates actually make attempts at refutation. They have a ways to go, of course, but addressing each other in something other than question format is, I feel, a step in the right direction. I feel this second thought could be summarized by "Chalk wars? I think they have potential."

In general, I'm rather dubious of the effect of campaign posters on persuading voters of anything. I feel like their only purpose is to educate people of the existence of the candidates. I can't say I'm particularly impressed with this year's campaign posters (come on, guys- weren't you inspired by Obama's Hope poster?), and I feel that for the purposes they accomplish, chalk ads do the same thing, but in a more aesthetically pleasing manner.

Guest Post: Part I

2009-01-26T23:30:00.000-08:00

This is Serious Steve from the Devil's Advocate with the first part of a guest post. By posting here I am freed from my obligation to be hilarious, so I hope I make up for that in analysis.

I'm going to talk about races in which my opinion is fairly settled, which means this post will be about the VP Academic and University Affairs and President races.

VP Academic and University Affairs

Who should win?

David Nogas has a sprawling, unfocused platform that seems to touch on everything (transit, CASA, a long ramble about an "everything class") except the main focus of the VP Academic and University Affairs position. He has been unclear in the debates, and is unconvincing that he would be able to use the position to make even the change he wants. Next.

Sonia Purewal has Council experience, and her platform talks about the right things, though her debate performances and "about me" section leave it clear that her forte is complaining about UBC. Don't get me wrong - she has some good ideas about how to fix it, and she may do a half-decent job on the academic front. She wants to review retaking finals, reform tutorials -- though I'm not exactly sure how -- and do something about class scheduling. Not awe-inspiring stuff of legend, for sure. Her council experience is an asset, but I'm not convinced that it is a huge asset. She doesn't point to anything specific she achieved as a Council member, which would be nice in convincing me that she is able to achieve change within the system she describes as a "quagmire".

Jeremy Wood. Oh Jeremy. He is by far the most interesting candidate in this race, if only due to his magnificent and brief non-candidacy. He's also the only candidate who is convincing on campus community issues such as the UBC Farm, RCMP relations, and Market Housing (which he capitalizes to emphasize its relationship with Evil). Speaking about equity and a student-centred campus in the debates, he comes across as knollie -- or "radical wing nut" if you read the D.A. -- but interestingly he is not endorsed by the Knoll.

If Jeremy had run a clean campaign and stuck to the issues he promotes, I might even pick him, as he seems to be the only one with a clear vision of the "University Affairs" side of the portfolio; however, his big mistakes during the campaign make me wonder whether a VP Jeremy would bring the right professionalism and direction to the job that is required to make an impact within the University. Would he focus on doing the right things in a pragmatic way, or make himself irrelevant by railing against Housing and Conferences, over-focusing on Equity, and wrecking any chances of a working relationship with the police? I wouldn't gamble my vote on finding out.

And finally, Johannes Rebane. Johannes has made it clear that he has detailed though somewhat minor academic goals: increase value in labs and tutorials (which seems to be code for "make TAs speak English"), extend academic choices through a Pass/Fail option for electives, and connect career resources to better serve students. He's also against commercial development on campus, though like Jeremy implied in the first debate, I doubt he has the necessary drive and experience to make an impact in that area. He has, however, run the best campaign. He has stayed out of trouble, he has plenty of poorly photoshopped posters and a flashy website, and he has a Facebook group second in size only to Bijan Ahmadian.

A year with VP Johannes will likely not mean much change to campus planning, RCMP relations, the UBC Farm or childcare: I doubt he'll set us back anything, but also doubt he'll make major changes. I feel more optimistic about his academic plans, and if his self-promotional blurb about accomplishments as CUS VP Academic is faithful, he will have the drive and know-how to get his goals achieved.

I wish there were a funny and insightful joke candidate running for VP Academic and University Affairs - I'd have no trouble making an endorsement for them. As it is, it's a tough call, but I'll probably vote Johannes > Sonia > Jeremy > David.

Who will win?

In the old electoral system, Johannes Rebane would win this election handily. He has the largest audience to market to (300+ in his Facebook group compared to under 100), has some high profile endorsements, will get the Commerce vote, and faces a rabble of contenders who are mistake-prone, unaligned with any electoral blocs, and not doing a very good job of campaigning.

The new Condorcet system makes it a bit harder to predict. Johannes will probably still win; however, if voters for Johannes prefer Sonia over Jeremy, and those for Jeremy prefer Sonia over Johannes -- which isn't an all to unlikely scenario -- then Sonia could end up being the "best compromise" candidate. However, I find it unlikely that many voters will know more than the one candidate that convinced them to vote, so such a pronounced effect may not happen. In any case, this race will be a very interesting test of the new system.

President

Who should win?

We can start by ruling out Paul Korczyk. Paul is the outsider candidate, and he makes it very clear in the debates that he is also a one-issue candidate. That issue - student engagement and communication - is huge, but his attention to it to the exclusion of other issues tells us he isn't the right person for the job. Mike Duncan talked about student engagement as part of his platform, and look what he's done: not much. (Engaged some students on the NCAA issue, maybe.) If Mike Duncan can't do it, I don't have much faith in Paul. Sorry, Paul. (Disclosure: in case you didn't hear from his numerous debate references and my reaming of Jeremy Wood over his statements about advising, I work with Paul in Residence Life. I find it tough to disendorse him like this, but it has to be done.)

Blake Frederick is the ideological candidate in this election. We know where his priorities stand: free education! affordable housing! save the farm! lobby! protest! activism! Asked in a debate why he wasn't running for VP External, he replied roughly that he wanted not just a lobbying job, but a wholesale change in the focus of the AMS. An interesting point; however, Blake has been working as an AVP for two years. He's been at the forefront of implementing the two executive portfolios which relate most directly to his stated goals, under two left-wing VPs (Brendon Goodmurphy, former VP Academic, and Stefanie Ratjen, VP Externyl) who were focused on all the same things he is. How much more of the AMS needs to change to focus on these goals when its External office is already gung-ho? Blake would make an excellent VP External, but I am left with questions about his Presidential qualifications.

Questions such as: Will he micromanage the VPs External and Academic and reduce Executive productivity? Will he be able to lead a team effectively? Will he be able to put aside his ideology occasionally to work with the Administration, UNA, and governments? Despite these lingering questions, Blake has the experience in the AMS, is generally a good guy, and captured my heart in last year's election. I find his claim that "as students, we must demand more from our educational institutions and all three levels of government" gives me a vision of the AMS as a positive force of change rather than a reactionary institution with small goals. He's also stood out in the debates, having the clearest message of the three candidates.

Finally, Alex Monegro. Alex has a pragmatic platform with a greater balance of issues than Blake -- education concerns, the cost of tuition, student services and transit all get roughly equal playing time, though it doesn't have the cohesion that Blake's platform does. Either Alex doesn't have a full strategic vision for the direction of the AMS yet, or he doesn't know how to communicate that. His debate performances confirm this for me.

I am more convinced that, if he figures out where he wants the AMS to go, he'd know how to get there. Alex has positioned himself as the "team leader" candidate, touting his experience as VP External of the CUS and pumping himself up as the man to 'get the job done', not by focusing on ideological goals, but by managing his Executive team to achieve more than could be done by one person. The endorsements he has (including, most recently, Darren Peets) seem to corroborate this view of him. I don't know him at all, so I can't personally speak to his accomplishments as a team leader, but it seems to be his strength.

If I could combine Blake and Alex into a supercandidate with Blake's passion about the issues facing students and the university, and Alex's apparent leadership experience and common sense, I would heartily endorse this supercandidate. Forced to make a choice, however, I'm probably going to vote for Blake. In this race, I'll take a risk on the visionary candidate with the clear vision over the practical candidate, especially since the visionary has two years of very relevant experience under his belt. I don't think Blake's the perfect person for the job, nor do I think it's the perfect job for him, but I'll take Blake > Alex > Paul anyway.

Who will win?

This is tough. All three candidates have their separate bases of support: for Alex, Sauder students; for Blake, the knollies; for Paul, advisors and residents who know him. Given the higher proportion of commerce students who typically vote, as well as his Facebook group that is 100 people larger than his two competitors, I'm going to guess that Alex will win this one. The fact that he's a centrist candidate who may well place second in votes for Paul or Blake will also help him in the Condorcet system.

In conclusion... these are my opinions, and you can certainly expect them to quickly be contradicted by both the UBC Insiders writers and the Devil's Advocate editorial staff. I may even be disendorsed for switching horses and (gasp!) tacitly endorsing candidates. Be assured that I'll be back to my usual silly and insulting self over at the D.A.

But until then, you can chew on this analysis of these races. I heartily advise everyone to visit the candidates' websites and make up your own mind; allow me to inform your decision rather than make it for you. Cheers!

Interviews: Paul Korczyk.

2009-01-26T22:57:00.000-08:00

The interviews continue! This one is chock full of hockey commentary, which I quite enjoyed, and give props to.

1.) If you had to choose one thing from your platform that you would work on, which would it be and why?
When players talk to eachother on the ice, everything breaks down, and you won't be winning too many games. In the dressing room, if players just keep quiet in their stalls, they won't have team spirit and won't be bought in. I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. Communication.

The AMS needs to revitalize how it interacts and communicates with students. I will personally inform residences of what we're doing, information in residence, if presented correctly, it can spread like wildfire. A more consistent and continuous online presence is important as well. Including, but not limited to media like Facebook, blogs, and presence on the New to UBC and FYI newsletter committees.

However, communication can't stop there. I will make sure to work with the VP external to ensure we have strong communication with the Provincial Government, CASA, and our other local students' associations. Preventing spiking tuition fees, improved child care, and a positive Olympic experience can only be achieved if we're effectively getting our messages across to the BC Government and City of Vancouver council.

