Category: UBC

Hassan Arshad sat on a chair in front of the UBC MRI Research Center on Saturday and read a consent form given to him by Matt Dixon.

Arshad took off his black sunglasses, crossed his legs and swayed his right foot lightly as he read the form. Arshad is subject number 14 of 15 participants that Dixon is using for his research leading to a Masters in Psychology. Each participant earns $30 by signing up and could possibly earn an equal amount through the experiment itself.

“I’m interested in how the brain allows us to form goals in our mind,” said Dixon. “Or intentions to do things before we do it, and therefore be more proactive in the world as opposed to just reactive to whatever is currently happening in our immediate environment.”

After signing the papers, Dixon left Arshad to prepare himself and entered the control room. In the room he greeted Paul Hamill, an MRI Technologist and seated himself facing a table full of computer screens. Arshad, now dressed in a cream coloured hospital pajama, leafed through a magazine until he was called in to start.

From the control room, Arshad could be seen being helped into the MRI machine by Hamill. Dixon placed a sticker on Arshad’s left eyebrow so he could differentiate the sides in the scans.

From the control room, only half of Arshad’s body was in view. He was wearing striped light and dark blue socks with red tips and red heels, he crossed and uncrossed his feet a few times as he waited.

The experiment started.

Dixon would explain to Arshad what to do over the intercom. He would then run a program asking him questions, when Arshad got the right answer he earned 25 cents. The aim of the research is to see what is happening throughout the brain and how it is active in different areas as a people make goals.

When Dixon was ready to start each interval he would turn to Hamill and say “guacamole”, the agreed upon signal. Every two seconds the MRI takes an image composed of 36 slices of different angles of the brain. That adds up to 1,600 images per subject, 36 slices each, for 15 subjects. The data will take at least two to three months to analyze and a month or more to write and publish, said Dixon.

The MRI machine made a set of different noises, one sounded like loud knocking, another time it started a loud squeal. An hour and a half later, Arshad was let out of the machine. He squinted, looked around and stretched.
I did this because it would be interesting to see a picture of my brain, he said.  “The brain is just so interesting, there are many things we don’t know about the brain…so I thought it would be a great way to get to see what happens with the MRI.”

Nine years ago, Meghan Gardiner wrote a ten minute script for her graduation project for her UBC acting degree.

Over the following years, it grew into a 45 minute performance where Gardiner plays ten characters. She has now performed Dissolve, her one-woman show on sexual assault, over 450 times across North America.

On a Tuesday evening, Gardiner was back in UBC to perform it as she has done almost every year since the concept was created.  Twenty-eight women and eight men sauntered into the lounge in the Walter Gage Residence where the play took place.

A woman in the third row rested her head on her friend’s shoulder, her straight black hair cascaded onto her friend’s back. Near the door volunteers from Women Against Violence Against Women passed out fliers and asked people to sign up for their mailing list. They were joined by members of the UBC Sexual Assault Awareness Program, a new group formed on campus.

The play started simple.

Gardiner faced the audience and ran her fingers through her brown hair.  She was wearing a plain black tank top and black pants, her feet were bare.  Madonna’s Like a Virgin blasted from the speakers.

Over the following hour, Gardiner was able to switch between vastly different characters. With a lowering of her voice and a forward thrust of her pelvis she transformed into an obnoxious club bouncer. Her green eyes focused on her feet as she became a woman talking into the phone while putting nail-polish on her toes. Each character was a bystander or a contributor to the sexual assault the play revolves around.

The show’s last character was the victim, whom the audience did not meet until the end. “I feel violated and embarrassed, I feel like damaged goods,” she said. “I’m feeling all these things and I have no idea what happened.”

In the discussion following the performance, Gardiner revealed that the play was based on her personal experience when she was a student at UBC. She lost 13 hours of memory after someone slipped a drug into her drink.

Coming back to UBC annually is important to her, she said.  “I guess I am sort of protective over the UBC community… I want to make sure they get the message. “I want to hit home a little harder at UBC.”

As the discussion ended, the audience crowded the information stands to find out how to be involved.

