December 3, 2012

MY LITTLE DRUMMER BOY SINCE 1918 UBC’S OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER | DECEMBER 3, 2012 | VOLUME XCIV| ISSUE XIXVII

UTHE UBYSSEY

Bathroom graffiti

Board of goVernors

checK-in

hops on holdFaced with cost overruns and licensing concerns, the AMS has cooled on its plan to include a brewing facility in the

New SUB. But many student beer lovers want them to see the project through p3

healthy h o

The ’Birds split a weekend series with a 3-0 win and a 3-0 loss. Is their championship identity in doubt? p9

up & doWn

What the scribblings on the walls of campus washrooms say about UBC p6

We look at the highlights from the last meeting of UBC’s top decision makers p4

UBYSSEY

BathroomBathroom

Two UBC engineering students hope their new device will improve access to clean water in developing countries p3

equity soccer renos Budget

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | 2YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS + PEOPLE

STAFFBryce Warnes, Josh Curran, Peter Wojnar, Anthony Poon, Veronika Bondarenko, Yara Van Kessel, Lu Zhang, Ginny Monaco, Arno Rosenfeld, Matt Meuse, Hogan Wong, Rory Gattens, Brandon Chow, Joseph Ssettuba. Tyler McRobbie, Sarah Bigam, Stephanie Xu

DECEMBER 3, 2012 | VOLUME XCIV| ISSUE XIXVII

ediToriAl

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STUDYING >>

FOOD >>

SINGING >>

EXAMS >>

HEALTH >>

Exam Jam: 10 a.m.–4 p.m.As the first term of the year comes to a close, exam season is upon us. For first-years looking for a little extra help with some of those daunting tests, Student Services has organized a campus-wide study group system. Free snacks, peer-advising, and a mix of silent and group study areas are available. Check out students.ubc.ca/exam-jam for more information.

First Day of ExamsYou have diligently worked for the past four months to get to this point. While this may be a stress-ful time, don’t forget: there is light at the end of the tunnel! Break out that study playlist, find yourself a study carrel in Koerner, and don’t forget to take a break now and then. Also, the Pit is still open, so no matter how your exams go, there is still somewhere to celebrate and commiserate.

Annual Donut Sale for United Way: 10 a.m. @ SUB South LoungeNeed a quick snack while you’re studying? UBC Campus Security will be hosting an annual donut fundraiser that will curb your study hunger.

Yoga and Relaxation Ses-sion: 1:30–2:30 p.m. @ Inter-national HouseIf the title alone doesn’t entice you to take a break from study-ing, we aren’t sure what will. I. House is offering free yoga to help you unwind a little bit. So dig out that yoga mat and RSVP online at http://ow.ly/fKUa9

Open Mic Night: 9 p.m. @ the Gallery LoungeLooking for an outlet to express your desires to be one of the Gleekids? Stop by Open Mic Night at the Gallery to hear campus sing its heart out. Plus, the Gallery has nachos — what else could you need?

What’s on This wEEk, MAY wE suggEsT...

Tue124TUESDAY

Tue125 WEDNESDAY

Tue126THURSDAY

Tue127SATURDAY

Video contentMake sure to check out our latest video content, airing online at ubyssey.ca/videos/

OUR CAMPUSONE ON ONE WITH THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE UBC

Michael Elder is the director of the UBC Engineering Godiva band.

Joan TanContributor

Though engineers aren’t usually known for their extra-curriculars, Michael Elder manages to multitask. Besides fulfilling the demands of being a third-year engineering stu-dent, Elder also co-directs the Engineering Godiva Band.

Comprised of a dozen engineering students, Godiva is the self-proclaimed “Engin-eering Spirit Band.” The band is perhaps best known for em-barking on a three-hour march around campus, singing and playing Christmas tunes on the last day of classes.

“We wanted to give people something to be happy about, a little bit of comic relief before the exams,” said Elder. “It’s fun for us, and we hope other people have fun with it too.

“Especially since it was the last day of classes, we really wanted to give people the light in the tunnel. It’s right before finals, and we wanted to kind of say ‘Hey, Christmas is coming up right after finals, remember that?’”

Elder also found it interest-

ing that it was the engineers who were the ones providing this holiday spirit.

“We have that image and reputation of being serious,” he said. “It’s reflected in UBC campus memes; they post lots of things like ‘engineers don’t have any fun, we all just play video games all day,’ … so I think this makes a huge state-ment, that we are more than that, and we can have fun too.”

Even before coming to UBC, music had been a big part of Elder’s life. “Throughout high school, I was in Army Cadets and I was involved in a lot of marching band type things. So when I heard there was a marching band here, I decided to join.”

When Elder joined in his first year, the Godiva Band was only in its second year of existence. But within a span of three years, he has seen significant change.

“It was still fairly new and not that established in terms of what we were going to do for the year,” he said. “We also didn’t have that much of a budget or a system. But it has

improved a lot.“Now we have proper

rehearsal space,… and now people actually know who we are.”

Elder has been involved in organizing Godiva for the past two years, and they now have weekly practices.

“It’s amazing to see it all come together in the end, seeing all these people have fun and enjoy it. The band and everyone has done amaz-ing and we hope to continue to spread the joy and fun through music.

“I’m really happy because it shows there are more people like me that are also really passionate about music and want to be able to do some-thing about that. So I’m glad to know that there’s a group like the Godiva band as a place to go for people like us.”

And though he’s a commit-ted engineering student, the band has allowed Elder pursue what’s important to him.

“Music is my biggest pas-sion,… and I’m really glad that I have that time each week to build on my passion.” U

Directing the engineersPHOTO COURESTY MICHAEL ELDER

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | 3EDITORS WILL McdonaLd + Laura rodgers

Veronika Bondarenkostaff writer

The opening of the new Student Union Building is fast approach-ing, but the future of the stu-dent-run microbrewery set to go inside it is still up in the air.

No budget for the proposed brewery has been finalized yet, and at last Wednesday’s AMS council meeting, a vote was planned on whether or not to scrap the project entirely. But just a few hours before the meeting, the AMS realized the pace of new SUB construction gave them a little more time, and they’ve commissioned a new consultant’s report to help them decide wheth-er or not to commit to building the brewery.

At the meeting, AMS execu-tives, permanent staff, alumni and a vocal delegation from the BruBC homebrewing club argued over the financial aspects of bringing a microbrewery to UBC campus.

There was spirited debate about whether the potential monetary and social gains from brewing beer in the SUB outweighed the risks of the project.

AMS Council decided to spend $11,000 of the new SUB budget on another consultant’s report that will attempt to predict whether or not the brewery will make enough money to pay back the hefty building and equipment costs required to get it started. Ac-cording to AMS designer Michael Kingsmill, who gave part of the presentation about the brewery at the meeting, $48,000 has been spent on financial consultations for the microbrewery to date.

A five-person committee will review the new report and the business case for the project, and make a recommendation about whether or not it should be built.