2.) How would you describe your leadership style?
A leader needs to know how each position works, and how to act accordingly to best benefit the team as a whole. When Mark Messier came to the Canucks during the 'dark ages', his ego couldn't be controlled and it led to a negative presence. He was constantly at odds with teammates, and the locker room was in shambles because of it. It was the wrong way to lead the team, and the Canucks suffered because of it.

In contrast, my leadership is that of inclusion. Everyone brings valuable information to any team, and everyone has the potential for greatness. My leadership is based on drawing that greatness out of people, and not imposing my own beliefs or my ego on them. However, at the same time, when necessary, I'll fight for my team, and take a game misconduct if needed.

3.) If you had to select another candidate, other than yourself, for your position, who would you select and why?
Steve Yzerman, as a write in ballot. Yzerman was one of the greatest hockey players of all time. He's a born leader, both on and off the ice. His on-ice skill and leadership doesn't need to be backed up, his tenure with the Red Wings brought them out of the cellar into years of league dominance.

4.) What experience have you had leading a team?
Think of me as Mats Sundin coming onto the Vancouver Canucks. I've got a great amount of leadership coming into the new job, but it's coming from somewhere else. In a short amount of time, I'll be a great benefit to the team, but it will take me a few games to learn the ropes. I'm a very quickly learner, and I easily adapt to change and adversity. I can deal with anything that is thrown at me. Like Sundin, I've led committees, like the Leafs' powerplay, and I've been the Captain of a team, who is looked upon for decisions, as well as fighting for my teammates to referees and coaches.

5.) How are you different from the other candidates running for your position?
Many were shocked and angry when Mike Gillis was hired as the new General Manager of the Canucks. He had no previous experience in managing a national hockey league team, and he was thrust into the main role, making the hard decisions and leading a team of executives. His experience came from elsewhere, but has since proven that his lack of job specific experience did not hamper him one bit. He made some 'bold moves' and did a good job to ensure a competetive team 'moving forward', including eventually landing the biggest free agent of the offseason. His connections to the player agent world have been key in putting together some significant pieces of the puzzle.

Sound familiar? I have outside experience that will be extremely valuable. Right now, I'm working in a position that has me in constant contact with parts of campus I don't believe the AMS has connected enough with. The VP students' portfolio is diverse, and focuses on improving student life on campus, just like the AMS. I have dealt closely with many people involved with the portfolio's many programs, and bridging them together with the AMS will end up being a great benefit to students. Increased presence at the SLC, LEAP workshops in the SUB, and more cross-involvement with orientations will be great for students as well as the AMS.

Working UBC Waste Management and Sustainability offices is another important step in the right direction. Compost bins with big AMS logos on them will go a long way in showing students what we're doing for them.

6.) What would you say is the single most important issue concerning UBC students right now?
Education. Great teams always have those star players who can play multiple roles on the team. Think of the Detroit Red Wings, who have guys like Nik Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk. They play different positions, but they chip in all over the ice, and are great both on offence and defence. To win the Stanley Cup, you need a team where everyone is able to contribute on both ends of the rink. Similarly, to have a great University, you need professors that are stars in both teaching and research.

The university in recent years has been focusing too much on improving the researchers it's bringing in. Unfortunately, great researchers don't necessarily make the best instructors. The Carl Wieman teaching initiative has been great for the faculty of science, and the change in how the Wieman program science classes are being taught is remarkable. This needs to be funded and spread throughout the rest of the faculties. The LEAD program is a great step towards that goal, but moving forward, we need to make sure it keeps getting necessary funding and attention, and making sure UBC's new strategic plan includes a vision focused on teaching just as much as it focuses on research.

7.) If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Time to take a break from the cheesy hockey analogies. In a heartbeat, I'd go back to Poland for a bit. I miss my family. My cousins have slowly been getting facebook the last few months, and while it's great being in touch a little more, it's making me miss being there. I haven't been back in three years now. I've missed two weddings through not being able to afford plane tickets, and it's been killing me. One of my other cousins is getting married this summer, but it's not looking much better for me being able to get out there, so if I could go anywhere in the world, it'd be Poland for Tomek's wedding.

Words from the wise man of past: Darren Peets

2009-01-26T04:01:00.000-08:00

Many of you know him as the Firehydrant, some of you may know him as Darren Peets, but regardless of how you may refer to him, you probably all know him to be someone who knows a heck of a lot about the BoG. Below is an article he wrote for the Insiders about the race for the BoG. Enjoy!

Several candidates have asked for my endorsement, and it seemed to me that
it would be better if I did a comprehensive job of evaluating people instead
of selectively supplying soundbites. The catch, of course, is that I've
been out of the country since the end of September, and was very busy
writing a thesis in the spring, so I don't necessarily know how people have
done in current roles, or how they've matured. I'm trusting you to take
this with a grain of salt, use your own opinions and priorities, and just
generally think for yourself.

The Board race has a very strong set of candidates this year. Since I
served on Board and know all five candidates fairly well, I figure I can
offer more insight here than in other races.

First, Board is tricky, because it requires that students have a very strong
understanding of how the university works. They need to work with
administrators to improve UBC, and they need to work with other Board
members to resolve contentious issues to the extent possible before
the meeting. Student Board members have very few meetings and essentially
no power, but they have incredible access and an excellent opportunity to
guide change. A bright and interested student dragged in off the street
could do a decent job in most (but not all) AMS executive positions. This
is not true of Board. Fortunately, all five candidates have strong
backgrounds. I'll cover them in alphabetical order.

Bijan Ahmadian is a former student of mine. He can be quite stubborn when
he has an issue he's pursuing, although sometimes to the point of
infuriating people. While he'd be persistent one-on-one on some specific
issues, I can't picture him actually opposing the administration or Board if
it came down to it. His specialty is networking, and I have little doubt he
could call up any member of Board or the admin at this point and talk with
them. My concern is that he may view Board as a vehicle for personal
networking, rather than viewing networking as a way to serve students. He
has a year of experience, which is very useful, although most of the other
candidates still likely have more background on the issues. If he doesn't
know what he's talking about in the detail required, that may not stop him
from arguing his case, which would be extremely counterproductive --
hopefully he's stopped doing this (this would be more an issue when talking
with administrators than Board members). He would be best paired on Board
with someone who knows the University inside and out, so they can get him
well versed on issues and put his skills to work.

Speaking of which, next is Andrew Carne. Andrew has a very detailed
knowledge of UBC and most of its inner workings, and he's been watching
Board meetings for about 1.5 years. On quite a number of occasions, I've
seen him have "wait, what?" moments, where he's been immediately struck by
the absurdity of something UBC is doing or planning to do, often clearer and
faster than me. An ability to spot things out of place quickly is
important, since Board members have very little time with the material
before they have to vote on it. My one concern with Andrew is I simply
don't know whether he's good at talking with administrators and convincing
them to do things, although working with then-Dean Isaacson puts a bit of a
trial by fire under his belt. He has a history of first determining exactly
what his constituents want, then working hard to get it. He'd do an
exceptional job, overall, but it might be best to pair him with someone with
better networking or connections.

I don't envy Mike Duncan for the executive he had to hold together and keep
focussed this past year, but he seems to have done an excellent job, and is
well-known to the administration. I doubt he's made many enemies, although
he can sometimes spread himself thin enough to seem inattentive on some
issues and he occasionally steps on toes a bit through carelessness. It's a
bit hard for me to really know how he'd do in the Board role, since people
tend to mature a lot as President and I haven't been around to see the
results of this. He probably doesn't have quite the depth of knowledge of
Andrew Carne, but he has strong networking skills (as his Facebook friends
list indicates), and is good at quickly extracting the key message from a
large amount of detailed information, a useful skill. My guess is he'd be
better at strategic visioning than most, if not all, of the other
candidates. That's a large part of the President's job and it's a type of
thinking that takes a lot of getting used to. He'd do a very good job, I
suspect, particularly if paired with someone who can keep him focussed on
Board and on specific issues.

Blake Frederick I have trouble pinning down. Some of his thoughts and
opinions have been very well thought-through and well backed-up, while
others have been quite simplistic and based purely in idealism. (I'm a
practical, pragmatic person, not an idealist, as are essentially all Board
members -- they ignore and get frustrated by idealists). His platform's
introduction contains observations that are true, but not solvable at the
Board level, and assertions that are false but sound good. His platform
points blend President and Board, but most are really about provincial
lobbying (possibly due to his AMS history), and the language ("pressure",
"oppose", "demand", "prevent") suggests an approach incompatible with the
Board role. Blake knows a fair bit about UBC, and has a lot of things he'd
like to fix. I'm not convinced his approach would allow him to actually fix
much as a Board member, though. His presence serves to keep the other
students on track, but having people like that is more useful on bodies like
AMS Council, rather than Board, where only a handful of people would be
receptive. He'd be better in other portfolios, particularly VP External.

Tristan Markle is another difficult one for me. When Tristan first showed
up on Council, he came in with a background as a protester, and his
contributions were so far out in left field (framing questions around our
being in a corrupt capitalist system, with air quotes around words like
"money") that he was met with blank stares. He quickly recognized this
gulf, and became self-mocking to deal with it. He was elected to VP Admin,
where the practicalities of getting a building built changed his approach
(although the idealism and some old bad habits are clearly still there -- as
of several months ago he was still making statements in which a highly
questionable "should" would become an "is"). Again, I don't know how much
he's changed. In VP Admin, he's in charge of his portfolio and answerable
to The People, and there's no Man to fight. That's not true with Board, and
it's hard for me to guess whether or to what extent he'd fall back into
outbursts that they'd find insulting or incomprehensible. He has a very
detailed knowledge of specific parts of how UBC works, but not as broadly as
Andrew or Mike. I cannot imagine him networking effectively (or wanting to)
with this crowd, nor can I see him effectively convincing administrators to
change their approach. Some students like people who will take idealistic
stances and stick to them. I suspect Tristan would do this. I don't
believe it would be effective.

