Brendon Goodmurphy

Brendon Goodmurphy has written 8 posts for UBC Insiders

UBC Farm: Why they aren’t taking a referendum question to students this March

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ March 1, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Most students know by now that the future of the UBC Farm is shrouded in uncertainty and controversy. This year strong student supporters of the Farm (particularly Friends of the Farm), wanted to hold a referendum question asking students to increase their student fees to support the farm’s programs and development. The hope was that [...]

Issue of the Day: The Musqueam Issue

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ January 23, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Now for something a little more controversial. Somebody who I work fairly close with recently questioned my leftist politics. That’s fair – I feel quite comfortable in the bureaucracy of the AMS, and I feel quite comfortable trying to balance the 42 000 different opinions of AMS members, and I even support many CASA policies. [...]

Issue of the Day: Sustainability

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ January 23, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

I like to think of myself as an environmentalist, and its definitely how I got my start in student politics – co-chairing the Student Environment Centre for two years. Those two years were spent feeling frustrated and overwhelmed – partly because of the generally poor organizational structure of the SEC (and other Resource Groups), and [...]

Brendon’s Endorsements

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ January 18, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

Here are my endorsements, for what they’re worth. I tried to give justification behind my decisions – both why I am supporting certain candidates, and why I’m not supporting others. Please note: These are not necessarily Maayan’s endorsements, or any one else’s from the UBC Insiders, those will come later in the week. I am [...]

Issue of the Day: Governance, Pt. 2 – Internal Issues

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ January 16, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

At the end of the day, UBC is an academic institution. The Board of Governors should be responsive to students’ concerns, needs and priorities. Creating a University Town has changed the campus community (read about the ramifications in Tim’s article about on campus events, alcohol licensing, ACF), and has created many new pressures and responsibilities [...]

Issue of the Day: Governance Issues Pt. 1 – Municipal Governance

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ January 16, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

This is an important issue, and a big topic. It came up in the VP Academic debate yesterday, and could use some explanation. There are two important background points to understanding this issue: 1. When UBC was created, the Province endowed the University with a lot of land – 175 acres; 2. That land is [...]

Issue of the Day: AMS Businesses

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ January 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

The AMS businesses are an important way for the AMS to make money so that we can keep student fees lower. And we do have some of the lowest student union fees in the country (when you take out athletics fees, health & dental, U-Pass, etc, and you’re left with the AMS’ actual operating budget). [...]

Issue of the Day: Executive Portfolio Reform

By Brendon Goodmurphy ⋅ January 14, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

This is the first of a series of daily articles that will highlight “UBC issues.” The Issue of the Day provides an in-depth analysis of a certain topic that may require more background information to understand, or more analysis of the pros and cons and factors to consider. We will try to focus on key [...]