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    Sep

    28

    Robert Worsley: not a Nazi

    3 Comments

    Did you notice this correction in today’s edition of The Ubyssey?

    On November 28, 2008, The Ubyssey published an article entitled “RCMP have ‘final solution’ to the ‘fraternity issue.'” The article in question was part of The Ubyssey’s annual all-satire edition. The Ubyssey and staff regret having left its readers with the impression that the RCMP on campus has used violence or excessive force or acted in any manner similar to the Nazi party during the Second World War. The Ubyssey and staff also regret any damage the article may have caused to the reputation of the RCMP member who was named in the article, Cpl. Robert Worsley.

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    Sep

    24

    AMS Council: September 23, 2009

    2 Comments

    Highlights:

    • Q: What’s going on with the NEW SUB project? A: We discussed that in the in camera session
    • A few more SUB renovations
    • Student access to Whistler Lodge during Olympics preserved
    • You’re on your own, Equity And Diversity Coordinator

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    Sep

    21

    Children vs. Liquor

    2 Comments

    Tagged: Massive Failures in Communication

    UBC’s Graduate Student Society (GSS), to put it bluntly, is dysfunctional. This in itself is not news since this has been the situation for some time now. However, the entire situation reached a new low at their last council meeting. What happened may not have been the most scandalous of the GSS’s problems, but it’s certainly the most comical: they tried to put a daycare and a liquor licence in the same room.
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    Sep

    15

    A Forensic Examination of the War on Fun, Part 2

    4 Comments

    Yesterday, UBC Insiders released a database of Special Occasion Licences (SOLs) granted at UBC that revealed 1 in 5 SOLs granted at UBC were approved by the RCMP despite being in breach of provincial liquor regulations. The overwhelming majority of these events were not student-run. There is another area to explore about how the RCMP scrutinizes SOL applications at UBC: rules that aren’t in provincial law.
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    Sep

    14

    A Forensic Examination of the War on Fun, Part 1

    12 Comments

    Last year, former Ubyssey reporter Bryan Zandberg wrote a piece for the Tyee examining whether there was a “War on Fun” at UBC.

    A year later, the piece is as dated as it is current. Sgt. Dan Wendland is no longer with us at UBC, but his legacy lives on through the policies he implemented. The students featured in the article for the most part have given up the fight, but a new set of students is discovering the absurdity with which the RCMP holds power over Special Occasion Licences (SOLs) at UBC.

    In re-launching UBC Insiders, we made investigative features part of our mandate. Over the summer, I tracked down as many Special Occasion Licence applications filed at UBC as possible. With these in hand, a database was constructed through many, many late nights of data-entry. The database has been put online and can be accessed here. The database profiles 730 events from January 2008 until the present. The results confirm things that, empirically, students knew were happening. But they also raise questions about what rules the RCMP was actually enforcing.
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    Sep

    3

    AMS Council: Sep 2, 2009

    5 Comments

    Highlights from tonight:

    • Is UBC driving us crazy?
    • Further plundering of the President’s fund by the external office

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    Aug

    28

    A Shout Out

    1 Comment

    To the AMS, and Fincom in particular for helping fund my trip to Ottawa to attend the CIS AGM.

    You can read the articles I wrote about it here and here.

    If you are hoping to go to a conference, event, or have a special project in mind, I strongly encourage you to apply for one of their Student Initiatives Fund grants (which is what I got).

    If you are an AMS club looking to do something special, they also have an option for you: the Clubs Benefit Fund.

    Finally, another good funding option they have is the Innovative Projects Fund, which exists to provide seed money for new projects of direct benefit to students.

    I am a huge AMS fan and it’s not only because they just gave me money. It is easy to criticize them when they make mistakes, but in the end it is full of great people who do good things, and UBC students are definitely better off for it.

    Aug

    28

    AMS Council: August 19, 2009

    Comments Off on AMS Council: August 19, 2009

    It’s so nice out today. Can’t we all just go sit on the Knoll and have council there?

    Highlights:

    • A visit from Pierre Ouillet and Brian Sullivan
    • Tom Dvorak’s EPIC Sunglasses tan

    Bonjour Pierre Ouillet

    Pierre Ouillet (UBC’s VP Finance, Resources and Operations) is here with Brian Sullivan to talk about structural deficits in the UBC budget. These must be the hot new thing in institutional finance this year, since we also got a presentation from Tom Dvorak about it last month.

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    Aug

    28

    The Downside of Automatic Enrolment

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    The Faculty of Graduate Studies (FoGS) recently implemented “automated continuous thesis registration”, which works as follows:

    “Starting in Summer 2009, when students register in a thesis or dissertation course once, their registration in that course will automatically roll each term until the end of the student’s program (excepting if they are on leave).’

    On the surface this seems pragmatic. In the original email which went out last May they hoped that it would make life easier for students, faculty and staff. They also allege that students not registering was a common occurrence, causing UBC to lose out on some tuition fees and provincial funding.

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    Aug

    28

    Campus Shows: Fall 2009

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    This year, the Ubyssey will have more resources invested in their culture section (one editor last year; this year there are two), with fewer resources going into news (two editors last year; this year only one). They now have a culture blog and, I believe, a paid culture staffer over the summer. Correction: Apparently the grant the Ubyssey obtained went news and coordinating editors. Over the summer the rest of the staff is volunteer.

    A quick look at their recent culture content reveals entries about other websites, and coverage of things happening around Vancouver which are already covered quite competently by Vancouver’s other media outlets. Events happening or upcoming on campus or put on by the AMS? Not a peep.

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