For Board, I'd pick Andrew Carne and Michael Duncan, in that order of
preference.

The President's role is the other one where experience is especially
important -- if you don't know in detail how the AMS works and what the VPs
and staff do, they'll walk all over you for a few months until you figure it
out, and your presence will serve little purpose. If people look to you for
leadership and your response is "come back in a few months", they'll look
elsewhere. You can't change a complex organization you don't understand, in
part because the people who don't want to change can always raise some issue
you hadn't thought of or didn't know about. While it may seem a bit unfair,
I'm going to summarily dismiss Paul Korczyk on this basis (note that I don't
know him).

Blake I've largely covered, and there's a fair bit of overlap in skills
required for President and Board. The President sets the overall direction
of the AMS and changes things as need be. Blake can certainly set lobbying
priorities, although I'd question the effectiveness of the approach he seems
to favour (other than as a fall-back once diplomacy has failed). Other than
lobbying, it's not clear to me what he'd want to do with the role.

Alex is quite bright and would be an excellent team leader -- the VPs would
have a lot of autonomy and support where they needed it, while he'd likely
spend a fair bit of effort pondering where the AMS should be headed and how
best to get it there. This could (but might not) lead to significant,
low-profile internal improvements. Externally, he'd be trying to convince
people to implement policy, but in a friendly, helpful manner. I've seen
his approach used on the provincial government, and it was quite successful.
At the municipal level, I don't know how it will work. However, it's
difficult to guess what issues he'd pursue, because his platform is thin,
vague and buzzwordy. Alex, you can do better.

Of the two, I'd pick Alex and hope that he figured out what he was going to
do with his year.

At VP Academic I only know one of the four candidates, and haven't had a
chance to see her do much, so I don't think it's fair to comment.

At VP External, I know Tim a little, I've never met Iggy, and there are two
joke candidates, one the arch-nemesis of my pet Fire Hydrant. Tim is nice
and a great person, but he occasionally has some very strange priorities.
His platform has a significant focus on equity within the AMS, which is
neither a VP External issue nor an issue that any significant fraction of
the student body cares about. (Is it a problem? I don't know. Should we
study it? Yes, and AMS Council approved doing that almost a year ago. Is
it something you can base a campaign on? No.) Can we trade Blake to VP
External for Tim and a second-round draft pick? One thing I feel compelled
to point out if Council's make-up is at issue: a remarkable fraction of UBC
students live at home with their parents and commute (if I remember
correctly, just over 40%). When the motion came up almost a year ago to
study this, I asked how many people around the Council table lived with
their parents and commuted. One. If there's an underrepresented group,
this is it. And almost nobody mentions them.

If I had to vote in this race, I'd need to know Iggy better before being
able to choose who to vote for.

At VP Admin, neglecting the joke candidates, we have Tristan Markle as the
status quo candidate and Crystal Hon as the outsider. I just have to repeat
that -- Tristan Markle is the status quo candidate. I've pretty sure I've
met Crystal... once, and I have no idea how she'd do in the job. Tristan
has done a pretty decent job as VP Admin, is completely up to speed, and
would keep the project moving along rapidly. He seems to have a very strong
commitment to both sustainability and consultation, which are important
here. Someone new in the portfolio (as Tristan was last year) generally
feels compelled to put things on hold while they figure out what's going on
(or risk getting steamrolled by what's already in motion), and they
generally want to put their own stamp on the project, setting it back a
month or two. The one caveat is that the speed of the project and the
approach of Mike and Tristan to keep the project going full speed ahead and
leave the admin in the dust if need be (an approach I fully supported) may
have stepped on some toes. In that case, a change of face and short delay
may be beneficial, provided the negotiating experience isn't lost. But my
strong inclination is to support Tristan here. As for the joke candidates,
Keg and Fountain have far too much in common to be fighting. Surely they
can agree to the installation of campus beer lines direct to beer fountains?
Come on, you two, get to know each other better over a round of drinks, and
just be friends.

At VP Finance, I barely know Ale and don't know Tim. The budget is prepared
early in the year, and substantial change can only be made by someone from
within the finance portfolio. Neither has that background. One has a
commerce background and one has an AMS commission background, so both are
partway there.

I hope someone, somewhere, found this helpful. And again, keep in mind that
I don't know all the people or how they've matured, that I tend to be the
middle-of-the-road pragmatic type, which you may not be, and that you have a
brain and should make your own decisions.

BREAKING: Bijan's response

2009-01-26T02:42:00.000-08:00

This just came into my facebook inbox after I tried to contact Bijan to hear his side of the story.

In recent days, I have come under attack based on a partial recording of a meeting of Friends of the Farm at which I spoke. Through this response, I hope to clarify both the context and my position on the UBC Farm.

I believe it is important to clarify that the recording a) represents only a fraction of a larger meeting b) was posted online without context by an anonymous blogger. Based on the way this blogger frames the issue, it seems to be part of a deliberate smear campaign designed to prevent me from being re-elected to the Board of Governors. As someone who has never taken democracy for granted, I find these politics of personal destruction disheartening.

After the Friends of the Farm mentioned that they had endorsed Tristan Markle for the Board of Governors, I explored the possibility of an endorsement from them. I was invited to present to one of their meetings, at which the group was going to vote on who to endorse as a second Board candidate. I was later told that my presentation resulted in a split vote in my favour, and therefore no endorsement was made for the second Board position. Clearly, many people at the meeting understood that I am supportive of preserving the Farm.

The clip refers to a specific project beyond general support of the Farm, for which I said I needed an endorsement to signal my relationship with the Friends of the Farm. I had discussed the details of that project with the group earlier in the meeting. Given the large number of stakeholders engaged with the Farm issue, I stressed that I was reluctant to make that project a top priority if students and the university administration would not see me as legitimately speaking on behalf of farm advocates.

My message has been deliberately taken out of context in order to imply that I am more interested in blackmail and the accumulation of personal power than in representing students. I have served UBC students in elected capacities for a number of years, and I am not unfamiliar with the political side of student politics - but to me, that accusation goes beyond the pale.

I have been very clear on my posters and website about my desire to ensure that the University meets its commitment to the UBC Farm through the creation of a refreshed academic plan across all disciplines for teaching and research on the Farm. While I have paid close attention to the Farm issue during my term on the Board, I am not a one-issue person. I have successfully focused on other matters such RCMP issues and student housing, and I will continue to do so if re-elected. I do not believe this election should be fought solely over one issue, and nor do I believe it should be fought through underhanded and misrepresentative character assassination.

Please note that the same thing was posted on Gossip Guy's blog as well. In any case, thoughts? Is his 1.5 minute response justified by the circumstances? Who could this anonymous tipper have been? Please discuss.

BREAKING: Oh, Bijan, why must you disappoint?

2009-01-24T20:11:00.000-08:00

It seems like a long-term participant in student politics has decided that selling his integrity is perhaps more important than actually doing what he was elected to do- namely, to represent students' interests on campus. This strikes me to be particularly unfortunate because Bijan is in position to be re-elected onto the BoG. Unfortunately, it seems like the comments linking me to the site with the information have been removed, but luckily I had saved the url.

"“I have been kind of clear that if you endorse me [..] I will have a very solid commitment [..] but if you do not endorse me, then i won’t be emailing people saying this is my project this year. If i get your endorsement, this it is a contract for me, and anything otherwise would be a breach of contract from my perspective, and I know that this may sound like I…I’m not saying I wouldn’t be representing you if I get elected, but it’s that endorsement that says that we have a relationship now and we can build on that relationship.” He then added that he had calculated that he would likely win the election, insinuating that FotF was therefore forced to endorse him."
~Bijan Ahmadian

I'm sad to find out that a candidate would be willing to sacrifice his credibility, integrity, and his candidacy by making such a remark- particularly when he seems to have a shot at winning the seat for which he's running, at which point it makes little sense. The link to the website providing the article and the audio is as follows:

http://concern4ubc.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/bijan-ahmadian-if-you-dont-endorse-me/

One thing to keep in mind is that the comment was made by an anonymous person, and there is no way of verifying its veracity, nor the authenticity of the audio clip provided on the site. If, however, the audio clip is genuine, one can only speculate reasons for the remarks. Intimidation tactics are rarely used when one has little to gain, so I would speculate that Bijan must indeed be afraid of losing his position on the BoG to resort to such threats. Which makes sense, given that his rivals, Michael "over 1000 UBC friends" Duncan and Blake "knows his stuff/presidential candidate" Frederick. That, or he's gotten too big for his breeches after several years in student politics. Hopefully we'll get a response to the statement, and, hopefully, the link will remain up for some time.

Edit: Here's a transcript of the audio recording, written up by SeriousSteve of the Devil's Advocate (just in case the site is taken down).

"On, sorry, the first thing about whether I would do this anyway. I have thought a lot about what my other priorities would be if I weren't doing this, and the relationship with the RCMP is one that needs to be finished; the housing demand on campus is another thing. I have been kind of clear that, if you endorse me, and if we have that contract between each other, then I will have a very solid commitment. I know that I'm emailing everyone saying that I have made this solid commitment, but if you're not endorsing me, then I won't be emailing people saying "this is my project this year." If I'm getting an endorsement this is a contract for me, and anything otherwise would be a breach of contract from my perspective. I'm not saying that I wouldn't be representing you if I get elected, but it's that endorsement that allows me to say, okay, we build a relationship now, and it's my commitment now to build upon that relationship. I want to also emphasize that, based on my calculations I am very likely to win this election, and I'm basing that calculation based on how many people I've been able to get to volunteer, which is about 100, and the size of the facebook group, which is now reaching about 500, and based on our calculations we can increase the group by about 50 per person by the time polls open. With that going on, and I like this project because it acts in my academic interests, and it also helps me just take some of that pressure off . So yes - I want to be candid about it."

