UBC in the news

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

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

   But only if they form a government. That’s a rather large ‘if’. Hooray for pandering!

2. Hwi Lee, the student who sent email threats resulting in a lockdown of the BioSciences building, was given a conditional sentence of one year, as well as a six month curfew. In addition, he has to stay away from UBC, will have two years of probation and has to write a letter to the Ubyssey explaining the incident.

   I guess the judge doesn’t read UBC Insiders – too bad.

3. The family of Karol Jaholkowski, a man who fell off a fraternity house roof at Arts County Fair 2007, is suing UBC and a fellow fraternity brother for the injury.

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

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

   A Vancouver Sun story with more details from right after the accident can be found here.

4. Metro Vancouver won’t be getting compensated for land in Pacific Spirit Park that was expropriated by the province. The two parcels of land in PSP, and the University Golf Course were to be given to the Musqueam First Nation in a land deal reached in 2007.

   There is still hope that one day Hampton Place can be expropriated and turned into student residences.

5. It costs >$200K to rent the arena for a weekend. That’s according to a lawsuit UBC launched, claiming they were not paid for an Anthony Robbins appearance on campus last fall.

   I’m not sure The Power Within will be welcome at UBC again. This was one of the first non-hockey events to be held at Thunderbird Arena and a test of how disruptive these types of events would be to UNA residents. Everything was going fine until, unbeknownst to UBC, they decided to set up drumming and fire-walking outside the building…

6. On my walk towards the bus recently, I noticed someone had kindly disposed of their UBC parking ticket on the ground. If anyone is curious, they have now started writing *WARNING ONLY* tickets, with threats of towing. I’m guessing they are doing it in order to log the plate numbers so they’ll know if you are making a habit of not paying. That’s strike one for you, Mr. Silver 4-Door Nissan.

   The best part of the ticket is the last line on the back: “This Traffic Notice is issued by authority of the Board of Governors of The University of British Columbia.” Whoops.

7. In NCAA-related news, Western Washington University (in Bellingham) folded their Div II football team last year due to financial constraints. Some of those ex-WWU players are coming to UBC to join the Thunderbirds.

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