This is your chance to meet and talk with like minded students about issues that matter to you. Think of it as a mini-Terry Talks. Each student comes with a 5 minute story in min about whatever topic they like. Everyone’s name is put into a hat and the names that come out get to tell their story to the group.

Its a great chance to meet new people, share ideas, and be inspired!

Terry Tales is happening every 2 weeks in the new Global Lounge from 5-7 on Mondays. Check out the facebook event for more details!

DNA 11 sends you a mouth swab that you use to collect epithelial cells from the inside of your cheek. You then mail these back to the company and they conduct a gel electrophoresis run of your genes. The results of this (the black and white bands often seen on CSI and the like) are then photographed professionally and digitally coloured. The result is an abstract painting of whichever colours you want featuring you.

Its a pretty cool idea and I’d imagine I’d have a lot of fun explaining to people what the painting was all about. However, I had some reservations.

I’ve written about genetic privacy before and am aware of the risks of mailing some company my most personal information. If it is stored digitally on a server in the US it become open to the Patriot Act. If they keep the info and the company goes bankrupt then what happens to the genetic information.

I did a little digging around and it looks like DNA 11 is totally legit. First of all they don’t actually decode your genes, they just get a fancy picture of them. Its the same kind of picture that criminologists use to identify two people. Each picture is unique but you can’t tell what any of the lines actually translate to (hair colour, skin colour, etc.). They also guarantee that they will delete and destroy all of the information and samples that they get after they have finished your piece. I sent them an e-mail and they confirmed all of this for me.

They also do personalized finger prints and kisses!

Nerdy? Check. Conversation piece? Check. Beautiful? Check.

1. To what extent will the proposed 2% tuition increase ($88.59 on a base Arts/Science tuition) be an impediment to you continuing your studies at UBC?
2. Your tuition currently pays for 28%-30% of the operating costs of your UBC education. A government grant and investment income pays the balance. Choose one of the following to rate this 28%-30%:
3. What is the most important thing for UBC to invest in at this time?

I have several problems with these questions, especially the first two.

Question 1: Will an increase of 2% tuition ($89) impede you from attending UBC?

x – It would not be an impediment

x – It would create some financial pressure but I could manage the increase

x – It would seriously impact me and I would have to consider delaying my studies or not returning to UBC

I think that this is a perfectly appropriate question to ask. However, it is worded badly and even more worrisome, it could be used to misrepresent students.

The authors should really specify whether the $89 is for one semester or two. Not a big deal but important if they want to clarify. My bigger concern is the way most students will answer and how that could be used against them. I would guess that if most students answered honestly (without thinking about the consequences of their answers) they would answer that it wouldn’t really impede them from returning. As high as some claim that tuition is I don’t foresee a lot of students leaving university over $100. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I’m going to assume.

The concern with answering with the first option is that the administration will look at their results and say “Look AMS, here is proof that students can deal with larger increases.” That isn’t a good thing. And when the results are released the AMS, GSS, and students at large need to make sure that the questions aren’t used against them.

2. Your tuition currently pays for 28%-30% of the operating costs of your UBC education. A government grant and investment income pays the balance. Choose one of the following to rate this 28%-30%:

x – Too high

x – An appropriate range

x – Too low

Ahh the Goldilocks question. Too hot, too cold, or just right. The big problem with this question is that the issue is much to complicated to boil down to the three answers. I sympathize with the university on this but still think that this isn’t so much a question about tuition as it is a financial structure question. One that students at large and even those on the inside will have trouble answering.

Overall I’m quite upset by the survey. It strikes me as being very teleological (having a goal in mind before it is concluded). It is also possible that this was drafted up in response to the AMS tuition referendum question that passed. The university has subtly used the survey to show students that a) the tuition ‘increases’ that everyone is in a fuss about are very small and b) most of the money we get comes from outside sources (revenue or grants).

While I do agree with them that a 2% yearly increase is perfectly acceptable (I voted No on the referendum question) I disagree with the purpose of the survey and hope that the Administration didn’t mean it to be as nefarious as it could be interpreted.

And just for the record I beat Insiders on that one.

If you are a student bent on making a positive difference in the world then this is the place to get your start. This year, the 3rd CGIU is happening in Miami from April 16-18. It will undoubtedly be as awesome this year as it was last year. Participants will get to hear speeches from and interact with world leaders in many disciplines. Be sure to check out the webcast from last year’s meeting to get a scope of what happens. More importantly you will meet dozens of other university students from all around the world engaged in globe changing projects.