More interviews: David Nogas, Tim Chu & Sonia Purewal

2009-01-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

More candidates for various positions have gotten back to me with their interview responses. For your reading pleasure, here they are!

David Nogas

1.) If you had to choose one thing from your platform that you would work on, which would it be and why?

First year education reform. There's a lot of things that can be done, the university realises there are fixable problems, lots of great new ideas floating around(that work great in other uni's) and the AMS can help. You have to make sure first years(especially commuters) are aware of the opportunities here and make information available and meaningful.

Specific academic things that can be done are organising speakers to talk to undergraduates(with a recommendation system and social aspect), giving non academic credit as incentives for UBC supervised leadership and participation, reforming worthless tutorials, introducing the P/F system to eliminate the discouragement of broadening horizons by potentially bad grades, video podcasting lectures, etc. Its critical to show them what they are working for, making them aware all the cool and interesting things being done in upper year classes so they don't get too discouraged by a boring or bland first experience, thinking thats all there is to the field. There's nothing sadder than hearing a friend say "I would of loved to be in cognitive systems if I knew it existed"

You got to get these kids early, the cigarette companies know it, the drug dealers know it, and now you know it too. Once they see the possibilities and are interested in learning and getting involved good things happen, no sense it opening their eyes when they are out the door

2.) How would you describe your leadership style?

Lofty and King-like. The job is all about delegation and communication, you have to tap qualified and motivated people and trust them enough so you don't have to micromanage their responsibilities, they'll do a better job for it. People will impress you if you give them time, as long as they want to impress you.

I believe in workarounds, the visible result is all that matters, not how you get there. The best ideas can come at the oddest hours, sometimes more progress can be made when sharing beers and stories than when sharing documents and soundbytes at meetings.

When talking to people who have different int rests than myself, its important to keep that in mind. In a negotiation you always need to look at the big picture. You can't make concessions that are detrimental to students unless they are absolutely necessary to gain value, and its ok to pause _everything_ while you figure it out.

Everyone deserves to be treated like fellow human beings,
Nobody likes fancy titles thrown in their face.

Finally, the presumption of knowledge is dangerous. If you assume you know everything you will be less receptive to reality and will make more mistakes

Oh, and I don't mind a bit of disorganization, the wiggle room makes things run more smoothly

3.) If you had to select another candidate, other than yourself, for your position, who would you select and why?

Tough question. I can't give you a reason that will make you'd want to pick them over me, backhanded compliments are lame, and I can't just slander them and ignore your question

Honestly theres no one to get excited about in this race
Jeremy - Passionate but uninformed
Sonia - Informed but ineffective
Johannas - Motivated but seems to care about himself more than others

I think Johannas or Sonia would do fine, but candidates next year will be talking about the exact same things. Johannas would prop ably do the best job with academics, but I wouldn't trust him to make the right descions on campus development.

Sonia as a caretaker, Johannas has more upside but more risk

4.) What experience have you had leading a team?

Nothing too impressive. When I was in high school I led kids in a stewardship program for the Vancouver Aquarium(making sure they didn't wander off), when I got my blackbelt I mentored the lower levels. With friends, I'm usually the person who gets the group organised to go to a movie or skiing

People were pretty lucky to have me in their lab group for most classes. I've been working in labs as a research assistant since my second year so I have alot of experience, many of the experiments that were completely new to most people I've done a hundred times. My groups were usually consistently the first to finish.

5.) How are you different from the other candidates running for your position?

I think the difference is personality and skill. I like talking with people, coming up with schemes, and have a good sense when people want something from me. You have to see opportunities and I think I have better vision. I see how things could work

One difference between me and and Sonia is that she works harder than I do. Johannas is living in the future, planning how he'll get there.

6.) What would you say is the single most important issue concerning UBC students right now?

It will be the Olympics soon, but that's a short term thing that will pass(hopefully smoothly)

The SUB renewal project is the issue I can act on that will have the greatest effect on students. If its done competently, it could be the best part of the university for generations. Badly designed it could be an albatross hanging on our necks for the next 30 years. (I'm on the SUB renewal committee)

Thinking more holistically, the single most important issue is the changing role of university in society. The ground is moving underneath our feet. A degree doesn't mean the same thing as it did 20 years ago. Jobs that require a high school diploma now require a university degree, jobs that required a university now require a Masters. Its a discussion we need to have with the people in charge and with the people who will be affected. People are uncertain about what they are going to do when they graduate, what they got out of their years here

7.) If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

Too many to pick from, I love the whole world - all its sights and sounds

Recreating Project Excelsior would be something else, a 4 minute freefall over a gorgeous part of the world

If you don't mind a bit(lot) of cheating, if I could go anywhere in the world it would be the 1995 London office of Alastair Fothergill along with the rest of the "Blue planet" crew to celebrate the beginning of shooting.

I always wanted to go backpacking in untamed Africa.

Tim Chu

If you had to choose one thing from your platform that you would work on, which would it be and why?

First of all, I intend acting on every single issue that is on my platform, not just one. Having said that, I think one priority I feel very passionate about is the issue of AMS representation. Women and ethnic minorities are grossly underrepresented. It is not acceptable that at a university where more women graduate annually than men, less than 25% of council is female. Yet paid student services positions are overwhelmingly composed of females. The fact that AMS Council is not truly representative of the student body is very frustrating and pressing because those groups who are underrepresented, their interests are often overlooked in AMS Council. I want to not only examine the reasons why this is the case but work with campus clubs, resource groups, and Council to ensure that VP Externals don’t have to worry about this issue. By making AMS Council truly representative, we would shift the direction of the AMS towards the way that students actually want. And I intend on doing so.

How would you describe your leadership style?

Very inclusive. I believe in including all the stakeholders before making a decision. For far too long, the AMS have always neglected certain groups on campus. I also believe in listening and addressing the concerns of the various groups on campus. However, I am also very realistic. I understand that not everyone’s concerns and needs can be met but certainly the AMS can.

In my work with the AMS and the AUS many leadership opportunities have come up, and my colleagues all agree that I am a capable leader who knows how to combine inclusivity with effectiveness.

If you had to select another candidate, other than yourself, for your position, who would you select and why?

Fire! In order to survive in the AMS, you need to have a fiery passion for the job. The AMS can be very tedious and frustrating. I certainly have the fiery passion, I think Fire as well.

What experience have you had leading a team?
The experiences I had in leading a team include when I was an AUS councillor. When organizing FrAUSh, I was responsible for coordinating and leading the volunteers. Furthermore, I was the Assistant to the Academic Coordinator of the AUS. However, during the period between the resignation of the Academic Coordinator and the appointment of a new Academic Coordinator, I had to step up to the plate and lead the Academic Committee to do various tasks, including the planning of the Performing Arts Showcase.

How are you different from the other candidates running for your position?

There are two major distinctions between me and other candidates running for my position.

The first is that I am very serious about this position. I understand that students turn to the AMS when they need help and I understand that this position entails a fair amount of pressure to perform. I am very serious about this position.

The second is experience. Of all the candidates running for VP-External, I have the most experience to do the job. I have been involved with the AMS and I understand how it works. And I work well with the staff and other councillors. I sat on a total of five committees of the AMS, two of which were the External Lobbying Committee and the Equity Committee chaired by the VP-External. Furthermore, I worked for the AMS in the External Lobbying Committee and led the AMS through two elections, a municipal and a federal election. I know what techniques work and what methods don’t. A provincial election is coming up and my experience is essential. That is what makes me distinct from other candidates. Furthermore, to truly work to change the status quo you must know and understand what the status quo is, and why it is flawed. I know and understand the problems facing the AMS because I have been actively involved in the AMS. I am the right person for the job because I understand how to go about making the necessary changes.

What would you say is the single most important issue concerning UBC students right now?
The upfront cost of education is the single most important issue concerning UBC students right now. Students are struggling with the cost-of-loving, are burdened with the increasing tuition fees and are faced with rising student debt. This is the single most important issue concerning UBC students and I want to work with students and the government to address this concern.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

If I could go anywhere in the world, I would go to the centre of the earth. ‘Cause if I start digging a tunnel to China, well, I’d already be halfway there right?

Sonia Purewal

1.) If you had to choose one thing from your platform that you would work on, which would it be and why?

I would work to consolidate the academic services offered by the AMS, AMS constituencies and UBC so that students know exactly what is offered and how to access them. I want assess the quality of these resources, rank them in terms of usefulness by faculty, year and major and create a webpage that would allow students to do a custom search so that they only get services that would be most useful/applicable to them. I feel that many services are accessed by a small subset of students and many do not even know that they exist. So I would heavily publicize these services and ensure students can easily access them to improve their academics at UBC. I would choose to focus on this because this is an area of the portfolio I have complete control over. Achieving this goal doesn’t depend on lobbying the University but rather on whether I decide to dedicate myself and thus any failure to implement changes would be on me. I want to take action and see tangible changes that are going to effect current students. Too much time is spent creating policy and writing reports, its time to implement those policies.

2.) How would you describe your leadership style?

I love working with others to solve problems. I like facilitating discussion and allowing individuals to take initiative and pursuing issues they are passionate about when possible with oversight. I am ultimately responsible so I ensure key tasks are completed on time with a set date for deliverables to ensure that work is done and we are on track to completing whatever it is that we are working on. I find individuals do there best work when they have ownership and know that they have a responsibility and obligation to ensure that what needs to be done, is done. I am not controlling in nature and recognize that I am not an expert in all areas. So I find it extremely important to recognize the skill and knowledge of those who work with me and thus encourage collaboration. But most of all, I am reasonable and realistic and respect those around me which creates an excellent working environment which is the first step in accomplishing anything.

3.) If you had to select another candidate, other than yourself, for your position, who would you select and why?