One woman went up to Gardiner and asked for a hug.  Gardiner embraced her tightly, shut her eyes and smiled.

Sarah Meli left her room early on Friday morning and walked to one of the common kitchens in her graduate residence to start cooking for the birthday party.

She had sent an email three weeks earlier to inform over 150 residents of St John’s College that she was organizing a party for those born in September.

Meli had turned 24 years old the previous Tuesday.

She was carrying a notebook in which her mother had written recipes from Meli’s country, Malta.

“In Malta, you host, you pay, you cook, you feed,” she said.
“The potluck doesn’t happen in Malta- it never did, it never will. When you host it’s the thing you do, you cook for people and they eat.”

As she spread out the ingredients on the large wooden table, Ian McIvor rolled into the kitchen with his skateboard. His birthday was on Sept. 11 and he was volunteering to mix the dough and cake batter.

A French-Canadian student plopped himself into an armchair and talked about the Quebec beer he was bringing to the party- one of Meli’s emails had said people should bring their own alcohol.

At around 6 p.m. Meli and some other residents were rearranging the furniture in the ground floor social lounge where the party was held. She was wearing a white dress with a red pattern, a red scarf around her neck and a red shrug.  Her curly thick black hair was pulled up and a red flower rested over her left ear.

“Being away from my home I wanted to do something special, so I thought it would be a better idea to do something collective for all of us,” said Meli.

Residents from around the globe walked into the lounge carrying bottles of wine, beer and snacks.

Music started playing, ranging from Arabic to Spanish to Lady Gaga.  Ziaul Hasan, a student from India, danced the salsa with a resident from Ecuador.  Canadian student Samantha Meade was showing off some belly-dancing moves she learned last year.

Hanna Galal, another birthday celebrator, was standing with her friend Taylor Hatrick who was visiting from Victoria for the party. They met during their undergraduate studies in Germany, where Galal is from.

Meli stood at the other corner and watched her recently made friends dance and eat some of the pizzas she worked on almost all day. “This is one of the most special birthdays ever,” she said. “The fact that so many people came just to say happy birthday, the way they say it and what they do for you- you really feel the care.”

When Hisham Soliman chanted the words ‘Allah-u Akbar’ last Friday, over a 100 people fell to their knees and bowed down towards the direction of Mecca.

The group consisted mostly of men, around ten women and one young toddler who stared inquisitively at the people as their foreheads touched the floor.The young boy watched, fidgeted and then copied the movements he saw around him as he kneeled by his father’s side.

The worshipers were gathered in the Lower Lounge of the International House in UBC to observe the Muslim Friday prayer. The weekly prayers have been taking place for over five years and are organized by the Muslim Student Association in UBC.

Starting at around 1 p.m. people started rushing down the stairs which lead from the main floor to the lounge.
They shook the rain off of their coats and umbrellas and those with backpacks flung them on the tables in the hallway between the washrooms and the lounge. When they saw fellow Muslims they greeted them with the Islamic greeting “as-salam alaykoum”- meaning peace be upon you.

Most then hurried to the washroom to perform the ritual ablutions required before prayer. They then took off their shoes and stepped onto the carpets which had been placed earlier on the lounge’s floor by the first people to arrive.
Sneakers, leather shoes, rain-boots and hundreds of other shoes lay scattered in the hallway as more people hurried in.

At 1:15 p.m. Soliman, a PhD candidate in Pharmacology, addressed the crowd in a khutba– the sermon that precedes the prayer. Every time he said the name of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, the crowd broke into a collective whisper and said peace be upon him.

As the prayers started, a couple entered the main floor of the building while pushing a stroller. An International Peer Advisor volunteered to watch their baby so that they could pray. The mother, her hair covered in a purple veil, waved at the her little girl and then quickened her step to the washroom.

When the prayer ended, the group squeezed themselves into the narrow hallway and bumped into each other as they put on their shoes. Outside the building people greeted each other each other in a multitude of languages.

“How is the family?” a bearded man asked another in Arabic. Two young students wearing backpacks discussed the weather and complained about their assignment load. A group of students chattered away in Bengali.
“I have to rush to class now, see you next week,” said another student as he waved back to the crowd.

