Category: UBC

By 5 p.m. on Monday, the UBC Student Union Building’s constant stream of students started dwindling to a trickle. A quieter tone began enveloping the building in contrast to when back pack laden students filled every corner, live music blared outside, and conversations inflamed over book prices.

It’s ninety eight dollars! Ninety eight dollars!

A cardboard cubicle plastered with design information on the more “sustainable” New Student Union Building stood in wait for student suggestions. So far there were three: affordable food, be open Sunday, and air conditioning or some alternative.

About every ten minutes a student or two wandered in with a slice of Pie R Squared pizza to pick a spot between the garbage-ridden tables. Remnants of a busier time lingered. Paper plates and napkins, glass bottles and cans, A&W and Starbucks cups mingled together with carelessly strewn newspapers. This was a site for fast-paced consumption and hurriedly moving on. A tall student with curly unkempt hair walked by a table, and without stopping, gave a few old drink containers a little shake before heading out the door, leaving the scene of garbage completely undisturbed.

Signs indicating which bins were for composting and which for recycling were located throughout the SUB, courteous of UBC Waste Management. Across the room a well-stuffed garbage can had the words, “STOP! Can this be recycled?” on the lid. Just above hung a hand sanitizer and a sign that read, “The Student Union Building is Monitored by Cameras.”

Three girls sat on the grey couches near the windows to eat their pizza. When finished they stood up, adjusted their backpacks and, while continuing their conversation, made a subtle attempt to leave. One girl stepped back, another leaned in the same direction, but then there was a pause. The memory of some social norm their parents may have instilled in them when they were children surfaced to challenge the new normal around them. They each picked up their plates and threw them in the garbage.

By 9 p.m. the cleaning staff began their nightly ritual. Quoc Nguyen has worked for UBC Food Services for five years. “It’s always the same,” he said, “but the cafeteria is worse! Sometimes the salt and pepper is poured all over the table and people draw pictures in it. But at least I get paid. It’s people’s attitudes. What can we do? There’s nothing we can do. Brain surgery?”

He laughed.

The heels of Lucia Misch’s brown cowboy boots clicked against the concrete floor as she walked across the Bike Kitchen Tuesday evening. “It’s been a busy day today,” said Misch.

Several customers inspected bikes hanging from metal piping attached to the ceiling. Two workers circled a bicycle held by a silver stand and debated their diagnosis. The co-op board members sat on couches in the back corner and held their meeting. Everyone was busy. It was organized chaos to the tune of an employee’s iPod on shuffle.

At 6 p.m. the store closed to the general public and volunteers arrived for the weekly Purple and Yellow Work Party. Volunteer night co-ordinator, Arthur Krumins, said that it is the second longest running program of the Bike Co-op. Employees teach volunteers how to repair and maintain a community fleet of bikes. Volunteers earn a key to the bikes stationed around campus after investing six hours to learning bicycle mechanics.

Krumins greeted the new volunteers with smiles and introductions while some regulars began setting bikes up on the stands. Others checked the Volunteer to do List scrawled in green marker on a whiteboard. The first item read: “Eat at least 20g of fibre a day.” The joke hinted at the congenial atmosphere.

An employee separated the volunteers into small groups, assigned each a stand and the work began. The teamwork was clear. Volunteers passed tools to one another and employees exchanged oily-handed high fives with their students. “You wanna make sure it’s straight,” said vice president Kieran O’Neill to his two co-workers and they discussed how to fix the problem.

It was Roger Woo’s second week attending. “It’s refreshing not to just sit there… all day and learn from lectures,” he said, referring to the hands-on approach in the workshop.

A teaching environment that offers practical experience is part of the Bike Kitchen’s vision. “It’s about wanting to create a community of people who are interdependent and self sufficient,” said Misch.

A 12-year-old boy who rode his blue BMX to the party and worked on one of the bikes embodied that description. It is his local bicycle shop and he has attended the volunteer nights for a year. He learned how to fix his own bike from the mechanics here, but his favourite part is the free pizza.

There’s no signpost stating “Welcome to UTown@UBC,” but the growing community is easy to recognize. Wander far enough southeast at UBC, past the music blaring frat houses and student buzzing residences, past the cold, sterile-looking Health Sciences buildings, and there are post-card worthy neighourhoods made up of elegant condos, tree-lined bike paths, immaculately trimmed hedges and kids, lots of kids.

“I never knew how many kids lived on UBC,” said Saangeeta Lalli, a volunteer at the Annual Barn Raising event that took place on Saturday at the Old Barn Community Centre in the heart of UTown@UBC.

The centre, built in 2007, is neither old, nor a barn. Its name and design were inspired by an old barn that existed in the same spot in 1920, when UBC’s land was being cleared by Clydesdale horses. Today it is home to the University Neighborhood Association in charge of running the community.

Families were out enjoying the festivities on the grassy park outside the centre, despite ominous sprinkles of light rain. Sights of baby-strapped and stroller-pushing parents looking relaxed, of colorful balloons and face-painted children were everywhere. Joyful fiddle harmonies from the Celtic Folk band Blackthorn provided a fanciful backdrop as kids played and parents socialized between lining up for the BBQ, riding the horse-pulled-carriage, and checking out information booths. The event, like the community, seemed to be all about the kids.

“I moved to UBC for my son, who goes to Lord Byng,” said Rocio Escalona who works for the UNA.

Meanwhile, Tim Fijal, who runs Little Mountain Campus Academy located in the UBC Village, said that many Korean and Chinese parents like to expose their children to the university environment hoping for an “osmosis-like affect on their intelligence.” Fijal’s literacy tutoring programs are popular among Korean and Chinese families who make up a significant portion of the residents in UTown.

So how much of a connection is there between these communities and the rest of UBC? The student-run booths showed the UNA connecting with pockets of the student body that can help fulfill their stated mission of providing a “sustainable residential community.” These included the Beaty Biodiversity Museum and Sprouts, which delivers local organic produce to UBC residents by bicycle.