I would choose Jeremy Wood. With respect to the other candidates, he is most genuine and that is an important quality if AMS executives are going to connect to the student body. There is no question that he cares about issues with respect to sustainability and the Farm and if that passion extends to the rest of the portfolio, tangible change can happen.

4.) What experience have you had leading a team?

This is what I do. I began my involvement as Philanthropy Chair of Phrateres UBC. I was responsible for the coordination and organization of the Terry Fox Run for the UBC Community along with a multitude of charity events. That required effective communication and organizational skills. I was a SUS councilor and executive. As Director of Sports, I coordinated and managed 13 intramural Rec teams involving over 150 students, created a series of activity workshops to get students active and engaged in a healthy lifestyle and organized events such as Science Olympics. I am also a Computer Science Student Society Executive. I work to engage Computer Science students and create a network that provides them with the support to get through a strenuous program. I have been involved in Imagine and Gala…

5.) How are you different from the other candidates running for your position?

I am the only candidate with any AMS experience as a counselor. In order to be an effective VP Academic and University Affairs, you need to know the structure of the AMS and how it works. You need to know what’s broken and what the AMS is doing well in order to accomplish anything tangible. There is a process in implementing change within the institution of the AMS and the university and that has not been addressed. I have noticed how easily experience has been dismissed in the VP Academic race as the other three candidates have none. Citing experience within an AMS constituency or advocacy group is not good enough. I have been involved at the constituency level and the process in getting anything done and the politics are vastly different. If the other candidates were elected, they would spend more time learning how to do the job than actually doing it whereas I could hit the ground running. This is really important when you only have a short amount of time in office to accomplish anything.

Furthermore, the other candidates have great ideas, but many are unrealistic or infeasible as they require massive amounts of funding which is not available. They expect the provincial government to contribute but this is unrealistic as the provincial government has just cut funding and any funding received will need to go towards areas that lost that funding in the first place. They offer no short term solutions to address current needs of students.

Finally, I genuinely care about this position and have no other reason for pursuing this opportunity but to improve the student experience because I feel cheated that I did not have the experience I expected. No one would put more of themselves into this job to make things happen. When I reflect on my time in student government, I want to be able to say that I made a real difference and took action rather than draft policy and write reports. I understand the role and responsibility of the VP Academic and University Affairs and will not make empty promises and say I will do something that I know I can not accomplish. I refuse to use buzzwords and issue sound bytes. I am not good at spewing rhetoric. I try to honestly address answers and I hope the electorate can see that. I may not always be eloquent but it’s the truth. It would be easy to speak in generalities and simply say I will support and lobby the university to put student interests first but these are empty statements. It’s more important to address how this will be done and the approach that will be taken. I hope the electorate will recognize that

6.) What would you say is the single most important issue concerning UBC students right now?

I would say that it is the disconnect between the students and the university campus and the AMS. Many students are being cheated out of an amazing university experience us because there is very limited communication. The onus is currently on students to find out what’s happening. Although, it’s important for students to take initiative in this regards we need to make an effort to inform them. Students need to recognize who they are being represented by and what issues are being addressed. Once this happens, students will see the positive work the AMS is pursuing will want to be involved or at least informed of the continuing efforts and utilize the services and resources the AMS provides.

7.) If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why

I would want to go to France. It’s a beautiful country with a rich history and unique culture that I would love to experience.

Stay tuned for more!

BREAKING: Jeremy Wood Back In

2009-01-23T22:56:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Wood has decided to withdraw his withdrawal from the VP Academic race, and is now once again running for office. Here is the statement he released to member of his election facebook group:

"Hey everyone. As many of you have probably heard by now I today announced my withdrawal from the VP Academic race. I realize now what it was was that I felt I'd lost sight of the issues and was too focused on the race. I've reassessed my priorities and at the end of the day its you and your interests that matter, not just winning an election. I don't want to let you down and I won't. In the wake of my withdrawal I've seen an outpouring of support I had no idea about and it has genuinely moved me. Maybe my change of heart today will affect the results of this election. I hope they will not. But I will be there to see what happens. And I hope you will be there with me. Let everyone know. Were here to stay."

I find this quite interesting- I'm not quite sure yet how I feel about a candidate who feels like he lost sight of the issues, only to regain focus when others supported him. It is admirable, however, that he's more interested in protecting students' interests rather than winning the race. There are lots of ways to make a difference and stand up for students' interests without holding the position of VP Academic. Personally, I'd also be interested in what Sonia has to say.

BREAKING: Jeremy Wood pulls out of VP Academic race

2009-01-23T16:32:00.001-08:00

According to [source's name removed at source's request.], Jeremy Wood will be dropping out of the VP Academic race and endorsing Sonia Purewal.

More on this as it develops.

Adventures in Retraction

2009-01-23T08:00:00.000-08:00

I didn't take notes at a debate, and it showed; I misattributed a question during the debates, and when I received a note from someone to bolster a group I immediately jumped on it instead of taking the time to ensure I was talking about the right person.

It was unprofessional of me, and unfair to one Josh Hutchinson, to whom I'd like to apologize.

Link-splosion, January 23

2009-01-23T00:40:00.001-08:00

As we come to the end of the first week of campaigning, here's a look at some of the stuff we've been reading:

A Perspective from the Ubyssey about how the War on Fun is really just paperwork, and a rebuttal from the Radical Beer Tribune.
A first from the Ubyssey: a video recap and text summary of the first Presidential debate
Gossip Guy's lambasting of the Presidential websites.
Candidate writeups on the AMS Elections site; it's important not only to vote, but to be an informed voter.
the comments section on this Devil's Advocate post where Blake challenges Alex to a debate on tuition policy and issues.

what's caught your eye lately?

Debate Photos, January 21

2009-01-22T23:37:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of balancing out coverage of the elections, and while it's fine and well to analyze soundbites and award points, sometimes it's necessary to post photos of people bearing facial expressions that only appear between words, and for us to come together as a community in laughing at the people who are putting so much of themselves out there in the hopes of serving their fellow students.

Ale Coates and Tom Dvorak, our VP Finance Candidates.

Fire was sadly unable to ignite the crowd's interest; although there was plenty of kindling (especially with all the plants), the jokes just seemed to sputter.

Here's Rory Green, Tim Chu's painfully loud campaign manager. I found myself distracted by her a number of times, which did affect my opinions of Tim.

Serious VPX Candidates Iggy and Tim. Tim stood up when he spoke which really only served to highlight how he was a wisp of a man next to the Iggy.

Bruce Krayenhoff, electoral reform nerd (this is a term of endearment around here) asks a question about BC-STV.

The Kings Head sips tequila through a straw. I'm not sure why the joke candidates aren't spread out over multiple races; doubling up as they have will only make it harder to get their 10% of the vote.

After Iggy's opening gambit about protest politics, current VPX Stef Ratjen delineated all the ways in which protests, demonstrations, and student initiatives had been successful over the past year (especially in the case of the Aquatic Centre, which went from "closing the free gym" to "free for students almost all the time") and asked if/how the candidates would continue.
The answers were interesting, but I'll leave it up to Maria to examine them in depth.

From left to right:

Blake Frederick -- current AVP External, former Insiders writer, Presidential candidate
Michael Duncan -- current AMS President, former SUS President, often seen shirtless and painted blue
Tristan Markle -- current VP Admin, VP Admin candidate, former owner of awesome dreadlocks
Bijan Ahmadian -- current BoG rep, former AMS Ombudsman, somehow on campus for 11 years.

Mike's the only one who seemed to watch the crowd while the other people spoke; he also ended up looking at any cameras pointed at him, which really does work in his favor.

Debate Moderator and AUS President Avneet Johal. AJ is living in a tent in the Ike Barber Learning Centre at the moment to raise awareness and funds for schools in India. He gets five minutes an hour away from said tent to do whatever he needs to do outside the tent and so ended up staying in the tent for eighteen hours (!) to bank up the time to moderate the debate. That's dedication, folks. Or insanity. Your call.

This is just a picture I like, but again, note that Mike is looking at the camera.

Election Debates Fail to Impress

2009-01-22T21:50:00.001-08:00

I must admit that I spent a large part of the debates wondering why I was there, and then another part of them wondering "If I were Fire, what puns could I make about these debates?". Things like "none of the candidates seemed to have spark", or "candidates preferred flame wars over debates", or "debates lacked sizzle". Or something infinitely more witty. If only that was something the debates actually had- humour. Instead, I, along with many others, found the debates to be painfully dull.

I came in a tad late and thus missed the first part of the VP Finance debates, but not late enough to hear Tom advocate that student businesses at UBC need money to operate and to hear Ale say that she wants to improve club relations/promotions/partnerships by having a week-long fair that’s a major event to get clubs to work together. I wasn't quite sure how this was different from clubs days (I know that others I was talking to also seemed confused on the point), except that it would take place in 2nd term, which I agree is a good idea- it would be great to have another club recruitment drive in January. Discussion then moved onto what to do with the ACF. Ale suggested that the AUS is capable of paying off its debt, but that if it couldn't, then a repayment fund should be looked into and set up, while Tom said that the debt shouldn’t be put on the AUS and AMS should take the hit.

One thing that struck me as being interesting about Tom is that he is very committee-happy. While committees are often a wonderful thing, it seemed like his responses to a lot of things were to set up a committee to investigate the matter- in principle, a good thing, but I think that there's enough information out there on some things (such as the child care problem) that this sort of thing isn't really as necessary. The two candidates didn't really differ much on the issue of child care at UBC, however- both agreed that it needs to be addressed, and that money needs to be put into the system to make it both more accessible and more affordable.

