News
AMS meeting Nov. 7th – Nancy and Arts
Lowdown on yesterday’s meeting: it was exhausting, and sort of charged up for some weird reason. I think order was poorer than usual somehow. Maybe it’s the pressure of the end of the year building up. Anyway. The meeting began with Nancy Knight, the Administration’s AVP campus & Community Planning. Nancy always puts on a [...]
Things to notice when the lights go out
So two times today, power failed at UBC. The first time was around 1 in the afternoon. Sebastian, from my plant genetics class recounted to me that someone else in his lab had lost 100 PCR reactions that had been in the thermocycler due the 20-minute outage. I sympathized absently, and wondered how much money [...]
AMS meeting October 24th, or boo to code & policies.
Yesterday there was an AMS council meeting. I missed it, but since everyone loves hearing about the machinations of democracy, or better yet, themselves, here’s a summary written up by Blake Frederick, the AVP Academic and University Affairs (otherwise known as Brendon’s minion), on his brand-new blog: http://universityaffairs.blogspot.com/. I also have word that a certain [...]
VFM intro, or, how complicated can counting be?
Voter Funded Media, the contest that saw the birth of this and other (now defunct) charming student publications, is soon to be re-launched for this year. Yay! The media-reform project is meant to improve media culture, and by extension democracy in general. This is theoretically accomplished by making media into a public good: you reward [...]
Trek Park update, and related topics.
Trek Park, the space “liberated” from the old bus loop as a protest for the U-boulevard re-development project, is looking a little worse for wear. The park, consisting of some grassy areas, a large checkerboard, and some benches and furniture, was set up to create a student-friendly, free public space, and raise awareness and opposition [...]
Want to be consulted? It’s your fuckin’ week.
There’s a veritable cornucopia of consultations going on right now. So get your voices and obnoxious views into those final reports, dudes. For serious. Sub Renew – AMS is starting the consultation process for the prospective expansion and renovation of the SUB. Everything from buying out Pacific Spirit Place (the university-owned and operated cafeteria) to [...]
UBC Faculty Association has a bad week: part 2
Israel Boycott debate re-opened Also in the September’s Faculty Focus newsletter (click!), is an article calling on faculty and UBC to open up a debate on an academic boycott of Israeli academia. The article is authored by some familiar faculty members, including the head of the undergraduate biology program, Martin Adamson, and Arts AMS councilor [...]
UBC Faculty Association has a bad week: part 1
Two items of interest from the UBC Faculty Association this month. See above post. Sources from the Faculty Focus (click!) newsletter. Teaching evaluation ire The Association has called upon the university to put an immediate moratorium on the new teacher evaluation system to be implemented this term. The new system would see “modular” forms filled [...]
Deans whip off the gloves in AMS-sponsored Dean’s debate
Yesterday the Deans of Sauder, Arts, and Pharmacy faced off in an informal debate during the noon hour at the Norm theatre. All three deans launched with gusto into the topic of debate: “whose degree is better?”. Dean of Arts Nancy Gallini seamed to triumph decisively in the tongue-in-cheek verbal sparring, while Dean of Sauder, [...]
New AMS website – nice, but still out of date
You may have noticed that the AMS website has been overhauled. To match with the new setting-sun logo, http://www.ams.ubc.ca/ is now a blue-and-white marvel of slick website design, courtesy of Calgary company White Matter. Good navigation, executive blogs, event notices, and recent news are featured, and nifty pictures and graphics artfully punctuate the pages. Too [...]
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