Live and learn I guess…

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.

First of all the obvious: don’t vote for Blake Frederick. You would think that after all of the things that he has done wrong in the past year he would realize that this whole ‘leading’ and ‘making policy’ thing might not be his forte. I guess not. I mentioned him along side my definition of a zealot in a previous post: ‘Someone who, having lost sight of their goals, redoubles their efforts’ and that is exactly what Blake has done. He made the delusional comment that ‘no permanent damage has been done to the AMS-UBC relationship’.

Whatever he is smoking, I want some. How does the UBC Admin feel about Blake and the AMS consequently? Like we are a joke. See letter from President. End of story.

For me Azim was the easy pick. I’ve worked with him for two years on the Senate and he has been a passionate advocate for both international students and UNA community relations. There isn’t any candidate who is better suited to the job. I don’t think I need to say more about his knowledge of the overwhelming UBC system or his ability to be a rational, clearheaded advocate. Exactly what we need.

The choice then fell between Guillaume and Sean. I’ve worked with Sean at Senate and he is certainly capable of doing the work effectively on the BOG. I’ve also worked with Guillaume on AMS Council and seen how good he can be at representing his faculty at that level. For me, the difference between the two isn’t work ethic, platforms, or rationality. The largest difference is experience at an ‘upper university level’. The small, often sad world of the AMS is a different beast entirely than the Senate/BOG. The experience needed to operate at the BOG level is greater than that of Senate and to jump into it with no experience within the Exec of AMS or Senate isn’t going to serve Guillaume well. It was a tough decision for me and that’s what it came down to.

So where does that put us now. To understand that we have to start by understanding Harper’s strategy over that past 12 months. Since that ugly Liberal episode that will hereby be referred to as the ‘Dion Debacle’ the Liberals have struggled to maintain their image as the official opposition in Canada. This is largely due to the bill scheduling enforced by the Cons. Every time that the Liberals promise that they are going to bring down Horrible Harper and his America Loving Conservatives, they are faced with a confidence vote in the house that they can’t find the gall to vote against.

A prime example of this was the Home Renovation Tax Credit (I’ve written about this before). Its part of the economic recovery plan and returns up to $1,300 to homeowners who renovate their homes (homepage). They had been advertising the Tax Credit for quite a long time and it had been one of Harper’s promises in his 2008 election (if I remember correctly). The catch is that it was never actually approved by the House of Commons. After a couple of weeks of Iggy running his mouth about how they would ‘take the next opportunity’ to bring down the government, the Conservatives put the HRTC on the floor and made it a confidence motion. The Libs were now faced with a difficult decision: be yellow bellied politicians who can’t be taken seriously or fight an election with the public wondering who took away all that money they were promised. Tough choice, but time and time again in this situation, and others the Liberals have chosen to step down after talking themselves up. They are self defeating their desired image of being a strong opposition party.

You can turn around and say that this is another example of Harper using dirty political tactics to score political points and I would agree with you. He’s hardly the only one to do so however, and I’d argue that the Libs have historically been worse. I was alive to watch Chretien and the AdScam fun. Oh and Trudeau nationalizing a provinces industry to score political points in Ontario and Quebec, that’s not underhanded at all.

The real risk here for Canadians of all stripes is that Prorogation becomes an accepted convention in Canadian politics. If Iggy chooses yet again that he isn’t ready for an election and allows the Conservatives to steamroll him and his spineless party, he opens the door for future political parties to use prorogation as a political tool, something that is good for no Canadians.

Iggy came to campus last week and to much rave review. I couldn’t go but I heard that he talked about a lot of interesting stuff. There was some rabble there too. I didn’t hear from anyone who went however if he committed to actually being an opposition party and bringing down the government. No surprise there, all politicians are pragmatic like he is. You know he is thinking it though; the stakes are so much higher this time. He has damaged the Conservatives more in January than at any time in the last 12 months. He is at as good a position as he is ever going to be. He needs to force an election after the prorogation is over to show 1) that he has grown a pair of cahones 2) that prorogation is not an acceptable convention in Canadian politics and 3) that the Liberal party is confident enough in itself to actually act as the opposition Canadians want (even me).

Iggy has seen the flop, turn, and river. Its time for him to show his cards to see whether or not he has the full house he keeps talking about.

I’m just going to go through the main items of interest. If you have questions or comments about any other items then use the contact form to get a hold of me.

5. Academic Policy Committee – Thursday Noon-hour Break (here)

So if you didn’t already know, you’ll be shocked to find out that there is a Senate mandated noonhour break (think primary school recess) between 12:30 and 2:00 each Thursday. The rationale behind this break is a good one: students (and maybe more importantly faculty) need some free time to do volunteer work. Our campus has tons of cool projects and options because faculty and students have the time to organize them. Effectively this guarantees that they have some time to do it.

The policy was suspended for a one year period because of last year’s extreme space limitations. This year the policy came back into play. Unfortunately there really isn’t a mechanism for enforcing it. The Academic Policy Committee was tasked with the ugly job of figuring out how to do this.

They came back with very little effectively saying that both sides have strong arguments. Although the break is vital to students and faculty, it is too overbearing to force the university to do anything about. They cite Place and Promise, blah, blah, blah. As an enthralled reader you are left with a suggestion to faculties to do it.

There will certainly be some questions here and I will be trying to suggest some other options for enforcement.

6 & 7. Admissions and Curriculum Committees

See the agenda for what is happening here. I don’t think there is anything really contentious. All of it came from the faculties and most of the changes are to calendar wording and admissions issues. Feel free to look through them here (for admissions), here (for more admissions), and here (for curriculum).