Discussion then turned to tuition fees, and, for the first time in my time at UBC, I heard a candidate say what I think all students know is going to happen- that tuition will continue to go up due to inflation, at the very least. Kudos to Tom for being realistic on the issue. His solution to the problem: instead of cutting things, we need to modify business practices to bring in more money. This was in contrast to Ale, who wants to decrease student fees, and who believes that the AMS needs to assess what fees need to be decreased and to retain businesses to increase AMS revenue and stabilize student fees this way. Which sounds like it's contradictory (stabilizing student fees vs. decreasing them). So I'm not really sure what she meant, but can't really conjecture.

In any case, other points brought up by both Tom and Ale:

In response to Ale's question about the increasing the student reserve, Tom said that students need to be made aware of scholarships out there that go unclaimed every year, and that an increase in the student reserve does not need to happen.

In response to Tom's question about her experience in business operations, Ale stated that she's worked on SAC, but other than that failed to provide any more details about her previous leadership experience, and instead talked in vague terms about how she'd ensure that things would run well.

Ale wants to create a new used bookstore on campus, which will apparently go in the place of the copyright facilities, and which will make a profit- albeit a "smaller one"- simply by being around, because used bookstores have yet to lose money.

In general, my impressions of the two candidates were "meh". There was lots of rhetoric, but I didn't really get the sense that Tom had a good enough understanding of some issues, and I didn't come away feeling like Ale really knew what she was getting into. But I was treated with some nice assertions. I think either candidate would do a fine job, but neither really struck me as being particularly outstanding based on the debates alone.

Moving on to the VP External debates... oh, where do I even start... how about with some advice.
1.) Don't plant questions. It makes you look like you can't stand up for yourself.
2.) Don't bring cheerleaders. Voting isn't based on how much noise the crowd makes, or by the amount of applause you get. Sadly, it doesn't always seem to be based on how competent candidates are either. So maybe I'm just missing something. But seriously.
3.) Don't bring provincial politics into this. You're running for the AMS, and not for your political party- by bringing these issues into it, you a.) don't look like you particularly care about UBC students and b.) look like you're trying to launch a political career (which, granted, you might be, but at least try not to look so self-interested? Although it might help people see through you... so maybe scratch this point).
4.) Don't insult people. Especially when those people might be working with you. I've written about this before. Telling Cody (I think it was Cody) that she was "Another member of AMS establishment who is continuing to disappoint students" was not cool, Ignacio. Particularly when you're talking to an outreach worker.
5.) Learn what responsibilities your position encompasses. Things like equity, Ignacio, are a part of the position.
6.) Don't pretend to be Obama. We'd all love it if he came to Canada. But you're not Obama, as much as you'd like to be.
7.) Don't talk about being invited to AMS meetings (Ignacio) when they're open to students. And maybe, I don't know, attend some.

I think that gives you a pretty good idea of what the debates were like. My notes make it seems significantly more exciting than it actually was. Some important issues were addressed, however. As much as I'm not a fan of Tim's promises to lower tuition fees, he seems to mostly be running on issues of equity and representations of minority groups, which I quite support, even if he doesn't seem to have a concrete plan on how to do this. Ignacio, on the other hand, seemed to think that knowing nothing about how the AMS worked was a point in his favour, and emphasized instead how important "new blood" was to the AMS, and how he has fresh ideas (none of which I heard, by the way, but maybe his platform has more details?) while doing nothing but offering rhetoric and repeating the phrases "I have a plan", "___ is broken", and "I am running for Change". Sadly, his points fell short of his rhetoric.

All in all, attending these debates didn't really do anything for me other than make me contemplate the sad state of the elections and understand why most students don't vote.

Why don't students vote?

2009-01-22T12:26:00.000-08:00

I've heard this question asked countless times- why don't students care about AMS elections and student politics? Why don't they vote? How do we get them to vote? I can't say I have a solution, but it seems to me that this has been a problem for quite some time, so campaign promises that eloquently explain how the candidate intends to increase student participation in the AMS sound a bit hollow. From my perspective, there are at least 3 factors contributing to student apathy- not just when it comes to AMS elections, but when it comes to student government and student societies in general.

1.) Lack of knowledge. I've been surprised how many of my friends I've talked to who have been surprised to learn that AMS elections are taking place. Some of those people then go and read up on the candidates or come to watch atrocious debates, but I think one of the primary factors in students not getting involved with organizations on campus is that they simply don't know what's out there. I don't think this is particularly surprising, given that UBC is a big commuter campus. However, while advertising campaigns and outreach efforts might help rope in some of the students who might potentially care about the AMS (or SUS or the AUS/CUS etc.), they don't always increase voter turnout or student involvement in politics because those who are interested will already voluntarily seek those organizations out, but also because lots of students simply don't care, which brings me to my 2nd point.

2.) Lack of association. Students feel like student government doesn't actually make that big of a difference. 'But surely they know about the UPass and the efforts of AMS execs there? Or other events that student societies put on?' you say. Kind of. But I would argue that students don't know who is responsible for terms of negotiation, or that even if they do, the association between the concepts of "UPass" and "AMS" isn't strong enough. Last year, shockingly few people realized that the referendum was held by the AMS- quite a few students I talked to thought it was the university itself that facilitated it. Similarly, while some students attending SUS events might know that their undergraduate society is hosting the event, some simply attend an event- not a SUS event, mind you, but, quite simply an event. Thus, students know which events are happening, but either don't know who is hosting the event, or else quickly forget and then assert that "the doesn't do anything." Which isn't always untrue, by the way. But it's a perception that needs to be fought nonetheless.

3.) Lost trust/hope/faith in the system. There are other students who know perfectly well what's going on, but refuse to get involved and to vote- and sometimes, I can't blame them. While student politics are sometimes exciting, the 'debates' today were nothing if not disappointing. The problem is that students keep seeing the same types of people running for office- people who seem like "hacks", for lack of a better word, or people who aren't hacks, but who are blatantly rude or disrespectful to students who are trying to make a difference or who they may have to work with (I'm looking at you, Iggy. Or Ignacio, rather, as I fear the nickname might spoil the positive associations I currently have with that nickname and the current Leader of the Opposition, who has some admirable qualities that don't involve insulting others; or for the hockey fans out there, Jerome Iginla), or who seem like hacks. Students also feel like the people running for office aren't actually addressing student needs, but rather promoting their own personal agendas/political careers. I feel that an effective leader must have the trust of their constituency, and I think that's simply not the case. Furthermore, there is such a lack of continuity between leaders that it becomes difficult to believe that anything can really be accomplished by any one leader in a given year. As a result, the impetus and incentive to vote, and the belief that one's vote will actually make a difference, is in essence quashed. When candidates make empty promises (please, I beg you, stop talking about lowering tuition and be realistic!), students clue in, and oddly enough, it doesn't hurt the candidate so much as it hurts the entire system. It is the entire system that loses the trust of its constituency. There have been interesting psychological studies on the matter that I won't go into, but I think this is a major reason for students not voting- and I can't blame them.

I'm not saying that we need an Obama to fix our system (as aMAZing as that would be). Rather, I'm saying that candidates need to be realistic, to realize how they are coming off to students, and to address students' concerns beyond making empty promises. I think that greater transparency on the AMS's behalf would start to address these concerns. The problem is that when even AMS candidates don't know that AMS meetings can be attended by anyone, without invitation, how are students who aren't interested in the system supposed to be informed about how the AMS operates (or at least how your portfolio operates)? And how are they supposed to trust a candidate who doesn't have such basic knowledge to represent them? The problem is that candidates simply don't present themselves well quite often. Joke candidates, while hilarious, should serve to raise important issues instead of making the entire business of elections seem like a joke by offering no substance. Don't get me wrong- I love joke candidates- but only when they actually raise good points that serious candidates must then address. Serious candidates, on the other hand, shouldn't be insulting, and nor should they bring in their personal cheerleaders to debates to ask rehearsed questions. And provincial politicking shouldn't come into the picture. Perhaps if candidates were a bit more respectful of each other, they could finally get some (much deserved, at times) respect from the average student, and increase student involvement in the system. Until then, all we can do is lament about the state of apathy prevalent in our student body.

Rumour has it...

2009-01-22T00:03:00.001-08:00

So I recently made a post about a rumour that I heard students discussing. I posted the rumour and flagged it as such, as I felt that it was something that students were talking about, and felt that it was something to be discussed. I feel that part of covering elections includes posting things that I feel students are discussing, and that may be raised as issues. However, there was a potential to substantiate the rumour despite any disclaimers, which was not the purpose of the post, so it's been taken down. As someone rightly pointed out, sometimes informing people of a rumour causes the information to be taken seriously, and the false information is remembered as truth. This is something that I do not like, and the purpose of the post was to inform students of the fact that this specific rumour did not have evidence to support it. As such, the post, and all comments relating to it, have been removed in order to prevent adding fuel to the fire. I am sorry if the post offended anyone- it was not intended to do so, nor was it intended to hurt any of the candidates. Please consider this an open thread about the role of rumour in student politics (the goal of the original discussion). Thank you.

Here is a link to the article I read about rumours- take a look, it's quite interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/opinion/27aamodt.html?_r=1

Interviews

2009-01-21T02:13:00.000-08:00

I felt like it was important to get some information from candidates running for office, so by using the handy tool that is facebook and doing some AMS election group stalking, I managed to get some email addresses and contact people running for office to ask them some questions regarding the election. I intend to keep adding more replies as they come in. Hopefully, the responses will serve to inform you all about the candidates, their priorities and platforms, and their personalities. Alex should be commended for the incredibly expedient reply- I got this at just past 2 am. I hope the rest will be coming in soon!

1.) If you had to choose one thing from your platform that you would work on, which would it be and why?

