Issue of the Day: Campus Life

A lot of ink has been spilled about “apathy.” We believe that the way to address apathy is to run a (student) government that’s relevant and important to students, voter turnout and promotions be damned.

One of the recurring themes involves student life. Comments on earlier posts have included:

• “Are there not enough people coming out to X event? Then let’s figure out how to get more people to talk about X event.”
• “I’ve spent my entire time at UBC pulling away from campus events and finding cool shit/people in Vancouver for the simple reason that events on UBC campus are largely in terrible venues (aka the SUB) with crap music, food and beer”
• “why would someone subscribe to drinking beer in a tent in a parking lot or the dusty-ass SUB ballroom when they can go see the Roots at the Commodore?”
• “i care about the ams, but i never went to the events. get maxwell maxwell to plan the events. they’d be great.”

Some seem to think the AMS ought to run bigger, better events. Others think it’s worthless to compete with Vancouver. For reference, AMS Events (see link) runs two kinds of events: special events like Welcome Back BBQ and concerts in the Pit, and helping clubs/constituencies run theirs (bookings for ACF, Cold Fusion, etc.) Anybody go to the Gallery for karaoke on a Tuesday? That’s actually run by AMS Events.

So we’re like to ask: what’s the role for the AMS in campus life? Some candidates, like Sarah Naiman and “the Maxwell”, see a positive role, an AMS that ought to actually run parties and events and be good-times central. It’s also been suggested that the AMS role ought to be more of a facilitator of events, by making easier for other campus groups to do the events. And if the AMS does throw a kick-ass party, does it matter that students know it was the AMS? Or should we just ignore parties, and make sure the beer is as cheap as possible? Would you rather spend Friday night in a dingy but cheap campus bar, or a shiny but pricey one?