There is a catch though. Potential applicants need to make a ‘Commitment’ to the Clinton Global Initiative in one of 5 areas: Education, Environment & Climate Change, Peace & Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, or Public Health. My commitment was the UBC MIX project and fell under the Education category.

If you are interested in submitting a project you are currently working on to the CGIU and attend be sure to check out the CGIU homepage. The early application deadline has already passed but the final deadline is February 22, 2010. It is crucial that you start working on your application early as it is quite a lengthy process.

UBC is also looking at finding some support for student’s who are interested in applying. I’d be happy to help you out with your application and show you mine from 2007. UBC Student Development also wants to help out so please contact Kim Kiloh if you intend to apply. You can look her up in the UBC Directory. The best way to contact me is to e-mail me – geoffcosteloe at gmail dot com (phonetically spelled but you know how to fix it).

Best of luck applying!

If you are attending (and here comes the shameless plug) I’m running two sessions that day that you might think about signing up for. They first is ‘Finding Your Element’ where I will pass on some advice from Sir Ken Robinson’s best selling book The Element. It will be an intorverted look at yourself to see whether or not your goals are in line with your leadership style.

The second session will be a presentation about UBC MIX, which has been chosen as an SLC Highlighted Project this year. If you are interested in what UBC MIX is all about or want to find a way to get involved please come out and get some more info.

Hope to see you all there!

Charles Tupper: A Measure of Patience

Stephen Harper: A James Dean for the 21st Century (based of of this editorial by Andrew Steele)

Comments and debate on them is encouraged!

More to come!

Where we stand

Now, I give you fair warning, either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice! - The Queen from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland

I believe that there is little doubt that last nights meeting sent a clear message to the President and Vice President External. So far, their strategy has been one of changing the rhetoric of the debate. I, like all councilors, have received numerous e-mails from lots of students. The voices from students has taken one of two tones. They are essentially as follows:

“How can council be in support of tuition increases? You should support Tim and Blake in their efforts to reduce tuition.”

“Blake and Tim have embarrassed me and all students by abusing their power to pursue their own political goals. I am not a fan of increasing tuition but I am also not a fan of allowing crazies to represent me”

A little artistic interpretation there but that’s what I take as being the gist. I doubt anyone would disagree with me on this point.

Both of these issues were brought up at council last night. Both are legitimate concerns. Lets start with tuition.

As I’ve already stated, there is a tuition issue; students have made that very clear. The response should be to allow students to voice their concerns to committee over several weeks. As Tahara put it very well at council meeting on Wednesday: “What about the students who couldn’t make it out tonight?”

This whole issue is about students and ensuring that they have their voices heard in AMS decisions. Pushing a huge policy issue to council and saying ‘Decide now!’ without proper consultation is an irresponsible way to be making policy. I would challenge anyone to argue differently. If you don’t trust me, trust the Duchess from AiWL

Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves. - The Duchess

If we can set up a council that doesn’t allow anyone to push their own agenda and that students can easily voice their opinions (as they have this week) policies will take care of themselves and will become self evident. In the end, this should make our councilors jobs easier.

The other type of e-mails I’ve been getting speak to the other side of the same coin as in the previous debate: involving students in decisions.

More contributions from the Duchess, this time in not so good a way:

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.

It most certainly would dear Duchess. But would it be a better world? No. This issue isn’t about speed, its about responsibility. The reckless actions of the President and Vice President were done without consultation with anyone (publicly at least). This isn’t the first time it has happened either. It is my opinion, and certainly the opinion of many students who have e-mailed me, that we can’t open ourselves up to more risk from the two of them. They have already done massive amounts of damage to us as a society.

What does this mean to students? It means that large scale projects (most notably the new SUB) are put at risk because of recklessness. It isn’t out of anger or retribution that there has been a move to recall Blake and Tim, it is about bringing the AMS into damage control mode, and not letting anything else happen to the society until the new executives are elected in January.

If you think the President and Executives should be able to run the AMS like their little fiefdom, without hearing the voices of students then you should support Tim and Blake. If you think that there should be checks and balances to our system and no one person (or small group of people) should be able to control the whole system, you should support their removal.

It was clear to me that the majority of students who came to council on Wednesday night chose the latter.

What happens from here?