The AMS had originally planned to build a brew pub in the new SUB, and only sell

the beer they made on-site. But AMS president Matt Parson and vice-president administration Caroline Wong decided that, if a brewing facility is to be built at all, it might as well be a full brew-ery that can also produce beer to sell elsewhere. They hope that being able to sell kegs and bottles will help the business turn more of a profit.

But with start-up costs for con-struction and equipment reaching close to $1 million, the micro-brewery will have to sell a lot of beer in order to even pay back the capital costs.

Parson is hopeful that, despite the possible risks, a microbrewery at UBC can still become a reality.

“We are re-engaging … consult-ants to take a second look over the business feasibility of including a microbrewery in the new Student Union Building,” said Parson. “We are just re-evaluating the new conditions.”

Still, Parson is confident that the initial expense will pay off in the end.

“They’ll be looking at the financial projections with our new brewing capacity as well as weighing those against the cost,” said Parson. “There’s a very excit-ing new potential for partnerships with external groups now that our capacity is quite a lot more significant.”

Former AMS vice-president finance Elin Tayyar, who has been one of the brewery’s first proponents back in 2011, believes that some details still need to be finalized before construction can proceed.

“Financing is a big issue for any business venture. The actual management of the microbrewery also needs to be finalized — this depends on the partnership plan. Last, and most important, someone needs to spearhead this project; that seems to be missing at this point.”

Dano Morrison, president of BruBC, is willing to do whatever it takes to bring the microbrewery to campus. “We’d love to see it happen. That’s our number one right now,” said Morrison. “We’d love to see quality beer being put out by the brewery, possibly with the help of students — either stu-dents helping run the process, [or] maybe as part of some educational program for those who are inter-ested in the brewing industry.”

Morrison hopes that by bring-ing students, the AMS and BruBC together, the AMS can help ensure that the microbrewery project gets off the ground.

“We seem to have gotten a lot of support so far and we’re going to keep working for it, keep trying to make it good,” said Morrison. “If they think about going down the road and trying to get [a third party like] Molson in on the project, we’ll fight that tooth and nail.”

A final AMS Council vote on the status of the microbrewery is expected in January 2013. U

Man pleads guilty to secretly recording nudity on campusJay Winship Forster, the man ac-cused of secretly recording women in a UBC change room, pled guilty to one count of secretly observing or recording nudity in a public place at Richmond Provincial Court last Tuesday.

His next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 31, 2013. Both a pre-sentence report and a psychi-atric or psychological report will be presented.

The crime of secretly observing or recording nudity in a public place can be either a summary offence or an indidictable offence. If it is charged as an indictable offence, the maximum sentence is a prison term of five years.

Sauder study finds customer complaints hurt product ratingsA new study from the Sauder School of Business found that it can be risky to give customers a chance to complain about a product.

The study found that consumers given a chance to complain about a faulty product gave the item a lower rating than participants who weren’t given a chance to complain.

“When a person feels implicated in a product’s failure – think build-ing Ikea furniture – they’re more likely to shift blame to the product when complaining and increase ill will toward it,” said study co-author and Sauder professor Darren Dahl in a press release. U

New SUB microbrewery in limbo

Engineers reach deal on new student space

GOvERNANcE >>

Concerned students showed up in droves at last week’s AMS Council meeting to voice their concerns about the New SUB brewery.KAI JACOBSON PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

bEER >>

Matt Meusestaff writer

Now that they’ve ironed out a deal with UBC about how the building will be run, the Engineering Under-graduate Society is one step closer to getting a new student space.

The agreement defines how the engineers’ new student space will be controlled, and it will set the precedent for other student groups hoping to acquire new student spaces.

The undergrad society went through drawn-out negotiations with UBC about who would have final say over what happens in the space. UBC wanted to give full control to the Dean of Applied Sci-ence, but the students argued for a balance of power between students, engineering alumni and university staff. Most of the building’s budget will come from student fees and alumni donations.

EUS president Ian Campbell said the agreement requires the en-gineers to present an annual event plan for the building to the Dean of Applied Science for approval. Campbell wouldn’t reveal the full details of the deal until the AMS signs off on it.

Overall, the undergrad society is pleased with the agreement. “I think it was very beneficial for stu-dent life as a whole that we engaged on this,” said Campbell. “I think now [UBC has] a better idea of what students want, and how student life can be impacted by student space.”

The length of the agreement’s term was a sticking point in nego-tiations, and though the EUS had initially hoped for a longer term, Campbell said the final 30-year term length was mutually agreed to be in both parties’ best interests.

Campbell doesn’t think needing the dean’s approval to host events will make things any more difficult than they already are, because faculty approval is currently re-quired for any student events with a liquor license.

UBC VP Students Louise Cowin said UBC was happy with the result of the negotiations as well. Both parties were conscious of how the agreement would shape the way other, yet-to-be-built student spaces would be run as well.

“I would say that any future deal will look very close to the one that we’ve achieved with Engin-eering,” Cowin said. “It doesn’t make sense to me that one group has one deal and another group has another deal.

“I think it’s a great outcome for student social spaces at UBC.”

Other undergrad groups on cam-pus — from Arts, Commerce and Kinesiology — have expressed in-terest in building their own student centres, and they’ll likely be looking for similar agreements soon.

The Engineering students hope for full Board of Governors ap-proval of project specifics by next spring. U

YARA VAN KESSEL PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

The Engineers are planning a new student building to replace the Cheeze, their current student centre.

NEWS BRIEFS TUITION >>

Will McDonaldNews Editor

UBC is going to reconsider the price of the proposed new Bachelor of International Economics degree.

The decision comes after elected representatives from the AMS student society, the International Students’ Association and the Economics Students’ Association gave a presentation at last Friday’s Board of Governors committee meeting opposing the high cost of the program.

The program has a proposed tuition of $10,000 per year for domestic students and $29,000 per year for international students.

Student groups argued there wasn’t enough justification for the price tag or consultation on the cost of the program.

“This is not a program, and this is not a tuition amount, that is justified by the rationale provid-ed,” AMS VP Academic Kiran Mahal said at the meeting, where she made a presentation on the AMS’s behalf.

She and the AMS also submitted a document to the Board prior to the meeting meeting arguing that, in the AMS’s view, the program could still make money even if the tuition cost was lowered.

After the presentation, the UBC Board of Governors voted to pull a motion for approval of the

program’s tuition costs from next week’s full Board meeting.

UBC President Stephen Toope said the university has now com-mitted to consider other options for the new degree.

“I hope that we can find a way forward,” said Toope. “[We] will commit to having immediate fur-ther consultations with students and also commit to looking at the numbers much more aggressively.”

Board of Governors member Maureen Howe said the adminis-tration needs to look at other ideas, but time is of the essence.

“We would actually like to go back and ask our administration to sharpen their pencil and do a little further work,” said Howe. “They must be as expeditious as possible. We would really like to get this school up and operational … by September [2013].”

The university has already begun to accept applications from students who hope to start in the program next September. Applica-tions are still being accepted.

The university had originally planned to approve the program’s tuition at the September Board meeting, but it was pulled from the agenda when the AMS objected because there had been no student consultation. The program’s directors talked with students at a town hall meeting on Oct.