8. Teaching and Learning Committee Presentation on CSL (Community Service Learning) and CBR (Community Based Research) at UBCV (here)

Yay! Exciting stuff! There is a lot of talk about how to bring the UBC classroom into the broader community. The concept has very few critics, but the implementation is very difficult. It is expensive and requires changing our thinking around grades and ‘learning objectives’.

The questions that the Senate will be asked during the presentation include:

• In light of the goal for significantly increased participations, how do you think that UBC might best advance CSL and CBR over the next five years?
• Are there real or perceived barriers for faculty participation that need to be addressed?
• What would successful CSL and CBR outcomes look like from the student perspective? From the community perspective? Are there barriers to engagement?
• What are the implications associated with the plan to advance CSL and CBR?
• What role(s) should the Senate play to help advance the plan for CSL and CBR?

This will be a really interesting presentation and I encourage everyone to come and check it out.

10. Annual Report on Enrollment (here)

More exciting stuff! Wondering who all those first years are on campus? The Annual Report on enrollment has all of your answers!.

I’m not going to give any analysis here because there isn’t enough time. However, my initial thoughts are that the spelled ‘enrollment’ wrong on the cover so it should be very interesting.

Thoughts

Nothing super exciting this month but it would still be great to see all of you out there at the meeting tomorrow night. Especially if you are a candidate (see point 3 here).

And vote for Geoff’s Place in the VFM contest!

Enjoy Comrade Costeloe at his own site: www.comrade.geoffcosteloe.com!

If you like the content please vote in the VFM! It takes a lot of work to put out a 5 minute video like that!

Increased Student Interest?

Regardless of which side of ‘The Debacle’ a student found themselves, it would be difficult to say that we will see a low voter turnout now. Students were certainly engaged in December as evidenced by the attendance levels at AMS meetings. As the issue distills  into late January it will be very interesting to see if the interest level is sustained or it devolves into the more pessimistic view of student politics that we are used to. Some things that will likely impact the engagement are: levels of pettiness, uninteresting policies at the fore front, ideologically based policies. If we can avoid some of these pitfalls hopefully students will turn up at the polls (now located at their desks online). The first is likely the most dangerous and probable.

An Extremely Divisive Election?

Another consequence of ‘The Debacle’ is the potential for an incredibly ‘Right-Left’ showdown. In a sense, both sides are looking for vindication through a victory in the elections. Many hacks will be simply counting the elected as either a win or a loss depending on which side of the fence they sit. Here is my initial break down of where I think the candidates will fall. This isn’t intended to outline their actual political ideals, just where they stood on ‘The Debacle’. The ‘pro-UN’ is in red and the ‘anti-UN(/pro-tuition?)’ in in blue. Joke candidates are in pink and if your name is black that means I don’t know or haven’t met you yet (so contact me!).

President
Sean Kim
Pak Ho Leung
Natalie Swift
Bijan Ahmadian

VP Academic and University Affairs
Rodrigo Ferrari-Nunes
Ben Cappellacci

VP Finance
Elin Tayyar
The Invisible Man

VP Admin
Ekaterina Dovjenko
Michael Haack

VP External
Stas Pavlov
Jeremy McElroy
Timothy Chu Timothy Chu
Aaron Palm

BOG

Sean Heisler
Azim Wazeer
Bijan Ahmadien
Nader Beyzaei
Philip Edgecumbe
AJ Hajin Hajian
Guillaume Houle
Peter Stein

Senate
Aminollah Sabzevari
Blair McRadu
Alyssa Koehn
Syed Nayef Andrabi
Miriam Sabzevaed
Joël Mertens
Nader Beyzaei
Ryan Bredin
Philip Edgecumbe
Arielle Friedman
AJ Hajin Hajian
Sean Heisler
Spencer Rasmussen
Johannes Rebane
Gary Tse
Blake Frederick

SLFS
Siavash Ahmadi
JJ MacLean – Students for Responsible Leadership (SRL)
Hillson Tse – Students for Responsible Leadership (SRL)
Aaron Sihota – Students for Responsible Leadership (SRL)
Paul Godin – Students for Responsible Leadership (SRL)
Alexander Shalashnly – Students for Responsible Leadership (SRL)
Anthony Bryson – Students for Responsible Leadership (SRL)
Kyle Warwick
Omid Atai

Thanks to UBC Insiders for the list.

Again, this is my quick once over, and it will change in the next hours/days/weeks. Initially you might think that the Blues vastly outnumber the Reds. Remember though that it isn’t the number of candidates running that matters, it is the votes. Having said that, the number and affiliation of the candidates may be an indication of the campus’ general feeling towards…’issues’ shall we say. This might actually backfire for the Blues as they see their votes split between numerous candidates with similar platforms. It will be interesting to see who stays and who drops out and how the ratio of Blue:Red candidates affects the outcome (if it does). On a lighter note I think that the following video/game exemplifies the issue and will be Geoff’s Place’s official meme for the election period:

Yes. By Marx.

Potential for Epic Failblog Submissions

This election has more potential to be hilarious than any I’ve seen in the past. Tensions are high, the media is scrutinizing like never before. I expect some awesome results.

The first of these results may already have come in: both Blake and Tim will be running on a ballot that also contains a referendum asking for their resignations. That’s pretty funny regardless of how you stand (unless you are Tim or Blake I would guess). Direct democracy ftw?

Stay Tuned!

Remember it isn’t over until the Fat Lady sings. So stay tuned to Geoff’s Place and all other VFM outfits for the latest from the down low!

Speaking of VFM it would be great to get some votes for that. Voting is open now and will continue until election day! Vote early, vote often, vote Geoff’s Place, vote now (here)!

Also note, I’ve taken on a subsidiary project to help broaden this site’s accused ‘bias’. I’m having a lot of fun with it and I hope you’ll like it when it comes online!