In a strange twist, the future is probably actually clearer than the present. In my opinion this is what will take place:

1. Blake and Tim will be impeached on Monday night unless they can suddenly justify their actions better than he has been to date.

2. They will proceed to go to try and take the AMS to court.

3. They will finance their legal fees through the Student Legal Fund Society (it just so happens that Blake’s girlfriend sits on the board).

What happens after that is beyond the looking glass. It is Blake and Tim’s absolute right to take the AMS to court for what has happened. I would offer them some friendly advice if they are planning to go this route (as I’m sure you have discussed).

I’ll begin with some advice from the King:

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop. - The King

You have gone through the motions and have reached the end of the road. Stop. Your passion about tuition is appreciated and you have successfully managed to make tuition a talking point for students. This is a good thing even if how you did it broke any standard of ethics I can think of. Over the next months we will be having a discussion with students around tuition and looking at the issue critically. I wasn’t around the AMS when our previous policy was passed and I look forward to learning more about the issue. What more do you get by not resigning? It would be the best thing for yourself and your sanity and the best thing for the AMS and council, who are keen to see you out the door.

You are verging on being viewed of as a zealot. Before everyone gets in a tiff about my use of that word I would like to define it. My definition of a zealot: ’someone who, having lost sight of their objective, redoubles their effort’. Your back is against the wall and the issues are clearly over. What is more fighting going to gain you?

I wish could just close my eyes and count to 20 and this would all disappear. I’m sure you feel the same.

Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is — oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate! - Alice

Things have gone beyond sideways. As I read the press releases and subsequent articles that came out I felt as though I was slipping into another dimension. How could this be? I think is the question on most people’s minds; and rightly so. How is it that a democratically elected President whose personal crusade is to ‘the eradication of oppression’  (from his facebook) so whimsically cast aside democracy, process, trust, and, lets be honest, common sense? As a council member, I feel oppressed. So do many students judging by the expected attendance at tonight’s council meeting. In truth, it would appear that Blake and Tim (Blim) have actually increased the net oppression on our campus during their time in office. Their actions have eroded the AMS’s ability to engage in any form of discussion with the university administration, VANOC, the BC Government and the federal government making student voices weaker than they were before.

How do I know that this has happened? Because as a senator and student leader I interact with people in these areas on nearly a daily basis. If I was polite I would say that the reason for these burnt bridges was because of a lack of cohesive stance on some issues. If I was truthful I would say that, in the eyes of bodies higher and more important than us, we look like whiny, spoiled little brats, throwing a tantrum in the aisle of the grocery store until Mom gets us the candy that we want. Is that how student leaders are supposed to act?

So how exactly did we get here? The answer is longwinded so I’m going to try and summarize it as best I can. Note that this is only how I see things. I think that many people will agree with me.

What is happening now is the climax of a war that has been raging for quite some time in the backrooms of the AMS. There are two sides in this conflict: idealists and realists. Steve Janke wrote a fantastic article about idealists and realists and he explains it much better than me but I’ll try and sum it up (here: just the first couple paragraphs). It encapsulates our situation very well. Idealists are individuals who have a view of an ideal world and work tireless to achieve it. In their minds, the ends always justify the means. As long as the real world moves incrementally closer to their perceived ideal world then it is worth it. In their minds, trampling on democracy, civil disobedience, and just being batshit crazy can all be justified by the world that they are trying to build (which to them is the world we all want, some of us just don’t know it yet). This is exactly the defense that Blake and Tim have used to justify their claim to the UN: we are lobbying for lower tuition for UBC students. The UN complaint may bring us a planck length closer to lower tuition, so to them, it shall be done by any means necessary.

On the other side of this war are the realists. They don’t have a teleological view of the world. To them, the way the world works is a summation of causes and effects that have lead us to this point. An ideal world doesn’t exist, in fact many of them would probably say that there are moralities such as right and wrong and not universal and are subject to vantage point. There are costs and benefits to every decision. If the benefits to the group outweigh the costs then action should be taken. They don’t oppose tuition reduction in our case, they just don’t want to drop a nuclear bomb on valuable relationships to do it. The costs outweigh the benefits. From reading the comments on posts and blogs this week, I would say that most of the students at our university are realists.

It is important to note that realists or idealists are found all across the political spectrum. There are idealist conservatives as well as idealist liberals.