9, but the tuition numbers went back onto the December Board agenda unchanged.

Mahal has previously expressed concerns that the town hall was not really a consultation, but an “information session.” However, she said she is hopeful that the uni-versity will take students’ concerns into account go

“[The university] seemed to make a strong commitment that they will look at making this consultation more robust and more inclusive and more open to hearing suggestions … we’re hopeful that it will be better than the last,” Mahal said later on Friday.

Mahal said that no further consultations have been scheduled yet, but they would involve elected student reps from the AMS, the Arts Undergraduate Society, the Economics Students Association and the International Students Association, as well as representa-tives from the university.

Mahal said the university would like to meet before the end of the year, but it may be difficult to coordinate students’ schedules during exams.

“We understand that the university is on a short timeline … but at the same time we want to make sure that we give it enough consideration, that all the issues are addressed.” U

UBC to reconsider high cost of new econ degreeDecision comes after objections from several student groups

4 | NEWS | MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012

Sarah Bigamstaff writer

Two UBC engineering students have designed a new filter that they hope will ease access to clean water.

UBC engineering alum Bradley Pierik said the device, called Tapp, is designed to be adaptable to situations ranging from hiking to the aftermath of a natural dis-aster. He and chemical engineer-ing student Kevin Reilly created Twothirds Water Inc. to sell the new filter.

Pierik discovered his passion for water treatment while doing field work in Ethiopia during his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto.

“It really bothers me that something that’s so easy to avoid is causing suffering to so many people in the world. And when I think about what things can be done just to make the world bet-ter – you start with the low-hang-ing fruit, right, here’s something that’s causing half of the world’s hospitalizations and there’s really easy fixes, so let’s work on that one for now,” Pierik said.

He came up with the idea for Tapp while he was a graduate

student at UBC. During his de-gree, he worked in Haiti, Senegal, Uganda, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Kenya. During his travels, he gathered feedback on the design of his water filter. Consistently, he found that simplicity was key.

“I started taking apart other people’s products and putting

things together the way I thought they should work,” Pierik said. “That was a long, fun process as an engineer who geeks out on this stuff.”

In its final design, Tapp can be connected to containers full of dirty water through tubing or bottle threads. Water flows through the Tapp and comes out

clean on the other end. Inside the Tapp, the water is

filtered through a hollow fiber microfiltration membrane. Essen-tially, it works like a playground sand sifter; water flows through, and particles are trapped by the membrane.

Pierek said the process should remove 99 per cent of bacteria,

parasites and dirt from the water.Pierre Bérubé, an associate

professor with the faculty of engineering at UBC who special-izes in drinking water treatment, had high praise for Pierek’s new device.

“It’s always exciting to see a student take the knowledge developed, or that they learned in our classes, and apply that to develop an independent product,” Bérubé said.

Bérubé also applauded the design of the filter.

“The one aspect that I saw that’s different from a lot of products out there is the ability to clean the filter … that’s a very innovative part of the design.”

Twothirds Water Inc. is currently holding a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to raise startup funds. The money they raise will also be used to increase their profile to help them find partners to distribute Tapp in other countries.

Their stated goal is $20,000. For every Tapp purchased, one will be sent to someone in a developin country.

Pierek expects the first ship-ment of his water filters to arrive on March 31. U

Students dive into water filter market with new design

Board committees do heavy lifting on equity, development UBC’s head honchos talk aboriginal enrolment, faculty structures and soccer fields at year-end meeting

ENGINEERING >>

JOSH CURRAN PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

SOURCE: 2011-2012 UBC EqUITY REPORT

The Tapp filter, designed by UBC engineers Bradley Pierik and Kevin Reilly, filters 99 per cent of bacteria and dirt from water.

Board giVes go-ahead to shared national soccer deVelopment centre

The Whitecaps will be building a National Soccer Development centre on campus, and they plan to share it with UBC.

The university won’t be paying any of the cost of the $23.5 million facility, which includes a field house, two grass playing fields, a turf field and a training centre.

UBC will get to use the grass practice fields 15 per cent of the time, and the artificial turf field 25 per cent of the time, with the Whitecaps using the rest. The uni-versity will also get approximately 8,000 square feet of the 15-20,000 square-foot field house.

The fields are set to be complet-ed by August 2013, but the field house won’t be fully ready until 2015. The Property and Planning Committee has recommended seeking the approval of the Board of Goverors in the early stages of the project. U

—Will McDonald

Cost: 23.5 million $9 million from Whitecaps $14.5 million from the province

Field house 15–20,000 square feet. About 8,000 square feet to be used by UBC Grass field use: 85% Whitecaps, 15% UBC

Turf field use: 75% Whitecaps, 25% UBC

Soccer Development Centre

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the 2011–2012 equity report: aBoriginal enrolment doWn, employees With disaBilities up

The university’s annual equity report shows that some of its goals for diversity aren’t being met.

Although all of the data was self-reported and there was a low response rate, it does give a snapshot of various demographics. It provides a breakdown of the uni-versity’s administration, professors, staff and students. Categories in-clude race, gender, and disabilities.

Despite UBC’s numerous cam-

paigns to increase the number of aboriginal students on campus, the percentage of students who identify as aboriginal fell from 1.5 per cent in 2011 to 1.1 per cent in 2012.

The report also found no increase in aboriginals, visible minorities or disabled persons in the past year for the university’s senior administration. Although the report found an increase in em-ployees who self-report as disabled, Associate VP Equity Tom Patch said that most of those numbers come from employees who have be-come disabled after they have been hired, and not an increase in hiring people with disabilities. U

—Will McDonald

all health-related programs set to amalgamate

UBC is planning to move its vast assortment of health-related programs into one central de-partment.

The university says it will make things more efficient in a number of ways, such as how the university works with health au-thorities to arrange clinical work placements for students. There’s a long list of programs set to go into the new umbrella depart-ment: nursing, population and public health, social work, dietet-ics, clinical psych, physiotherapy, kinesiology, dentistry, audiology, pharmacy, occupational therapy, genetic counselling, midwifery and, of course, medicine.

Currently, the Dean of Medi-cine, Gavin Stuart, also serves as UBC’s vice-provost of health.

The plan is to give the vice-provost position to some-one else who isn’t a dean, and have them head up all the health-related departments.

At the committee meeting, UBC provost David Farrar argued that the department’s restructuring fit with the trend toward more patient-focused health care, where health profes-sionals from various fields work together more closely.

“Our students should really be going out as teams to clinical placements,” he said.

Farrar talked about the con-cerns he heard from some of the smaller departments involved in the amalgamation, like Dentistry and Pharmacy.

“They feel very threatened when they’re put next to Medi-cine,” he said.

Plans for the restructure are still being discussed, and UBC expects to have final plans on how to move forward by next July. U

—Laura Rodgers

Last Friday, UBC’s board of governors — the group in charge of most important

decisions about the university — held their last standing committee meetings of the year.