I would definitely focus on my education initiatives, specifically working with the Provost office and the Teacher's Associations to increase the number of lecturers at UBC. From my general experience, and dealings with my peers, I have come to appreciate the value that lecturers, versus those that are purely researchers, add to the classroom environment. A good lecturer will motivate students and get them excited about learning and broadening their horizons while at UBC. I would choose this option over other initiatives because I believe that the AMS has been focusing too much in recent years on issues that don't affect all students on campus and generally are external to the general student experience. While I appreciate the value in many of the initiatives the AMS has pursued over the years, I believe that a stronger focus on what we all come to UBC for, learning, is required.

2.) How would you describe your leadership style?

My leadership still is inclusive and focuses on building consensus. Through my experiences leading teams, I have found that people will remain engaged and motivated if they are part of the goal setting process and have a say of where the team is going. I lead by example and am known to work harder than my team members as I set high expectations for them and it would not be fair of me to not hold myself to the same standards. I believe that finding people's passions and facilitating their pursuit of those passions will lead to better results than setting directions and tasks unilaterally. I believe heavily on constant feedback and in creating a personal relationship with those that are in my team.

3.) If you had to select another candidate, other than yourself, for your position, who would you select and why?

From those in the current race, I would select Blake. Blake has the grasp on issues required by this position. From the information I am privy to I understand he is a hard worker and a very motivated individual. I believe that one has to have a strong drive to be able to meet the demands of the role as President. I also believe that Paul, while very interested in students, is not aware of how demanding this position is. Therefore, I believe that Blake would be better positioned to do a good job than Paul would. However, I should highlight that I believe that it would be a challenge for him in terms of dealing with diverging opinions in his team as he has very strong personal interests.

4.) What experience have you had leading a team?

I've spent this whole year leading 9 highly motivated and accomplished individuals in the Commerce Undergraduate Society. It was a challenge to lead other leaders with very different interests. I had to constantly address their individual interests and motivations and the interests of the general commerce student population. I was able to provide a fulfilling experience by being engaged with them throughout the whole process, providing feedback and facilitating their activities to the best of my abilities. I was able to establish strong friendships with most of them. It was a very enjoyable experience for all of us even though we faced exceptional challenges this year.

5.) How are you different from the other candidates running for your position?

There are two main differentiating factors between me and the other candidates. First is the practicality of my positions. Secondly, my approach to the position and how I view my role. In terms of my positions, I worked to create solutions that are implementable and I would be able to accomplish in one year's time. They are also positions that I believe represent the general sentiments of UBC students and not the loud voices of a particular group. In terms of my approach, I believe some of the other candidates view the President's position as one of great power in terms of subjugating the University to our wishes. I personally believe that the President's role is more one of building consensus and mobilizing resources in order to accomplish pragmatic solutions. I think those two differences will enable me to accomplish more and engage more people than what the other candidates are proposing.

6.) What would you say is the single most important issue concerning UBC students right now?

The mismatch between the increase in tuition and a decrease in the quality of the education. The fact the many studies point to a deteriorating academic environment in many places around the world is of great concern. The fact that the AMS has turned a blind eye to such an important issue is appalling and was the main motivation for me to run for office. With increased global competition in the workplace and amongst countries, those who can educate their people best will be better off. While cheaper tuition, more housing and increased transit service will better the immediate life of students, working with the university to increase the quality of education at UBC will benefit not only students but also Canada in the long run.

7.) If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

These days I am very interested in going to China. The fact that it is a live experiment in terms of developing a country with such a large number of people is very intriguing to me. I am also very interested in experiencing what the world's next superpower is like and how the people are actually living there. China also has a very rich culture, dating back to 5,000 A.D. I am always interested in experiencing how those with a different perception of the world interact with the world around them. Plainly said, I think China would be a lot of fun, it would let me travel around South East Asia, and it would allow me to experience the beautiful landscape and culture that is possesses.

Things I find interesting about elections

2009-01-20T11:48:00.000-08:00

This isn't a comprehensive list, but just some pet peeves and observations.

1.) Candidates promising to lower tuition. You know who you are. Some responses to my pointing this out have been "but it sounds better". I personally call it false advertising- but even if people wanted legitimately to try to lower tuition, it's simply unlikely to happen. Tuition rises every year with cost of inflation, which is to be expected- the university has to cover costs that increase every year. So while people campaign on this point every year, it seems, it's not likely to happen. However, "I promise to prevent tuition from going up by more than cost of inflation" is a mouthful and I guess isn't as appealing.

2.) This is an observation made by a lot of the students I talked to about the debates, so I felt like it deserved a mention. Essentially, it's been observed that candidates who are well-spoken often don't really answer the question or go beyond a kind of script, whereas those who stumble are trying to answer the question honestly instead of sticking to typical responses and buzz words- they try to answer the question honestly instead of pandering to the audience. I have unfortunately not been able to make it to the debates so far, but I can certainly envision this being true. Evidently, this is mostly true of Alex Monegro, who apparently loves buzz words, but has little substance- a statement I feel could be substantiated by his website, which still lacks a platform, but includes catch phrases like "Better access to AMS efforts" as part of his message to students. I can't really offer more substance than that until his platform is up, however. Thoughts? Opinions? Are charismatic leaders better than those with substance? Do people really even care? Have elections boiled down to popularity contests and perceptions of leadership? Discussion? Anyone?

3.) Another observation: all candidates look the same. This goes beyond physical resemblance (and yes, the resemblance between Johann and Alex Lougheed is uncanny). But more importantly, they seem to sound the same. Give and take some knowledge and some differences in platforms, there are no stark contrasts. Last year there were personality differences and general craziness. This year it's sort of like a washed out rainbow. You can sort of see the colours, but you're not quite sure they're there because it looks generally gray.

The list will continue over the course of the election...

AMS Elections: Candidates

2009-01-20T11:07:00.001-08:00

A long-awaited list of all candidates!

President
Blake Frederick
Paul Korczyk
Alex Monegro

VP Academic
David Nogas
Sonia Purewal
Johannes Rebane
Jeremy Wood

VP External
Timothy Chu
Fire
The King's Head
Iggy Rodriguez

VP Administration
Crystal Hon
Tristan Markle
Water Fountain
Jeremy “Kommander Keg” McElroy

VP Finance
Ale Coates
Tom Dvorak

Board of Governors
Bijan Ahmadian
Andrew Carne
Michael Duncan
Blake Frederick
Tristan Markle

There are a few new names, but lots of people are also returning. I'm still undecided whether it's a good idea to let people run for 2 positions. When you have the same students involved in multiple positions talk about how more people should be interested in student government, it seems odd to then run for, and more importantly- hold- 2 positions, as it means that there is then less involvement, less "new blood", so to speak, and a smaller representation of opinions. There is a flip side, however- it is a good idea for the president, for instance, to know what's going on in the BoG, and people running twice often have more experience with UBC politics. Nonetheless, I feel like getting more students involved is a better way to go than to leave university governance to a small circle of people who are already operating within the system.

Another note: it seems like there are a few students running for re-election- Tristan for VP Academic and Bijan for BoG. I'm still a bit surprised that Tristan was elected in the first place, particularly when, as a member of SUS, I had never seen him at a Council meeting, but I suppose those sorts of things don't matter.

In any case, there will be more election debates:
Wednesday from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Gallery Lounge
* Board of Governors
* VP Finance
* VP External

Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the SUB Conversation Pit
* VP External
* VP Administration
* VP Academic

Tuesday (next week) from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m in the SUB Conversation Pit.

* Board of Governors
* President

Thursday (next week) from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. at Ike Barber, main floor

* All Candidate’s Forum

A reminder also that online voting begins on Thursday, January 29 (which means they've fixed the problem! Hopefully, in any case...)while campus poll stations will be open on Wednesday, February 4.

Presidential Platforms: Paul Korczyk

2009-01-19T20:48:00.000-08:00

Alex's platform is still not up (although I am now greeted by a nice profile shot, so as long as I see his right side, I'll recognize him), so I'm moving on to looking at Paul's. I was interested by the contrast of issues I found discussed on his website. Here I'm hoping to highlight some of the strengths and weaknesses, as I see them.

The first thing I really noticed was a lack of breadth in terms of the issues discussed. More than half of the platform (which contains 5 points) talks about student involvement on campus. The platform almost entirely neglects issues that students are concerned about- things like housing, tuition/other fees, etc. However, that's not to say that the platform doesn't have its good ideas. The first point of the platform- that of Communication- actually lays out some good ideas in terms of how to get students informed about some of the issues. Things like going to residences or blogging about the goings on in the AMS strike me as a good idea. I'm not sure how big of an audience the AMS elections attract, however, and I would conjecture that even fewer people would come out to get updates about the AMS. This issue also sort of ties in to the issue of student involvement on campus. While that's a separate blog post, I do think that the idea of having the AMS collaborate with other student societies to put on events is a good one- it's not something that I can recall having happened off the top of my head. The one problem I have is that there doesn't seem to be a complete understanding of the challenges involved with, for instance, reinstating the ACF, or with getting the students who are already disinterested in what's going at the university to pay attention to some of the issues. The bigger problem is that too much attention is focused on student involvement at the expense of bigger issues that the president would have more control over. Thus, while the platform has some good ideas that would be easy to implement, it lacks knowledge of the AMS, how it works, and of broader issues concerning both the students and the university.

Presidential Platforms: Blake Frederick

2009-01-19T00:21:00.000-08:00

While Alex Monegro's website is not yet up and running, the other two presidential candidates have their platforms posted: http://www.blakefrederick.ca/Student%20Support.html and http://voteforpaul.wordpress.com/platform/ . I hope to provide a bit of critique of both, starting with Blake's (I figure alphabetical organization is the least biased of options, and since Alex's site isn't up yet...)