Over the past couple years and AMS executives the idealists have been winning the war. We can tell this because of how our system now. Is it any coincidence that Tristan Markle, notorious Knolly, former AMS executive is the partner complaintant on the UN claim (even though he isn’t a student and didn’t contribute a dime to the legal fees)? Is it any coincidence that Stefanie Ratjen, another Knolly and former AMS executive as well as an outspoken and radical critic of the 2010 Olympics, was recently given almost $20,000 by the Student Legal Fund Society to educate students about their rights around protesting at the Olympics?

The idealists hands are so far in the pockets of the AMS that it is basically second base (high five?). There strategy has been cunning and it has worked. Several groups and subsidiaries of the AMS, most notably the resource groups, have been hijacked by these idealists and are being used to actively pursue their own selfish political aims. Certainly the groups do provide important services to students through the Womyn’s Centre, the LGBT support, etc. But in the past years, there sinister side has begun to outweigh their benefits. Did you know that all students pay a small amount of money every year to pay for the Knoll. This rag is how the Knollies got their name and it is filled with hateful rhetoric, attacking all perspectives but their own. I’m sure you’ve all seen it at some point and I don’t need to go into the level of shit that is spewed out of that magazine. Besides, I didn’t bring my waders (fishing joke).

If students at large new about this, they would want it changed. I want it changed. But attempts to do so are criticized by the idealists as being driven by straight, white, christian, men who want to continue the oppression and colonization of indigenous groups through the disenfranchisement of minority…blah blah blah. I will have you know that being a white heterosexual male, traits over which I had no control often serve me badly in council as apparently my voice doesn’t count or accurately reflect students at this university. For more information on this see the minutes of the disability seat debate. It strikes me as humorously hypocritical that these idealists claim that my skin colour should disenfranchise my voice while trying to promote the voice of other disenfranchised groups. Actually that is really funny.

So what will be done to remedy the situation? In about 3 hours council will have an emergency meeting to call for the resignation of Blake Frederick and Tim Chu. They have become the puppets of this idealist movement, the strings being pulled by shadowy figures out of the view of students and councilors. How else can Blake turn around on his facebook page yesterday and claim that the he has received an outpouring of support from students regarding the issue (he has since taken this down, but a photo of it can be found here)? It is the same small group of radical idealists who give him the ideas to run with, pave the way for them to happen, have him do them, then congratulate him on them afterward.

I’m actually surprised that Tim or Blake won’t be at the meeting tonight (the BC NDP convention took priority I believe). They seem to enjoy being martyred for their agenda, like two Jesus Christs of social justice. If we brought a crucifix to the meeting they would probably be the ones driving in the nails.

No doubt we are angry at them, no doubt they have committed a crime against democracy and students at UBC, no doubt that something must be done to remedy the situation. My concern is that it won’t stop with the two traitors this week. The idealists pulling the strings are everywhere in the AMS and they will keep pulling the strings whether Tim and Blake resign or not. They will find more weak willed cowards to put forward as candidates in the next election and the war will begin anew.

As a result, the realists need to think very hard about how to proceed this week. If impeachment is brought forward a week from now I will vote for it, that’s what students seem to want. I hope though, that it doesn’t come forward. The costs of losing an impeachment vote are much greater than the benefits of winning it. If a discussion occurs in which Blake threatens legal action against the AMS or even specific councilors some of us will undoubtedly back down. If an impeachment vote is lost then we will have been viewed to endorse Blake and Tim, re-solidifying their delusions of support.

There are other ways of punishing Blake. Remove every possible power that he has. I firmly believe that Blake and Tim are ideologues. They truly believe in their perverted minds that they have the support of council and students. If we stop their ability to do anything then we separate ourselves from the executives. Telling the university and all the other damaged relationships that Blake or Tim have no ability to represent students or council will be enough to start on a path to recovery. We must maim them so badly that they become lame ducks until the next election in January.

The best way to win this war against the radical idealists isn’t to remove Blake and Tim. That will feel good and appeal to our desire for vengeance but it won’t fix the problem. I ask you then whether it is worth risking it. It may just add fuel to their fire. What really needs to happen is several years where real students run for positions. Students need to vote in the election. That is the real point of all this.

Hopefully this will be a catalyst to get an truly engaged and representative student society. That is the real lesson in all of this.

Let the circus begin.