They made recommendations and gave progress reports on a num-ber of initiatives, from employment equity to construction projects. Anything recommended at the com-mittee stage will more than likely be passed at next week’s regular Board meeting.

A presentation about sustainabil-ity showed that UBC met goals to reduce on-campus water usage to 40 per cent below 2010 levels and keep auto traffic at or below 1997 levels. They failed, however, to meet goals to reduce CO2 emissions to 33 per cent below 2007 levels, or to divert 55 per cent of solid waste away from landfills.

According to John Robinson, associate provost of sustainability, by the time the steam-to-hot-water heating system conversion is up and running, this will cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to make the CO2 goal achievable.

There was also a presentation about changes to UBC’s policy on plagiarism and scholarly integrity, which won’t happen until next year.

The proposed changes are subtle, but what’s interesting is that UBC has no choice in any of them; the changes are decided entirely by the Tri-Council federal research granting agencies. If UBC doesn’t change their policy to be in line with Tri-Council guidelines, they’ll be out a lot of research cash.

A few other highlights: the Bookstore is still expanding its retail space, and the Start an Evolution alumni fundraising campaign has made 65 per cent of the $1.5 billion they’re trying to raise.

Here are a few brief recaps about other important things the Board discussed. They also talked about the Bachelor of International Economics program, which you can read about on page 3. U

—Laura Rodgers

bOARD OF GOvERNORS >>

UBC student population by race/ethnicity (%,2011)

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | 5EDITOR ANNA ZORIA

Finding your inner philosopherRhys Edwardssenior Culture writer

There is a cruel irony in higher education. Contrary to idealized views of university, students may find themselves becoming in-creasingly insular and less certain of themselves over the course of their studies. With our heads bur-ied deep in textbooks, particularly during the stressful exam season, it’s easy to forget your person-al well being. The result of this neglect, more often than not, is depression and disillusionment.

Lou Marinoff, the founding president of the American Philo-sophical Practitioners Association and a former lecturer in UBC’s de-partment of Philosophy, believes that our culture has lost touch with the search for wisdom.

The professor emeritus and author of the bestseller <em> Plato, Not Prozac!</em> came to UBC on Nov. 30 to deliver a talk titled “The Inner Philosopher: A Conversation on Philosophy’s Transformative Powers.”

“It’s the ascendency of science and technology, which has helped to convince people that most of our problems are somehow quan-titative or reducible to biology, and that we don’t have to bother so much about thinking, or indeed, fathoming the qualitative aspects of our being,” said Marinoff.

“Not everything in the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

of Psychological Disorders] has a biological substrate.”

Personal betterment through philosophic practice is the subject of Marinoff’s latest work, <em>The Inner Philosopher</em>, co-authored with renowned Buddhist thinker and leader Daisaku Ikeda. Rather than pandering only to students of philosophy or Buddhism, the two scholars are determined to show that anyone can use valuable philosophical knowledge to im-prove their well-being.

Like the classical philosophical

works that inspired it, the text takes the format of 16 dialogues between Marinoff and Ikeda. Their conversations, which began as far back as 2003, cover subjects such as technological alienation, the distinction between life and death, and the practice of virtue. According to Ikeda and Marinoff, many of the profound social prob-lems that permeate Western soci-eties, from depression and heart disease to educational decline and callous consumerism, are systemic to the beliefs of the culture itself.

As such, they need to be addressed through cultural means, rather than only institutional means.

“If indeed we have a medical problem then we do need to seek a medical cure, but if indeed we have a philosophical problem then the same argument applies: we need to apply for a philosophical remedy and not a medical one. So it’s a question of finding appropri-ate solutions,” explained Marinoff.

Intriguingly, each of <em>The Inner Philosopher</em>’s discussions feature references to ancient philosophers

from both Western and Eastern traditions. Despite the differences in their metaphysical worldviews, Marinoff believes that both can contribute to the development of wisdom.

“Within any school of phil-osophy, you’ll find irreconcilable beliefs ... any two philosophers you can put in a room, will take not more than five minutes to discover irreconcilable metaphysical differ-ences,” reasoned Marinoff.

“The beauty of philosophical practice is that we don’t care what people’s philosophical orien-tations are. The theory is that almost every philosophical school has some way of being applied to the betterment of people, so the differences in this case become a virtue, as opposed to something divisive.”

But are Socrates and Confucius even relevant to today’s analytic-ally-oriented students?

“If postmodernism has suc-ceeded, then it’s made people more confused than ever, by virtue of having deconstructed everything, including the moral compass, which we as individ-uals need to have at times,” said Marinoff. “There’s a return to the ancient mission of philosophy precisely because it has pragmatic purchase in the everyday lives of people.

“The wisdom of the ancients is timeless and applicable today.” U

I recently spilled wine all over my laptop’s keyboard. The left shift key refused to listen to me, and getting past the royal

guards (the password screen) was impossible.

If you’ve found yourself in a sim-ilar end-of-the-world situation, the solution is simple: more wine.

Here are some wines to pair with your last-minute projects, final exam studying, or your sad little college meals.

2011 yalumBa y series Viognier — $17.99 (Bc liquor stores)

Viognier is known for exuding characteristics of spiced stone fruit, floral notes and an oilier texture. Comfort wine!

Although the winery describes aromas of “honeysuckle, poached quinces, and mandarin peel,” I swear that this stuff smells like Froot Loops. That’s right: a liquid breakfast, for when desperate times call for desperate measures.

Viognier can oftentimes smell too much like the unnecessarily overpowering perfume of that old lady that you’re crammed next to on the 99, but this is a well-bal-anced, fruity, and dry, comfort wine. Save Riesling for the crowd that knows they’re going to pass their exams — this stuff is just for you and me.

also try:• Oxford Landing Estates Viognier ($12.99, Liberty Wine Merchants — Commercial Drive)• Cono Sur Viognier ($10.99, BC Liquor Stores)

Jaume serra cristalino caVa Brut — $17.99 (liBerty Wine merchants)

I can hear you. Literally. I know you’re that one person in class who

struggles to get their noisy bag of chips open.

Lucky for you, there’s a wine that you can pair with those Frito-Lays. Cava, like champagne, is made in the traditional method, which can give it a yeasty quality.

For all you biochemistry geeks out there: this happens because the yeast undergoes autolysis. The yeastiness pairs with your pota-to chips; the bubbles go with the crunchy texture, and the bright acidity wipes your palette clean of all that fat. Sparkling wines are quite versatile, so experiment. Grilled cheese! Fries! Chips! Pizza! FRIED THINGS!

also try:• Segura Viudas Brut Reserva ($15.99, BC Liquor Stores)• Opera Prima Brut ($14.99, Liberty Wine Merchants — Point Grey)

2010 pacific Breeze late harVest riesling — $14.99 (liBerty Wine merchants)

Let’s say you fail. Let’s say you end up crumbling into the fetal position and rock yourself to sleep with a mickey of Smirnoff clutched in your hand instead of what should’ve been Gateman’s textbook.

