Spotted on campus yesterday

So I attended two events on campus yesterday, and rubbed shoulders with a some IMPORTANT PEOPLE as a result. And we all love to hear about important people, and their doings. Moreover, serious journalism inevitably gives way to tabloidy filler, (at least during exams when actually doing research is impossible). S0, event #1 was a [...]

From xkcd. Good luck with exams everyone.

Dr. Carl Wieman Speaks!

On Friday I sat down with Nobel-laureate in physics, Dr. Carl Wieman to ask about the 12 million dollar science education initiative he’s heading up at UBC to improve undergraduate courses for the science masses. I wrote a post about the basics of the initiative earlier, so I won’t repeat them now. You can find [...]

Executive Interview Series, Part I: Jeff Friedrich, AMS President

Yesterday, Wednesday the 11th, I had the pleasure of invading the presidential office to talk to our own Jeff Friedrich. The interview is 51 minutes long, but well worth it – Jeff talks about all the big issues in impressive depth. So click the link, and let Jeff’s dulcet American accent soothe you while you [...]

"…approach the teaching of science as a science" – Carl Wieman’s schtick.

It sounds like a dream – a high profile and hugely funded project (about 200 k per year, currently) entirely dedicated to improving the academic fortunes of the masses of undergrad science students. Students that currently seem to leave their lower-level physics and chemistry courses more detached, zombie-like, and unready for what real scientific enquiry [...]

AMS meeting skinny

disclaimer: No, AMS is not the earth and sky. I’m just writing about it this week because I have stuff to write about. More general-interest stories to come. For those of you that wonder what-all goes on during AMS meetings, but have never bothered to show up and eat the free food every other Wednesday [...]

AMS committee appointment results (the interesting ones)

Well, I’m back from the 6-hour 9-minute AMS meeting of tonight*. In this post I’ll just list some of the more interesting committee appointment results and relevant comments. A more complete summary of the meeting, and further ruminations about AMS meetings generally will follow in a few hours once I’m fully conscious. Member-at-large committee seats [...]

UBC on CBC radio! (X2)

I’m always on the lookout for UBC-related news in the mainstream media. And today, since I had the scholastically inauspicious displeasure of being sick as a dog at home, I had lots of time to mope around the house listening to CBC radio and doing not much else. To my happiness, two pretty interesting stories [...]

The UBC Farm’s example: how UBC should catch up to its vision.

Juxtapose what pops to mind when you think of:1. UBC administration’s main prerogatives.2. UBC’s only broad, encompassing mission statement, trek 2010. For me, it goes something like this for the former, “Martha Piper-endowment-development-endowment-ivory tower-endowment-elite research-endowment-ivy league-endowment”and something like this for the latter: “complete community-global citizenship-sustainability-global citizenship-community outreach-global citizenship-public responsibility-global citizenship-innovation-global citizenship. Now why is this? [...]

Campaign tips, or, how students learned to stop reading and love the familiar.

After my recent abysmal loss in the SUS elections, I found myself wondering what, exactly, do candidates need to do to themselves and surrounding victims in order to get their message out? Student leaders and political junkies constantly and lamely lament the so-called “student apathy” problem. Everyone else is too apathetic to care, frankly. The [...]