Dec 1 – Updated tags, removed note at beginning, expanded SEO Pack

THE THIRD REGULAR MEETING OF THE VANCOUVER SENATE FOR THE 2009/2010 ACADEMIC YEAR – WEDNESDAY NOV. 18 7:00pm ROOM 182 IRVING K. BARBER

1. Minutes from the Meeting of October 14, 2009
2. Business Arising from Minutes
3. Remarks from the Chair and Related Questions

This is a monthly report from the President on the business of the University. What he says here is a mystery until the night of.

4. Candidates for Degrees and Diplomas

Graduating students and conferring degrees is the Senate’s most important job. A list of students eligible for graduation in November will be presented for approval. Its a big deal but won’t be much debate and it’ll be over in 5 minutes or less.

5. Financial Statements 2008/2009 and Budget Model

This is a really big deal for faculties and departments. The financial statements from last night will be meh but the new budget model will be very interesting. In light of the $20-$30 million structural deficit the university is working on a new way approach its budget. Key parts of it will include how faculties are allocated resources. There have been several versions of this being passed around and it has been changing on basically a daily basis. This isn’t for approval or endorsement, it is simply a presentation on where they are at and to solicit feedback from the senate. It will be interesting to see how reward based the structure is and how teaching issues (classroom sizes and such) are included. Bijan and Mike might know more about this process than me.

6. Report from the Provost and Vice President, Academic on UBC Equity and Diversity Strategic Plan

This is a presentation for information to Senate regarding the development of the Equity and Diversity Strategic Plan (EDSP). The EDSP is a small (but important) part of the overall Place and Promise strategic plan. If you look at the Place and Promise homepage you won’t find Equity and Diversity as a specific line. The relation between these smaller, more specific strategic plans (aboriginal SP or sustainability SP for example) and the overall plan is quite hazy. However, if you look between the lines of the Place and Promise plan you can find the points of the EDSP within it. I think that this is because of overlap between the smaller plans will lead to repetition in the larger plan if they were included as they are. You could imagine for example that there is significant overlap between the EDSP and the Aboriginal SP.

Check out the EDSP homepage for more specific info. What I can say that it has been an absolute pleasure to work with individuals from Access and Diversity and UBC should be proud to have such a dedicated group of staff.

7. Place and Promise: The New UBC Strategic Plan

This is a big one.
Place and Promise is the new guiding document at UBC. It will replace Trek 2010 as the most cited document on campus. Writing this document is very much akin to standing in front of the mirror analyzing what issues are a priority for you now. Are they different than they were 10 years ago? Will they be different 10 years from now? Answering these questions has been the task of the 18 month consultation process.
Although consultation is over, I can guarantee you that students involved worked very hard to have a strong student voice included. You can never have enough student consultation in a document like this. I do think however that this is the most student consulted plan in the history of the institution. Reading through the goals and priorities of Place and Promise you really can get an image of UBC standing in front of the mirror. I believe that the plan reflects where students are at right now. I hope you agree.
I would encourage every student (especially student politicos) to read over Place and Promise on their homepage. It is now the job of students to keep the University on task to complete their goals in the document.
The unfortunate thing about documents like this is that they are uncomfortably general. Place and Promise is no exception. The reason is that in order to lay out a plan for 10 years you need to allow a little room for changes. Use this to your advantage!! Citing Place and Promise will be the way to push student issues in the next decade. Take notice, become familiar, prosper!

8. Academic Policy Committee

This motion is a proposal to support the creation of academic regulations that will support Joint Doctoral Programs, allowing a PhD student to do a doctoral degree jointly at UBC and another institution. Apparently this is something that is already happening but needs wording to support. I don’t know much more about it than that.

9. Admissions Committee

There are several motions in this agenda item. There are some mundane ones and some more significant ones. The mundane ones include changes in admission requirements to the Master of Occupational Therapy program, changes in admission requirements for the Doctor of Dental Medicine, and changes to LPI requirements for applications into the Arts One Program (they do their own test).

The first of the more exciting one is changes to the Arts and Commerce admissions. The intent is to accept grade 11 marks in replace of grade 12 ones where necessary to make a timely offer of acceptance. The substitution would be made if the student meets the following requirements:

a) the applicant is a secondary school applicant from outside BC (a process already exists to collect info fast enough for these students)
b) the applicant has all of the required courses completed or in progress
c) one or more of the approved grade 12 courses doesn’t yet have a grade
d) a grade in a comparable grade 11 course is available to substitute into the calculation of admission averages.

A pilot project was run over the last year to gauge the success of such a admissions change. The report predicted a ‘false admit’ rate of only 3% and only a third of them (4 students) took the offer of acceptance.