Well, hey! You’d look just like a late harvest Riesling grape that’s been left on the vine to dry up and get concentrated. That came out wrong, but you get the point — you’re still a star.

also try:• Errazuriz Late Harvest Sau-vignon Blanc ($15.99, BC Liquor Stores)• 2006 Chateau Loupiac-Gaudiet ($21.99, Liberty Wine Merchants — Commercial Drive). U

—Joshua DecolongonThese affordable wines are perfect for that late-night study session, whether it’s going well or not — especially if it’s not.

MORALS >>

HOGAN WONG PHOTO/THE UBYSSEYLou Marinoff argues that conditions like depression are best remedied through introspection and not chemicals.

KAI JACOBSON PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

Lecturer looks at the philosophical solutions to problems usually solved with pills

Wines that scream Froot Loops, potato chips and exam failure

6 | CULTURE | MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012

NICHOLE Z. YAM, OLIVIA SANCHEZ, RHYS EDWARDS PHOTOS/THE UBYSSEY

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | CULTURE | 7MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | CULTURE | 7

Rhys Edwardssenior Culture writer

At first glance, public washrooms are not places of great beauty.

Despite the valiant efforts of the custodial services, many of UBC’s older bathrooms remain a gauntlet for the senses; even the antiseptic taint of freshly cleaned commodes can turn a pleasant study break into an ordeal to remember.

But amid the squalor of UBC’s lavatories lies a vital creative force: stalls across campus are home to a variety of bathroom graffiti.

It’s true that the hardboard walls of lavatory stalls are unlikely to arouse the close scrutiny of the average student, for several reasons. Aside from the unpleasant atmosphere of the washroom itself, which compels us to leave it as soon as possible, as well as the fact that we may be occupied with more pressing concerns, most bathroom graffiti is predominantly crude in nature. A torrent of vulgar language, though amusing, does not lend itself to artistic posterity.

However, not every toilet scrawling is repulsive; opening the door to a stall may reveal hitherto unknown treasures.

Many displays exhibit a considerable degree of ingenu-ity. Rather than being stymied by the difficult working environment, bathroom graffiti artists take advantage of the unique characteristics of the wall – such as its size and texture – to produce works of variety.

There is also something inherently democratic about bathroom graffiti. There are no special skills or materials required to make it. It is made by everyone, and it is for everyone; whether you’re a first-year student or an es-teemed faculty member, the writing on the wall is indiffer-ent. It’s open to interaction and modification from future attendees, while the same cannot be said for most other art forms.

Perhaps most fascinating is what bathroom graffiti reveals about us. Although most markings are irreverent, many others feature combinations of imagery, personal narrative, and poetry that are stark or even poignant.

UBC’s washrooms are a veritable cornucopia of art, aphorisms and axioms. The following images represent only a sample of works from around campus. U

Rhys EdwardsRhys Edwardssenior Culture writersenior Culture writer

At first glance, public washrooms are not places of great At first glance, public washrooms are not places of great beauty. beauty.

Despite the valiant efforts of the custodial services, Despite the valiant efforts of the custodial services, many of UBC’s older bathrooms remain a gauntlet for many of UBC’s older bathrooms remain a gauntlet for

However, not every toilet scrawling is repulsive; opening However, not every toilet scrawling is repulsive; opening the door to a stall may reveal hitherto unknown treasures. the door to a stall may reveal hitherto unknown treasures.

Many displays exhibit a considerable degree of ingenu-Many displays exhibit a considerable degree of ingenu-ity. Rather than being stymied by the difficult working ity. Rather than being stymied by the difficult working environment, bathroom graffiti artists take advantage of environment, bathroom graffiti artists take advantage of the unique characteristics of the wall – such as its size and the unique characteristics of the wall – such as its size and texture – to produce works of variety.texture – to produce works of variety.

There is also something inherently democratic about There is also something inherently democratic about

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | 8EDITOR C.J. PENTLAND

Joseph Ssettubastaff writer

The Thunderbirds looked to their big men to score early and often this past weekend, and it led to some huge nights for forwards Brylle Kamen and David Wagner.

Friday night saw the ’Birds easily handle the University of Calgary Dinos 82-63, and Sat-urday featured them knocking off the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns 96-84. Kamen paced the Thunderbirds with a monster effort on both ends of the floor against the ‘Horns, finishing with 26 points, 21 rebounds and two steals, while Wagner rounded out the dominating pair of perform-ances down low by notching 28 points of his own to go along with six rebounds, a block and a steal.

Fifth-year guard Doug Plumb set the tone for the rest of the offence on Saturday, finishing

with nine assists, 16 points and six rebounds. The game plan was to feed guys down low with the ball. It certainly worked out, but success did not come as easily as it might have seemed.

The first half was a fairly even affair between the two teams, as they both traded buckets and stops. The Thunderbirds’ excel-lent effort on the boards all game limited the Pronghorns with their second chance efforts, but Lethbridge was able to hang in the game with their three point shooting. The ’Birds took a slim 41-38 lead into halftime thanks to Wagner, who had 12 points by the break, and Kamen, who had 11 points and 11 rebounds.

UBC started to pull away in the third quarter, but the Pronghorns would not quit. They rallied from two huge T-Birds runs of 14-0 and 11-0, and in the fourth, they man-aged to cut what was a 22 point

deficit down to nine with about three minutes left in the game. However, a technical foul by the Pronghorns effectively killed their chances of a comeback, and the Thunderbirds were able to finish the job en route to the 12 point victory.

Kamen was the main force all over the court, winning numerous offensive and defensive rebounds, fighting for prime position in the paint and even starting several fast breaks, showing what he could do in all facets of the game. His infectious energy helped set the level that the Thunderbirds wanted to play at.

The third-year transfer admit-ted he had not been in top form due to a hamstring injury earlier in the season which led to below-par performances for his stan-dards, especially at the free-throw line. On Saturday he managed to break out of his struggles, going 14

for 17 at the free-throw line.“It’s a matter of my legs,” Ka-

men said after Saturday’s game. “Just coming from injuries, it’s always hard to get your rhythm back, but I’ve always been a de-cent free throw shooter. Tonight was more what I should be able to do. It’s still 70 per cent of what I can do.”

If 70 per cent of Kamen equals over 20 points and 20 rebounds, the prospect of what he can do with some extended rest over the winter break should have Thunderbirds fans itching with excitement for the new year.

The CIS No. 4 ranked Thunder-birds will definitely face tougher competition during the rest of the year, but for head coach Kevin Hanson a win was still a win, especially Saturday’s game, his 200th career regular season vic-tory. He becomes only the third Canada West coach to reach that

milestone. Kamen almost set an-other record with his magnificent effort on the glass, but was just two rebounds shy of the record of 23 in a game set by Aaron Point in 1987. Rebounding was only half the battle on the court, but the re-newed emphasis in the paint had Hanson pleased after the game.

“I think the difference came when we lost to the Fraser Valley here when we jacked up 30 threes and we didn’t get any presence inside. That loss really helped us refocus. It made me analyze and say we need to do a better job playing inside-outside basketball,” said Hanson after the win.

