From xkcd. Good luck with exams everyone.

UBC Student falls off roof top, now in serious condition

This is taken from the RCMP website. Whoever the person in serious condition is, we wish them a speedy recovery.UBC student falls off roof top, now in serious condition at VHG Vancouver, UBC: Charges are pending against another student. On April 12th, 2007 at approximately 02:20 pm, RCMP members of the University of British-Columbia Detachment [...]

University Boulevard

There is an interesting petition circulating around Facebook (the new place for activism, it seems). I’ve skimmed it and it made some excellent points, so here is a link:University Boulevard Petition Rationale (from the website linked): Listen to what students want! The “What’s the plan” campaign produced a really excellent review that reports the following, [...]

Ask Dr. Wieman

Later this week, our own Maayan Kreitzman will have a sit-down interview with Dr. Carl Wieman of his eponymous Science Education Initiative. (See below.) We’ve got some questions, but we thought we’d put it to our readers – what questions would you like to ask Dr. Wieman? What about his initiative, science education, philosophy, or [...]

The Future Direction of this Blog

Here’s where we take your suggestions on how to improve or make changes. Our goal is really to make the blog relevant, inclusive, and informative. Right now we feel like we’re a bit cliquey, and we’re wondering how we would go about opening ourselves up. So we’re wondering, if you could pick anything and everything [...]

"…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 [...]

The VP Guessing Game

Towards the Old Admin Building, aka the road to power Stephen just sent this notice out to all students and presumably faculty/staff: Dear Colleagues: I am pleased to report that the search for a new Provost andVice-President (Academic) is progressing well. After a final round ofconsultations with representatives of faculty, staff and students, theSearch Committee [...]

Some Updates

1. Re: Tobacco ban on campus: the Province is suing big tobacco companies (a cost recovery lawsuit, Link). “We’ve always taken the position that because they sold and promoted their products in our market, (resulting) in damage to our citizens, that we have the right to legislate against their conduct,” said Oppal. I don’t know [...]

Translink update

It looks like they reached a deal (yay!). Thanks to my friend Lily for the link.

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 [...]