The wooden double doors were closed Wednesday afternoon at St. Mark’s College Chapel. Father John McCarthy preached inside the concrete walls to his student congregation attending the weekly 12:10 p.m. mass.

Plato’s Cave, the student run café to the right, had its single wooden door propped open. The laughter and chatter of the volunteers inside carried into the outdoor square. They worked together to set up the free soup lunch.

Catholic Campus Ministry co-ordinator, Maureen Wicken, organized the event. She said Catholics are responsible for taking care of everyone in the world, which can be partially achieved through hospitality. “I can’t do their laundry. I can’t tuck these kids in at night. But I can feed them,” said Wicken.

Mass was over. The doors opened. The congregation filed out into the square. A group of students claimed the lone picnic table. Some lingered in the sun conversing with other patrons. Many walked inside Plato’s Cave and relaxed on their couches and chairs. Everybody waited for soup.

Wicken said the weekly student soup lunch is just part of the ministry’s hospitality work and they perform a lot of community service. They run frequent food drives for the AMS Food Bank, which startled some people in the community who did not realize that students were going hungry, she said.

The soup arrived. A thick cream of mushroom and a spicy Thai curry were served to the crowd. The sound of silver spoons clinking against glass bowls filled the student space.

The picnic table outside was cramped with people dining. A student intern for the ministry, Anna Francia, said she knows some people who have lunch do not go to mass. “Students are starving too though, ’cause they have to pay for tuition,” she said.

Sydney Thorne sat at a table inside the café with fellow students Matthew Richardson and Peter Vetter. They came to socialize and connect with others. Only one of the three attended mass earlier. Thorne said going to mass is not a requirement to participate in the lunch. “I’ve never seen anyone turned away,” said Richardson.

The ministry’s mission of hospitality allows anyone to take part in the event, although going to mass is encouraged. “Mass and soup is always a nice combination,” said Thorne as her empty bowl sat on the table in front of her.

The Black Eyed Peas’ I Gotta Feeling blasted Tuesday evening from the speakers in the Walter Gage Towers lounge. Volunteers staffed information tables by the doors and distributed pamphlets about sexual assault. Twenty-eight women and eight men sat in the room and bopped their heads to the music’s rhythm. Meghan Gardiner stood beside a velvet footstool in front of the audience. She prepared to perform her one-woman show on sexual assault, Dissolve.

Lau Mehes, the program assistant for the Sexual Assault Awareness Program, helped organize the performance for the education initiative. She said the play offered the opportunity to reach more people with the information.

Tanya Prinzing sat in the third row beside her friends. Prinzing said she came because she had to attend a women produced event for her women’s studies class. She spotted many of her classmates dispersed throughout the audience.

The music stopped. Gardiner emerged onstage dressed in a simple black tank top and matching pants. She puffed out her chest, squared her shoulders and lowered her voice transforming into a club bouncer. For the next hour she morphed between different characters and delivered the story of one victim’s realization that she was drugged and sexually assaulted. The audience continued to applaud while she ran and grabbed a well-earned bottle of water after the show ended.

Gardiner returned with her face flushed from her performance and answered questions from the audience. She said that the play was based on her personal experience. She intended for it to entertain and be cathartic, but realized that it also educated, she said. “It’s hard because – dare I say it – the people who really need to see this show aren’t here,” Gardiner said.

Most of the blue and grey folding chairs in the room were occupied. The audience was composed of mostly females, a handful of volunteers from various relevant organizations on campus and the mandatory attendance of Prinzing and some of her classmates.

Gardiner had performed the piece for over 450 audiences. At the University of Portland it is mandatory to see the show and students have to write a 10-page paper and pay a $100 fine if they do not participate, she said.

At the University of British Columbia it was not a mandatory event, but the students who participated began an important discussion about sexual assault and walked away asking how to get involved.

On Friday afternoon the main room of UBC’s Asian Centre was full of economists eager to discuss fixing, of all things, the environment. Welcome to the 21st century.