The Canada West regular sea-son resumes in the new year when the ’Birds go on the road to take on the University of Manitoba on Friday, Jan. 11. The next home game for UBC will see them take on Brandon University on Friday, Jan. 18. U

bASkETbALL >>

UBC big men contribute to big winsStrong performances in the paint lead ’Birds to two wins before winter break

37 rebounds grabbed by Brylle Kamen between the two games

21 rebounds by Kamen in Saturday’s game — two short of the UBC record for most in a game

49 points scored by David Wagner betweenthe two games

9 players who scored points on the weekend

25 steals by UBC on the weekend — 11 more than the opposition

200 career regular season wins for head coach Kevin Hanson

61 career regular season losses for Hanson

B-BALL STATSBY THE

NUMBERS

HOGAN WONG PHOTO/THE UBYSSEYUBC’s offence was firing on all cylinders on the weekend, scoring 82 points on Friday night and 96 points on Saturday night.

Men’s volleyball extends win streak to seven

The UBC men’s volleyball team had a tough test on the road against Manitoba this past week-end, but the T-Birds rose to the occasion and defeated the Bisons in five sets on Friday night and four sets on Saturday.

Friday night was a come-from-behind effort for the ’Birds. Trailing two sets to one and 20-18 in the fourth set, UBC pulled together to come back in that set and carried that momentum into the final frame, prevailing 20-18 in the fifth set.

Saturday saw UBC get out to a early two-set lead, and they were able to close it out in the fourth. It was yet another tight game, as the

second set saw UBC winning 34-32 and the third one saw the Bisons prevail 26-24. After the one-set slide, UBC closed it out in the fourth with a 25-21 win.

Jarrid Ireland was dominant on offence all weekend, racking up 36 kills over the two games. In total, UBC’s 62 kills on Saturday was the most by a Canada West team this season in a four-set match. Libero Ian Perry paced the defensive ef-fort, totaling 16 digs in each game.

UBC is now 8-4 on the year and is in fourth in the Canada West.

Dual wins send women’s basket-ball into the break victorious

After handing the Calgary Dinos their first loss of the year on Fri-day, the T-Birds completed their

two-win weekend after knocking off the Lethbridge Pronghorns on Saturday night.

Strong shooting and tough rebounding was the difference on Friday, as the ’Birds shot 48 per cent en route to a 70-58 victory over the Dinos. Leigh Stansfield led the way with 21 points and 10 rebounds, while Kris Young added 18 points and nine boards.

Saturday saw the T-Birds lead all the way, as they comfortably beat the Pronghorns 74-57. Young once again led the way with 22 points, with Maggie Sundberg pouring in 12 and Adrienne Parking scoring nine points and grabbing 10 rebounds.

With the two wins, UBC is now 7-3 and is tied for third in the Can-ada West Pacific division.

Another UBC volleyball sweep

It was yet another victory for UBC women’s volleyball as the T-Birds took down Manitoba in straight sets on both Friday and Saturday night. The wins extend their streak to 10 games.

It was a steady attack all week-end for UBC, with setter Brina Der-ksen-Bergen keeping the offence flowing. Lisa Barclay, Shanice Mar-celle, Rose Schlagintweit and Alissa Coulter all had strong weekends offensively, helping Derksen-Ber-gen average over 13 assists per set.

Now 11-1, UBC heads into the break in first place in the Canada West and will most likely be ranked first in the next CIS rankings. They resume play on Jan. 11 at home against the University of Winnipeg.

Women’s hockey falls twice

The T-Birds couldn’t get much going on the weekend, as the women’s hockey team dropped two games on the road to the Regina Cougars. Friday night saw them fall 3-1, and Saturday was a 5-1 defeat.

Injuries got the best of the ’Birds, as their short-handed line-up couldn’t keep up with Regina. They could only muster two goals, and had trouble stopping the Cou-gar offence. Nikola Brown-John and Kaitlin Imai scored the goals for UBC.

Now with a 7-6-3 record, UBC sits in fourth place in the Canada West. They will kick off the second half of their season on the road in the new year when they take on Calgary on Jan. 4 and 5. U

Bird droppings: Victorious volleyball, basketball businessREcApS >>

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | SPORTS + REC | 9

C.J. Pentlandsports + Rec Editor

To say it’s been an up-and-down first half of the season for the UBC men’s hockey team is a bit of an understatement.

They’ve been in the CIS top 10 twice now, but have dropped right back out after immediately losing two straight games. They’ve had moments where they looked like one of the country’s top squads, and others where they’ve struggled simply to score goals.

This past weekend followed the same trend. After a convincing 3-0 victory on Friday night over the University of Regina Cougars, the visitors outplayed the ’Birds on Saturday and UBC fell 3-0 to split their last weekend series before the winter break.

Friday night saw UBC off to an early lead, using shutdown defence to keep Regina off the board. The T-Bird line of Max Grassi, Brad Ho-ban and Michael Wilgosh paced the offence and combined for two goals, including one just over two minutes into the game. Net minder Steven Stanford made 23 saves for his first shutout of the season. Overall, it was a performance that showcased how well the ’Birds can play.

“I thought we had pretty good puck possession all game, our powerplay scored a nice goal and I thought our [penalty kill] did a good job, especially in the first period,” said UBC head coach Milan Dragcevic after Friday’s game. “System-wise, we were very good [at] getting pucks deep and creating turnovers in the neutral zone.”

But Saturday saw the tides turn. The ’Birds came out flat, giving up two goals in the opening period.

They were never able to get much going on offence. It was a step back-ward for a team that was looking to head into the winter break in sole possession of third place in the Can-ada West. With the weekend split, they now sit in fourth place in the conference, with a 9-6-1 record.

It is true that the T-Birds are on pace for their best regular season under Dragcevic, who is in his tenth year behind the bench. However, the team has loftier goals than just a successful regular season. They want to go to CIS nationals in Saska-toon, and they know what they need to do to get there.

“We’ve got to be a little better than that if we’re playing against Alberta and Saskatchewan,” said Dragcevic on Friday in reference to two of the top three teams in Canada. “We have to be a lot sharper than that.”

Dragcevic stresses that his team plays to a championship identity. That’s the identity we saw on Friday — creating neutral-zone turnovers, enforcing a strong forecheck, having a strong breakout from their own end, maximizing their scoring chances.

But when they start taking pen-alties in the offensive zone and not

getting enough shots on net, we see games like the one on Saturday. Elite teams can’t have blips against teams like Regina, who have a roughly equal win-loss ratio, and especially not against teams near the top of the standings.

“Against Alberta we never played to our identity at all,” he said. “[On Friday] you saw that we controlled the puck down low, we moved the puck east-west on the cycle, and those are little things that we have to do because that’s the type of team we are.”

The pieces are all there for the T-Birds, and after playing every

team in the conference twice they know exactly what they need to do in order to be successful. In the second half of the season, it will basically be a matter of putting all those pieces together and making them fit on a consistent basis.