Blake Frederick

While some of Blake's platform points seem fairly perfunctory- he talks about tuition fees, housing, etc.- they are certainly important to students, and he does include some issues that I feel are important to consider, particularly for next year(Olympics, anyone?). He has a comprehensive platform, and, most importantly, some actual steps that he wants to take to achieve the major points set he has laid out. While some of these steps are a bit nebulous (things like "applying pressure"), I found it fairly clear that he knew what he was talking about. I do find his platform quite ambitious- it's unlikely that many of the things he talked about will actually happen- but I feel that it shows that he has a good understanding of both issues important to UBC students, and of recent problems encountered by the AMS (remember CASA?). One thing I particularly like is the issue of governance that he brings up. Perhaps this is something I've missed in the recent years, but he points out (fairly, I think) the lack of student representation on the BoG, and cites the fact that only 14% of the seats on the BoG are held by students. He also talks about working with City Councilors to examine UBC's status as a municipality as a way of addressing the decision-making that often seems to disregard students' interests on campus, which I find to be an interesting approach to the problem.

Other parts of the platform that I find interesting have to do with tuition. According to his website: "...our country is currently in blatant breach of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Political, and Social Rights, which commits us to the gradual introduction of free post-secondary education." This wasn't actually something I knew, and I feel like it's an important point to bring up, although perhaps one that's not really feasible (or perhaps just plain impossible) on the university's part.

Anyhoo, conclusions: comprehensive platform that showcases a knowledge of both the AMS, the issues that it's facing (and a variety of issues at that), and how to actually accomplish some of the platform points. It is quite ambitious, however, and some of the points listed are a little bit hazy, but in general I like what I see. I would still encourage everyone to actually read his platform- it's nicely laid out- as I'm sure I've missed important points, but the purpose here is to present a general impression and a few things that I liked about it specifically.

An overview of Paul's platform will hopefully be up sometime tomorrow, but I don't think I could do it justice at this hour of the night.

Also- presidential debates are happening tomorrow! Rejoice! They're tomorrow at noon in the SUB conversation pit, so I would encourage all of y'all to come out and watch and make up your minds about the candidates.

Presidential Candidates for the AMS elections

2009-01-16T22:51:00.000-08:00

So the candidates I know of so far running for AMS president are Blake Frederick, Paul Korczyk, and Alex Monegro. I'm sure many of you will be invited to join their facebook groups soon- I have so far managed to avoid the onslaught, but we'll see what happens over the next few days. After all, it was the first day of campaigning, so I'm sure things will heat up soon. I regrettably missed the debates, never having actually heard that they were happening (my bad, I suppose, although I don't know if it speaks to how little advertisement there is of the elections on campus so far), but I will be trying to make it to future debates and actually post what platforms and other such important things are. Although if last year's election taught us anything, it's that the number of facebook friends one has may reflect (or at least be correlated to) how well one does in the election. We'll see. I think correlational analysis might be worthwhile, complete with 95% confidence intervals and all that jazz.

In the meantime, I have googled the candidates, and here's what I came up with:

Paul Korczyk.
-Apart from having a cool Eastern European last name (for which one does get bonus points from me), he seems to appear on the UBC Faculty & Administrative Directory, and is listed as being in the Department of Housing and Conferences.
-He also appears to play hockey. I would like to see some of his hockey skills in action in the election. Throw in some hockey jargon, and it might make for some entertaining debates.

Alex Monegro.
-From his AMS autobiographical statement, it seems like he's a business student who does some psychology.
-He chairs the Fundraising and Sponsorship Committee in the AMS.
-I couldn't find anything else un-AMS related about him. This is sad-making.

Blake Frederick.
-the first google hit mentions him as having been born in Louisiana on May 26, 1978 to Davis and Willie Frede. Me thinks this is the wrong Blake. My search had to be refined.
-Modified hits yielded that he blogs for the UBC Insiders (although not currently, as that would be against some sort of code in some sort of book that none of us read. Except for some, who like to quote it :P
-He has been on Senate. And the BoG. And other positions involving the AMS.

In any case, in the next few weeks I'll be trying to contact them and get some answers to some questions. So be prepared.

As a side note- have we ever had any female presidents? I seem to recall seeing a photo of AMS presidents, and I was overwhelmed by the fact that they were all white males. Thoughts?

Blogging to resume soon!

2009-01-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Apologies on my behalf for not having blogged in a while- the year sort of caught up with me when exams rolled around and with the start of the new term and all, but blogging will resume this weekend. We will be covering the election, despite Blake's participation in it, so your insatiable appetite for news about UBC will not be quenched! In any case, I do want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, and I look forward to blogging as soon as I have a bit of free time :)

Type the rest of your post here.

UBC Farm Saved?

2008-12-03T13:42:00.000-08:00

UBC Board of Governors Chair Brad Bennett caught developing the UBC Farm.

After a number of secret meetings, it looks like the UBC Board of Governors may have decided to protect the full 24 hectares of the UBC Farm and surrounding forest. Here's the press release they issued on Monday:

UBC Board of Governors Requests New Academic Plan for Sustainable South Campus
The University of British Columbia Board of Governors has directed UBC administration to develop academic plans for a 24 ha parcel of South Campus land for teaching and research purposes that are “academically rigourous and globally significant” around issues of sustainability.

The Board directed that the new plans enhance UBC’s position as Canada’s most sustainable university and a recognized world leader in campus sustainability.

At the same time, the Board stipulated that no market housing will be pursued on the 24 ha parcel, which contains the UBC Farm, as long as the university’s housing, community development and endowment goals can be met through transferring density to other parts of campus. The 24 ha parcel is designated as “Future Housing Reserve” in the current UBC Official Community Plan, a bylaw of the Greater Vancouver Regional District created in 1997.

The Board also committed to the continuation of current land uses until academic plans are completed and a decision has been reached on density transfer.

The Friends of the Farm club, which has been one of the primary pro-Farm advocates, welcomed the release and recognized it as a huge step forward for their cause. Their strategy now is to encourage the Board to continue down this path and ensure that their voices continue to be heard.

While this is all great news, it should still be taken with a certain degree of caution. There is no guarantee that the Farm will remain at 24 ha. The Board could decide to build classroom space or non-market housing and justify it as "academically rigourous". We have seen UBC propose before that building housing on the Farm's arable land in partnership with the architecture school would be considered sustainability research. It's also important to remember that the Board's promise to keep market housing off the Farm is contingent on the creation of a plan to relocate market housing to other areas of campus. This could cause some real problems, especially if the plan is to move market housing to University Square.

It's hard to know what's really going on here. The situation would perhaps be a bit more clear if the (partially) elected Board of Governors stopped restricting their discussions on the UBC Farm to closed session meetings. Even if their decisions are positive ones, they need to be deliberated and decided out in the open. But maybe accountability and transparency are too much to ask from a public institution.

King Toope

2008-11-27T17:29:00.001-08:00

Vancouver Magazine has produced what it calls The Vanmag Power List 2008. There doesn't seem to be any real criteria, but I'm supposing the list is meant to designate the top 50 most powerful individuals in Vancouver. Coming in at #40 is none other than our President and Vice-Chancellor, Stephen Toope. I found his description to be quite interesting:

UBC, 100 this year, is the belle of today’s development ball. Market-housing construction yields ceaseless infusions into its dowry (funding all that research that’s meant to be the point of the exercise). The 7,000 housing units coming onstream will boost the population of the Point Grey isthmus to almost 20,000 in the next decade—an enticing tax base as the university contemplates joining the city of Vancouver. Builders aren’t the only suitors courting King Toope; this summer, a loose-screw student and some B-list thieves showed that campus security needs some tightening, presumably a priority with Thunderbird Stadium hosting its share of Olympics hoopla.

Position last year New
Last book read? Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
2008 low point? A UBC budget cut
Worst mistake? Eating 16 cinnamon rolls at one sitting
Six words for your tombstone? “He did his best.” (I know that’s only four!)

Kiss Your Scholarships Goodbye

2008-11-27T16:22:00.000-08:00

Question: What happens during a time of economic downturn to a public university that relies on private funding ? Answer: It loses money. Lots of money.

UBC's Endowment, which is meant to provide sustainable funding to the University, has been generated predominantly by donations and the construction of market housing on campus. At other universities in Canada, which have smaller endowments than UBC's, it's already been projected that some will lose up to $100 million in endowment funds. Expected losses at UBC are unknown at this point, but President Stephen Toope has said that it will be considerable.

What does this all mean for students? Basically the decimation of student financial assistance and awards. The Endowment funds a lot of student scholarships, fellowships, and bursaries. It is projected that as much as 20% or more of the $9.6 million in endowed awards will be lost. Toope's "Letter to the UBC Community" is hardly reassuring, saying that despite this loss, the University's commitment to deliver financial support to students is unwavering.

But take a look at the numbers. According to Board of Governors' reports, financial assistance for needs-based support (like bursaries) has been declining since 2005. In fact, if you take into account enrollment and inflation, support has dropped by 43% over that time period. Meanwhile, tuition increased. How is that unwavering support? It'll be a start if UBC makes up for the loss of endowed student financial assistance through other sources, but I wouldn't be too optimistic.

Not Me. We.

2008-11-26T19:33:00.001-08:00

If you've been paying attention to UBC rhetoric as of late, you will have noticed that UBC has adopted a new slogan. It was the title of this year's annual report and AGM: "Not Me. We." President Toope has been overusing this phrase to a point that is almost laughable. He uses it in a manner of speaking that just seems forced nearly every time he addresses the UBC community from Senate to Board to the Alumni Achievement Awards. I guess the point of the rhetoric is that we have to work together and individuals don't accomplish things on their own, or whatever. It doesn't really matter. I personally find it to be wholly uninspiring, somewhat disingenuous, and bland.

The interesting part is the origin of this new slogan. Of course it has been brought to us by UBC Public Affairs, the propaganda arm of the University, but a quick Google search shows that this slogan isn't even original. Here's a sampling of where it's been used:

Center for Family and Community Relations
(Starbucks)Red
We Not Me
Adidas

Is this really the best Public Affairs could come up with?