Times have\u00a0changed, business as usual has\u00a0been called into question, the Board of Governors is still\u00a0operating under the pall of a\u00a0No Confidence vote<\/a>\u00a0cast\u00a0by faculty members last year, and this year\u00a0on 24 April an\u00a0Open Letter signed by 110 faculty members was submitted to the UBC Chancellor Reappointment Committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n The days of the\u00a0mace in Convocation and governance are of the past and that part of the past is no longer worth reenacting.<\/p>\n Last\u00a0year was an emotional year for UBC. As we launched the celebration of our Centennial at\u00a0UBC 100<\/a>, our President resigned\u00a0under a cloak of secrecy<\/a>. As we began to party, we launched an investigation to discover the lengths to which a Chair of the Board of Governors and administrators might go\u00a0to suppress academic freedom<\/a>. As no accountability was forthcoming, a No Confidence vote<\/a>\u00a0was cast.\u00a0As the BoG continued with business as usual,\u00a0staff and students expressed serious concerns to\u00a0triangulate those of faculty members<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to know where this University now stands or what it stands for.<\/p>\n It is time to retire the\u00a0mace, symbol of aggression, authority, and war<\/a>. It\u2019s time to march to graduation ceremonies in late May\u00a0with open and empty hands as symbolic of peace and reconciliation of controversies and roles of the President\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n UBC\u2019s mace<\/a>\u00a0is a relic but a relic of what? The mace is symbolic speech but what is it saying about us now?<\/p>\n From ancient times, this club, this weapon of assault and offence, the mace was gradually adorned until the late twelfth century when it doubled as a symbol of civil office. Queen Elizabeth I granted her royal mace to Oxford in 1589. From military and civil power derives academic authority. The rest is history and it is not all good.<\/p>\n Dr. Thomas Lemieux, School of Economics, with UBC\u2019s Mace at the May 2015 Convocation.<\/p><\/div>\n It is time to retire the macebearer, whose importance is inflated every year by the\u00a0image\u2019s presence on UBC\u2019s graduation pages<\/a>\u00a0leading to Convocation. In pragmatic terms, if the mace falls into the hands of the wrong macebearer or manager at this point, someone\u2019s liable to get clocked with it.<\/p>\n Is UBC\u2019s mace still a respectable appendage to Convocation?<\/p>\n Remember, since that\u00a0fateful November day in 1997<\/a>, just five months into Martha Piper’s Presidency, when student activists put their bodies and minds on the line at the APEC protest,\u00a0Tuum Est<\/em>\u00a0adorns both the can of mace sprayed in their eyes and the\u00a0ceremonial mace<\/a>\u00a0that the President\u2019s Office is eager to carry across campus every November and May.<\/p>\n Is it not time to retire the mace<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" *Apologies to the medievalists. Repeated below is our semi-annual appeal to UBC managers to Lay Down the Mace: As we count down to May graduation, can we please\u00a0remove\u00a0the mace from\u00a0convocation and governance at the University of British Columbia? The mace … Continue reading ![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/files\/2015\/11\/CF89oT7VEAAkUwq-169x300.jpg\")
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