T-BIRDS AT THE BREAK</strong>

Without a true top line, the T-Birds are relying on scoring from all four forward lines. Max Grassi leads the team with 15 points, with first-year Brad Hoban right behind him with 14. Nate Fleming and Wyatt Hamilton have also been consistent two-way forces — Fleming has 13 points to go along with a +11 plus/minus rating, while Hamilton has 11 points and a +9. Cole Wilson and Scott Wasden are tied for the team lead in goals with eight apiece.

On defence, first-year Neil Man-ning has emerged as a top player, racking up 13 assists so far. The rookie oozes potential, playing with the poise of a player well beyond his years. Ben Schmidt also has a +5 and Kevin Smith has a +4 and 7 points.

In net, Jordan White has been getting most of the workload, but Stanford started both games this weekend. White currently sits third in the Canada West with a .917 save percentage and six wins. Stanford has three wins to go along with a .898 save percentage and one shutout.

After playing a couple of exhib-ition games over the winter break, the Thunderbirds will continue their regular season at home in the new year when they take on Calgary in a two-game series. The games will be on Jan. 4 and 5, with the puck drop on both nights at 7 p.m. U

HOckEY >>

Consistency is key for T-BirdsMen’s hockey has shown potential, but needs work to be one of country’s elite

HOGAN WONG PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

Michael Wilgosh opened the scoring on Friday night in UBC’s 3-0 win over Regina.

0 journalism experience needed to write for The Ubyssey. We will teach you everything you need to know in order to start writing top-notch articles.

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THE NUMBERS

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | 10STUDENT VOICE. COMMUNITY REACH.

The failures of fi nal exams

Why we protested at the Hillel House

Exam season transforms many UBC students into unkempt, over-stressed, anxiety-ridden basket cases. All-night campers cram for the grade, garbage cans in IKB overflow with pizza boxes and Red Bull, while the solitary ones turn dorm rooms into study caves, mak-ing the outdoors a distant memory. For a few weeks, the collective physical and emotional well-be-ing of our campus is dangerously compromised.

Sadly, much of this effort doesn’t even translate into scho-lastic success. A casual survey of the basic research on learning, reading, and writing will reveal an upsetting truth: most students are simply doing everything wrong.

Over the years, students — myself included — have developed habits of passive learning, cram-ming, remembering isolated facts, taking detailed class notes, and multitasking. However, many of these strategies are ineffectual, if not counterproductive.

For one, cramming — particu-larly if it means sleep deprivation — simply does not work. There are limits to the amount of attention we can devote to a subject, and the longer we study without interrup-tion, the less we get out of each additional hour.

Moreover, as a study in <em>Con-temporary Educational Psychology</

em>reveals, time spent studying is not a very good indicator of success. The most important factor is the amount of high-quality, focused practice. To this end, group work, music and disruptive environ-ments like coffee shops tend to do more harm than good.

There is similar evidence to suggest the same of offices, where common distractions make it impossible to get things done. The argument is that work, particular-ly creative work, is only accom-plished during long periods of uninterrupted focus.

Efficient learning is done through deep-level processing, which means active engagement. Taking detailed stenographer-like class notes is passive. Rather, you

should engage with your lectures by using notes to group ideas together, jot down questions and reactions to the material, and summarize concepts in your own words.

Similarly, UBC’s Carl Weiman, who pioneered the study of inter-active teaching methods, dem-onstrated that technologies like iClickers improve student learning by fostering active engagement in the lecture hall.

Creating a long list of study notes or a towering stack of cue cards, another popular study method, is also said to be passive and ineffective. Memorizing isolated facts does little to help you understand the complex relation-ship between those facts, or pre-pare you for the task of utilizing those many facts in an exam essay. Rather, rephrasing the material in your own words, and creating things like mind maps is far more effective.

More dangerously, passive learning styles threaten not only your efficiency, but your critical capacity. As Josipa Roksa and Richard Arum demonstrate, 45 per cent of college students (U.S. figures) are shown to have “no sta-tistically significant gains in critic-al thinking, analytical reasoning, and writing skills.”

Universities should bear much of the blame. George Kuh — a leading scholar of student develop-ment, and founder of the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) — identified a “disengage-ment compact” between students and faculty. Professors, obsessed with their own research, aren’t much bothered by teaching, and most students don’t seem to mind.

But the recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and the advancements in pedagogy should be seen as opportunities for reform. The midterm/paper/final class model is clearly failing, and it should make room for classes that emphasize active engage-ment, and professors who truly value teaching.

The efficiencies gained from active learning would not only aid our mental health, but it would nurture our critical capacity. U

I’m writing in response to the Nov. 28 letter, “Israel protesters’ ire is misdirected.” The writer seems to think that we were pro-testing outside the Hillel House on Nov. 22 because it’s a Jewish community centre, and as such, the protest would be offensive to all Jewish students. Far from it. I was one of those protesters and I am also a Jewish student at UBC.

We were protesting because the Hillel House was hosting a speaking event for Eliaz Luf, Israel’s deputy ambassador, im-mediately after Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, where over 150 Palestinians were killed. This is only the most recent of a long line of Israeli atrocities against the people of Gaza, which include Operation Cast Lead in 2008 which killed well over 1,000 Palestinians, and the blockade on Gaza which to this day causes massive unemploy-ment and food insecurity, and

leaves Palestinians without the necessary means to rebuild homes destroyed by Israeli bombs. Israel’s atrocities in the Gaza Strip are part of its ongoing history of violently dispossessing the Palestinians.

We see another example right now with Israel ramping up construction of illegal settle-ments in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

By repeatedly and erroneously claiming that Israel is an integral part of Jewish culture and iden-tity, it’s the Hillel House that has forced the link between Judaism and Israel.

Contrary to the letter writer’s assumptions, based on my eth-nicity, I am not offended that we protested Eliaz Luf’s visit to the Hillel House. I am offended that the Hillel House hosts war crim-inals and publishes brochures that wrongly equate supporting Israeli apartheid with being accepting of Jews.

<em>—Arielle Friedman </em>

KATICHISMSby Gordon Katic

LETTERS

concerted student support necessary to saVe BreWery

</strong>

The AMS still plans to have some sort of brewery in the new SUB, but beyond that, they’ve got a lot to figure out.

It turns out that although there were plans for a brew pub, the AMS never officially allocated money for it.

Now they have decided switch to a microbrewery, so they can also sell thier beer out-side the SUB. This comes with its own problems.

The microbrewery could cost almost double what they had planned, but the AMS is counting on increased beer sales to pick up the slack. They are basing their calculations on dramatically increased draft sales in the new SUB, which is a risky business, especially when you take a look at how much AMS bars are already losing. Counting on profits to fund the microbrewery could come back to bite them.

Although there isn’t clear direction for the brewery, it is one of the few things that makes students care enough to show up to a Council meeting. A few dozen showed up to the standing room only meeting — a first for this year.

But a few students who think a brewery is a cool idea isn’t enough to make it happen. The executives who were driving the original project are gone, and no one seems willing to step up and take ownership of what could be a financial disaster.