Environmental economist Lawrence H. Goulder gave the keynote speech in a weekend long conference entitled, “UBC 2010 Workshop on Environmental Economics and Climate Change.” His talk outlined the role economists can play in creating policies to deal effectively with climate change. It was called, “Pricing Greenhouse Gases: Efficiency, Distribution and Politics.”

Coming from a talk in the neighbouring building, economists ranging in age and ethnicity shuffled in with coffee and cookies in their hands to take their places among the blue plastic chairs. For every two rows of men there were about four women.

“I’ll start off by showing you all a very simple economics graph,” Goulder said. As the slide went up the room filled with laughter at what was obviously, to most, a hilariously simple economics graph. But once Goulder began getting into the meat of his ideas the tone in the room changed. Heads tilted and bodies leaned back into chairs, arms crossed and eyes squinted in what looked like reserved and contemplative skepticism. An old man, with white hair in a ponytail and his blue bike helmet and backpack still on, squeezed into the middle of the third row to sit in one of the last empty chairs.

“Reasons why we haven’t had serious climate change policies are the influence of special interest and a lack of public knowledge,” Goulder said. “How can we as environmental economists breakthrough these barriers?” In terms of the special interests groups his answer was, “Buy them off. It actually wouldn’t cost that much.” He explained that in order to be able to pass carbon taxes it would be necessary to make it worthwhile for industry like oil and gas. Current stakeholders’ profits could be preserved while discouraging further investment into the industry.

It was probably his most contentious statement, but seemed to be gravely acknowledged as a practical solution. Alexandre Vigneault, a chemical engineering PhD student, said he agreed with Goulder. “It makes sense,” he said. His friend, Nick Chow, a political science major who was also minoring in economics, nodded. The atmosphere in the room was one of grave concern and a desire to find practical solutions.

“Climate change is a big problem, largely beyond economics,” Goulder concluded. “Some people are positive. I have a friend who says look at the anti-smoking campaign and how effective that was over time.”

He paused.

“I’m not sure that we have the time. We can’t wait three decades,” he said, “I’ll end on that note.”

Most people came to the President’s Campus Town Hall carrying umbrellas on the rainy Monday morning. Arrivals shed their wet raingear in the Chan Centre of Performing Arts and a homogenous business casual crowd emerged.

Platters of bite size sandwiches, colourful vegetables and chocolate covered deserts spread across three tables in the lobby and invited participants to sample the lunch buffet. Uniformed servers maneuvered through the crowd and restocked diminishing food supplies.

People mingled while carrying glass plates filled with refreshments and sipping non-alcoholic beverages. Groups formed around tall tables draped in white cloths that grazed the floor. Postcards lay on the tables promoting Place and Promise: The UBC Plan.

Sweatpants and hoodies infiltrated the sea of suits when the student crowd lingered in. The buffet line grew longer and plates were piled higher with snacks. But the free lunch was not why students attended.

Andrew Longhurst said he came to report for CiTR, the campus radio station, and would not have otherwise. He said he finds these types of events formulaic and would prefer an organic session. He was interested to see if the president would take questions from the floor, he said.

Jennifer Peverelle, a first year engineering transfer student, came because her unique academic question went unanswered after being shuttled through a long line of administrators and faculty members. It is a “last ditch effort to take it as high as I can,” said Peverelle.

“10 minutes ladies and gentleman,” said an aide and people moved inside the Telus Studio Theatre. Many chatted with their neighbours while a baby’s wail carried throughout the dark hall. “Good afternoon everyone,” said Sarah Morgan-Silvester, chancellor elect of the University of British Columbia, and silenced the crowd.

Professor Stephen J. Toope, president and vice-chancellor of the University of British Columbia, began his speech after a series of thanks and introductions. The speech discussed the university’s upcoming strategies to promote research, excellence and community engagement. The audience listened and waited to hear what form the question and answer period would take.

Toope finished his speech and pointed to two microphones set up on either side of the audience. Anyone with questions would be allowed to line up at the microphones while he answered two queries received earlier by e-mail, he said.

Longhurst arrived at the microphone first. He and many others seized the opportunity for an open discussion.