I’ve scanned the entire report onto my own site, its only 4 pages long and you can view it here.

The next admissions issue is regarding Applicants Following the Alberta Secondary School Curriculum. After much review and study a motion has been made to adjust Alberta applicants grades upward by 2%. UBC has a lot of data on students from Alberta is worried that we are not offering positions to some of their best students. Roughly the same amount of students receive an A in BC and Alberta (27.1% and 27.6% respectively). However, Alberta regards an A as 80%+ and BC regards it as 86%+ implying that we accept fewer Alberta students within the same percentile.

Alberta students have also been tracked throughout their first sessional grades at UBC and it has been shown that they do as well (if not better) than BC students at every entrance grade.

The full report can be found here.

The next item is a change in Minimum Standards in English for Secondary School Applicants. There is now a hard limit on how poorly applicants can do in high school English. You can no longer be admitted to UBC if your final English 12 (or 11 where applicable) grade is below 70%. There isn’t a lot of contention around this and it will affect relatively few students since very few people would be admitted based on their average with <70% in Grade 12 English.

10. Joint Report from Curriculum and Admissions Committees

One motion here that creates some new additions to the Doctor of Philosophy/Master of Science in Craniofacial Science/Diploma in Orthodontics/Diploma in Pediatric Dentistry. What a mouthful (haha I’m so witty).

11. Curriculum Committee

There are several changes to courses and programs but none of them are earth shattering. All of the changes are in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and apply to Applied Science, Arts, College for Interdisciplinary Studies, and Medicine. Let me know if you want some more details.

12. Nominating Committee on Culture of Service

Student Senator Joel Mertens has put a lot of effort into getting student feedback on how to reward and encourage students and faculty more involved. There are some really cool things that might come out of this. The best thing to do is to is read the brief report that will come to senate here.
There has been some concern that, although students were consulted quite adequately, their views weren’t represented with more than a footnote on the first page. The Working Group focused on encouraging Faculty service, which is fine, but it is important to include the comments of all members consulted so that they can be used in the future. I have discussed my concerns with Agenda Committee and the report might be changed to include this when it is presented in two weeks.
Either way there is a lots to be gained from this report and I hope that the discussion continues around Culture of Service and some more tangible recommendations come forward. As good as the ones in here are, I fear they will be lost in translation down the power chain.

13. Student Awards

Yay!! More money for students is always good. It is especially good to see donors showing their faith in UBC through donations, especially in these economic times. It is a testament to our Alumni community. $27,500 has been added to the awards chest. Don’t get to excited though $27,000 is going to Law student bursaries and $500 is going to Commerce (specifically the student with the highest grade in COMM 394). Tune in next month to see if the Award Lottery shines on your faculty.

14. Proposed Agenda Items
15. Other Business
16. Tributes Committee – In Camera

This is always fun. Here we pass the recommended nominees to receive Honorary Degrees from UBC. There are the old people who you graduate with in May. Unfortunately you are not allowed to know who they are until they actually accept the nomination. They are always exciting though and this year should be no different.

Can you imagine that we are going to get all that done in 2 1/2 hours (AMS hacks take note)? I would love to have your feedback on this so either post a comment below, message me, or e-mail me.

Hopefully see some of you there in two weeks, you won’t be disappointed I promise!

Geoff

Well, that search is over for me. I’m going to do a PhD. What changed my mind? This paper.

Ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by lapdancers: economic evidence for human estrus?

Abstract

To see whether estrus was really “lost” during human evolution (as researchers often claim), we examined ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by professional lap dancers working in gentlemen’s clubs. Eighteen dancers recorded their menstrual periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days on a study web site. A mixed-model analysis of 296 work shifts (representing about 5300 lap dances) showed an interaction between cycle phase and hormonal contraception use. Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak. These results constitute the first direct economic evidence for the existence and importance of estrus in contemporary human females, in a real-world work setting. These results have clear implications for human evolution, sexuality, and economics.

Wow. How could we not have seen it before? This truly is a scientific breakthough.

Come on! These guys g(and undoubtedly they were guys) got paid $100K+ to sit in a strip club and count bills. This isn’t the job of a researcher, its the job of a rapper. I’m sure it took them at least 2 years of work too.

Where do I sign up to pursue my PhD; the research ideas are brewing already.

You can find the full version of the text here (requires Science Direct subscription).