So for the time being, support isn’t coming from the top. In the end, students will have to show they care by buying the AMS’s beer — and a lot of it.

eVen uBc is haVing a hard time Justifying the Bie

After much ballyhoo, the Board of Governors have agreed to hold back on approving the super-high tuition for the new Bachelor of International

Economics degree.For the second time.Yep, by this point it’s hard

to believe that anything UBC’s doing here is in good faith. They initially tried to ram through the tuition prices without consulting anyone. Then, when the AMS balked, the university set up a couple of “consultation sessions” — but ignored the near-universal, well-articu-lated criticisms from everyone

they talked to and just put the same numbers back up for approval again.

Because the truth is, they never cared about what stu-dents thought about anything. Making money is the new degree’s whole raison d�être, and if they lose the high mar-gins, there’s very little motiv-ation left to see the program to completion.

It’s abundantly clear they can’t justify the tuition cost based on what students are getting — the numbers are what they are because UBC hopes to make as many extra bucks as they can get away with.

If the Board of Governors has any shame left, they’ll let the BIE die.

rogue student group shouldn’t spoil the party for all graduate students

At this year’s conference of the Canadian Association of Gradu-ate Studies (CAGS), a national

group that lobbies Ottawa on issues affecting graduate pro-grams, the membership voted to do something that seems counterintuitive.

They stood by their 2011 decision to drop a student seat from their board of directors.

Not having a student rep-resentative on an association that makes decisions affecting students doesn’t seem to make much sense.

But by the board’s reasoning, the student movement in Can-ada has lost its privileges for misbehaving.

Mainly comprised of deans and faculty, the organization had a student seat that rotated every year between the national student group Canadian Feder-ation of Students and a Quebec counterpart.

But the CFS has drawn controversy in recent years, and CAGS dropped the seat over concerns that the group doesn’t represent all students any more.

It’s hard to say that assess-ment isn’t correct. The CFS is busy suing students that want to leave the organization, Quebec is doing its own thing and the Canadian Alliance of Students Associations, a sep-arate group that UBC graduate students are members of, never had influence in CAGS in the first place. Things are a mess.

But there are still major issues for students in graduate studies that need addressing: funding, copyright, years re-quired to finish the degree.

Graduate student associ-ations can still join CAGS on their own. Groups like the GSS should work harder from within the organization on building a voice so they don’t have to rely on the fractious student lobby-ing scene.

Graduate studies programs are a two way street between the administrators and the students, and cutting them out is not the way to make sure students’ interests are repre-sented. U

LAST WORDS

INDIANA JOEL ILLUSTRATION/THE UBYSSEY

The microbrewery could cost almost double what they had planned, but the AMS is counting on increased beer sales to pick up the slack. Which is a risky business, especially when you look at how much AMS bars are already losing.

re: The AMs brewery

Desperate to sell their surplus homebrew, the AMS turns to the Godiva band in the hope they’ll make their revelry bi-weekly.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 | 11PICTURES + WORDS ON YOUR UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE

HACKÉDEXYOUR UBC WORD OF THE WEEK

A Special Occasion License (SOL) is required to host beer gardens or other miscellaneous boozing parties around campus. Because UBCity is not really

a city, all one-time liquor licenses for events must be approved by the university and the campus RCMP

detachment. If you host an event with an SOL, you’ll have to hire security and make sure you don’t serve any minors.

SOL

@overheardatubc Exchange student on the bus: “Do you know what Costco is? I went for the fi rst time this weekend. It was soooo scary.” #UBC (@AR_FrancysI)@future1stlady1 Keep calm and take an Adderrall.

tweets of

the Week

@totalsorormove Maybe I should’ve been taking notes instead of Facebook creeping this entire semester. #fi nals #TSM

PIC OF THE WEEK

DAVID MARINO PHOTO/THE UBYSSEY

UBC engineers spread holiday cheer by caroling on the last day of class.

2012: UBC’S WEB SCENESome of our favourite university-related web ephemera from the past year

UBC MEMES

@overheardatUBC

#WHATWESHOULDCALLUBC

UBC Compliments

February 2012 — Memes had been popping up all over the Web for some time, and this Facebook page fed our hunger for them. The page encouraged users to create classic memes with a UBC twist, like Futurama’s Fry musing about an econ exam.

Overheard at UBC@overheardatubc

“Welcome to Vancouver, where your bus leaks when it’s raining.” #ubc (via @igitot)

29 Nov 12

September 2010 — The account has been around for over two years, but the anonymous Twitt er account @overheardatubc has seen strong resurgence in recent months. Followers can contribute “those funny, weird and occasionally disturbing things you hear people saying around campus,” and there’s also a Facebook group set up fo the same purpose.

September 2012 — #whatweshouldcallubc is an anonymous Tumblr blog in the now-classic the #whatweshouldcallme series. The author promises to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, with a dash of sarcasm and awkwardness” through photos and animated GIFs describing quinessential UBC experiences.

“AT THE SKYTRAIN STATION WHEN THE TRANSIT POLICE ARE CHECKING FARES...UPASS HOLDERS:”

November 2012 — This Facebook page is an “anonymous forum for spreading your love” for all things and people at UBC. It’s based off of a similar experiment from Queen’s University.

To all my fellow UBC students worried about fi nals/grad school/fi nding a job/gett ing somewhere in life, etc:You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

12 | GAMES | MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012

across1- City in Nebraska6- Greek portico10- Flying stinger14- Destined15- Held on to16- It may be happy17- Blaze18- CPR experts19- Jason’s craft 20- Duck22- Plaid24- Arguing25- Trumpet fl ourish26- Low-frequency loudspeaker29- Autumn tool30- Part of q.E.D.

31- Simple37- First name in photography39- May ___ excused?40- Conical dwelling41- Moving backward44- Legal claim45- Back46- Recompense48- Pollen producers52- Heroin, slangily53- Like a dog54- Apothegm58- Extent of space59- Cab61- Forbidden62- Rich soil63- The doctor ___64- Sniff

65- Longfellow’s bell town66- Curse67- First name in cosmetics

doWn

1- Does in2- Former French colony of north-western Africa3- Not much4- From now on5- ___ Fideles6- Shooting sport7- Offi ce fi ll-in8- Decide9- On the line10- Pier11- Large artery12- Sucrose13- Lying fl at21- Make weary23- Concerning25- Noted26- Don27- Writer Sarah ___ Jewett 28- Kiln for drying hops29- Rod used to reinforce concrete32- Turkish money33- Morse messages34- Neat as ___35- Oboe, e.g.36- Longings38- Actress Sophia42- DNA-related43- Apiece47- ___-tung48- Milan’s La ___49- Fortune-telling cards50- Lend ___51- Orange Bowl site52- Rotates54- Turning point55- Yeah, right!56- Flat-fi sh57- Yard tunneler60- Sun Devils’ sch.

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Games page too easy?Get in touch and your suggestions will be used to make a bett er page in the future!• Make puzzles• Learn layout• Draw comicsJEFF ASCHKINASI | [email protected]