I just got off the phone with UBC’s Provost and Vice-President Academic, as well as UBC’s Deputy University Librarian, who invited me to chat about the proposed changes to the planned Research Commons space on floors 4 and 5 in Koerner. (it was originally to have been in person on Wednesday, but the Provost got busy, and then I had to go out of town, so phone it was.) Thanks to them for the conversation.
I still don’t buy it.
Right now, the Research Commons is closed for the Intersession period (the period when there are no classes going on). This is a money-saving measure: it costs money to pay the graduate academic assistants, and the budget isn’t unlimited, so sometimes there need to be shutdowns.
A lot of other things on campus are closed or on reduced hours now too. Last week I facilitated an evening graduate student writing community which would normally be held in Koerner Library, which is closing early during Intersession (for financial reasons), so we had to find another place to meet. We got a room in Barber Library, but that meant we wouldn’t have access to our coffee and tea makings from Koerner. No problem, though, I thought – we’ll be just around the corner from Ike’s Café!
Which, of course, is closing at 3 pm right now, for cost-saving reasons. Continue reading
https://www.ubyssey.ca/news/Koerner-library-grad-reading-space/
And yes – if you think from this story that it sounds like it’s a done deal, you’re likely right.
That doesn’t mean we have to be happy about it, nor that we have to shut up about it.
Keep raising your voice, grad students. Keep pushing this university to be better than it is now – not just in this, but in all things.
If you’re a member of the UBC community (and you probably are, if you’re reading this), you’ll be very aware that UBC released its new strategic plan yesterday, all shiny and nice and approved by the Board of Governors.
The keys to this plan, which is designed to “shape UBC’s next century”, are
I’d argue, as someone who’s worked (and works) in the Research Commons, in Koerner Library, and as a UBC grad student, that having the fourth and fifth floors of Koerner become the host of the new dedicated Research Commons space would go a long way towards fulfilling all of these ideas. Continue reading
Today on University Affairs’ website, there’s a great article by UBC’s own Danielle Barkley, of the Centre for Student Involvement and Careers, called “Finding your community in grad school”. In it, she talks about two different communities that students need: one outside the university, and one inside.
Why is the inside community important? Barkley notes that these are people
who can share the experience because they’re also pursuing graduate studies, or have done so in the past. These are individuals who care as much about a (possibly obscure) topic as you do. They can pick up your references; they laugh at your highly specific jokes. These people will make all the difference when you need to talk to someone who just gets it.
It’s usually relatively easy to find these people in one’s own department. It’s often hard to find them beyond the departmental confines: not because they’re not out there, but because students are so often siloized in their departments that it’s just hard to connect with people in other departments and disciplines.
Spaces like the Research Commons are designed to facilitate this kind of cross-disciplinary community building. Through workshops, peer consultations, writing and research communites, and other opportunities, graduate students can meet and build connections with their peers from across the university who “just get it”.
The best way to to that? In person, in a space dedicated to those students.
Where can’t you do it? In an administrator’s office.
Today was a big day at UBC: it was the official opening of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre. This is a very important thing for UBC to do; as a settler on this land, and a member of the UBC community, I hope very much that this will help in addressing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
This is a clear example that UBC will make space for the things that it believes are important. In this case, it built a new space in the heart of campus, right between the two major libraries – right in the heart of UBC’s research base, you might say.
I suspect you know where I’m going with this, but just to make it clear:
If UBC can build a whole new building for something that matters, surely it can spare two floors of a library for its graduate students without taking back a chunk of that for administrative offices. After all, it’s not administration that makes a university world-class, which UBC makes a big deal of being ; it’s research and teaching, both of which graduate students are heavily involved in.
Make more space for what matters, UBC.
Let me tell you one story that’s stuck with me from my Research Commons experience:
I was at the old bus loop (remember it? before it was bulldozed by construction?) waiting for the 84 one day, and two women were walking in my direction. One of them spotted me and started walking faster. “This woman!” she said enthusiastically to her friend. “This woman saved my life!” She came closer and clapped me on the shoulder. “Thanks so much – you’re a lifesafer!” And then they walked on. Continue reading
Hi everyone! Hopefully this blog won’t need to exist for long, as we’ll be able to convince the admin that this is a bad idea, but until we do that, here’s the situation:
I’m not sure how many of you on here on here have used the Research Commons in Koerner Library; I’m currently one of the GAAs there, and also was during the last three years of my PhD. For about as long as I’ve been involved with the Research Commons (since 2012, off and on), there’s been a plan to move it up to the 4th and 5th floors of Koerner Library, to create a welcoming, positive, reseach-focused space for grad students, postdocs, and other researchers. They started moving the books off those floors last year in order to make this plan a reality. However, a couple of weeks ago, UBC senior admin announced to the Koerner Library admin that they’d like to take 25% of that space – half of the 5th floor space – which had already been allocated for grad students and for digital scholarship, and turn it into new administration offices. This is space that they want to take away from you, the grad students, and give to the admin.
Think about this. If you’re a graduate student, you probably don’t have an office of your own; maybe you don’t even have a shared office. Maybe you have some desk space in a lab; maybe you have a locker or a mail cubbyhole in your school or department. Maybe all you have is your backpack that you carry your laptop around in, and whatever space you can find in the corner of an otherwise busy building.
Not only that, but the proposed inhabitants of that new admin space would be the Office of the Vice-President Research and Innovation – who already have office space, in the Old Administration Building. Not only that, but consider how much graduate research and innovation would be stifled by cutting back the proposed Research Commons space by 25%. That doesn’t seem right for an office that’s concerned with research and innovation – or are they only concerned about it for faculty?
If this doesn’t sound right to you, there’s still time for us to voice our concerns about this. The head of Koerner Library is accepting feedback from interested parties, which she’ll pass on to the Provost; you can find her contact info here. I’ve also started a hashtag on Twitter: #NoKoernerAdminBuilding. Let’s see if we can stop admin from turning Koerner into an ivory tower, and keep our library and research space safe!
The sign that’s been on the Koerner Library front doors since last year.