July 6, 2011

If you only understood peak oil since 1918

Uthe ubyssey July 6, 2011summer volume 28, number 5room 24, student union [email protected]

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COMPENSATIONHow much do UBC

employees make—and why?

Page 4-5

Catering Manager,Food Services

$75,000

Associate Professor,English

$80,000

Associate Professor,Sociology

$90,000

Associate Professor,Nursing

$95,000

Direcotr,School of Music

$155,000

Head ofBotany

$175,000

Associate Vice-President, Academic

$215,000

Dean of Science

$255,000

Professor,Chemistry

$140,000

Professor,M

echanical Engineering

$130,000

Associate Professor,Pathology

$120,000

Assistant Dean,Interdisciplinary Studies

$110,000

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PAGE 3

Meeting with

the dean

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Performance Review

How does your

professor stack up?

2 / u b y s s e y. c a / g a m e s / 2 0 11 . 0 7. 0 6

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Games july 6, 2011summer volume xxviii, no v

editorial

coordinating editor Justin McElroy: [email protected] editor, printJonny Wakefield: [email protected] editor, webArshy Mann: [email protected] editorsKalyeena Makortoff & Micki Cowan:[email protected] directorGeoff Lister: [email protected] editorGinny Monaco: [email protected] culture writerTaylor Loren: [email protected] editor Drake Fenton: [email protected] editorBrian Platt: [email protected] editorDavid Marino: [email protected] writerAndrew Bates: [email protected] assistantIndiana Joel: [email protected] Blake: [email protected]

Room 24, Student Union Building6138 Student Union BoulevardVancouver, BC V6T 1Z1tel: 604.822.2301web: www.ubyssey.cae-mail: [email protected]

business

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Room 23, Student Union Buildingprint advertising: 604.822.1654 business office: 604.822.6681web advertising: 604.822.1658e-mail: [email protected]

contributors

trevor record virginie menard oker chen bryce warnes

legal

The Ubyssey is the official student newspaper of the University of British Columbia. It is published ev-ery Monday and Thursday during the winter semes-ter by The Ubyssey Publications Society. We are an autonomous, democratically run student organiza-tion, and all students are encouraged to participate.

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across

1. Actress Ruby4. Hoist9. One of the Simpsons13. Sick14. Approvals15. Fable16. Dress with too much formality18. Unit of volume19. Furnishings20. Surgical cutting of a tendon22. Tidal river25. Centrepiece of the human face26. Early computer28. Story in installments32. Fleur-de.___35. Fortune.telling cards37. Grass-like plant38. Archipelago part40. Growl angrily42. Interpret43. Sweatbox45. Purge47. Madrid Mrs.48. Corpulent50. Law of Moses52. Footnote abbr.54. Teacher58. Dauntless62. Satirical dialogue63. Like some stadiums64. Receptacle67. Muse of lyric poetry68. Distinguishing characteristic69. Seine contents70. Numerous71. “Forbidden” fruit72. ACLU concerns

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soDokU by Krazydad

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Get your fix. Edit our games section.

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DoWn

1. Part of LED2. Santa’s aides3. Choose4. Water faucet5. Alway6. Enzyme ending7. Sleeveless garment8. Ruhr city9. Vagrant10. A big fan of11. Flower part12. Ethereal15. Shuts17. Libertine21. Figs23. Narrow inlets24. Tall tales27. Do something together29. March time30. Culture medium31. Moon of Jupiter32. Speech issue33. Golfer Aoki34. Insult36. Band39. Completeness41. Decoy44. Percentage of light reflect-ed by a planet46. Proceed in rays49. Bark sharply51. Mata 53. Judicial rulings55. Dead duck56. A time57. Convoluted fold of the brain58. As previously given, in footnotes59. Asta’s mistress60. Counterfeiter catcher61. A small town65. Doze66. “... ___ the cows come home”

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NEwSeDitors KALYEENA MAKORTOFF & MICKI COWAN » [email protected]

kalyeena [email protected]

Rumana Monzur, a UBC student who was brutally attacked and blinded by her husband during a visit to Bangladesh in June, re-turned to Vancouver yesterday.

Monzur arrived at YVR Tues-day with her father. She was im-mediately transported to Van-couver General Hospital where she was set to receive treatment and consultation with what Ja-net Teasdale, acting UBC VP stu-dents, called some of the “best medical care available.”

At a press conference Tuesday morning, Teasdale said that the university has been in direct contact with Monzur.

“In the last ten days, Rumana made it clear that she wanted to return to Canada and she was interested in additional medi-cal treatment and in finishing her degree,” she said.

“The university stands ful-ly prepared and ready and has made some extraordinary ef-forts to support the return of Ru-mana and her family to Canada.”

Teasdale said that Monzur and her father have been re-served a space at St John’s Col-lege in family housing and ex-tended thanks to Canadian Cit-izenship and Immigration Can-ada for the work on Monzur’s visa, which is expected to last at least six months.

Monzur had a draft of her the-sis prepared before going to Ban-gladesh and was nearing the com-pletion of her degree. Teasdale said the university would provide

the support necessary for Monzur to receive her PhD.

“The department of political science and her supervisor stand ready to provide both financial and scholarship support so that she can continue to study and additional resources for a wom-an who, at this time, cannot see.”

Teasdale could not comment on speculation that a UBC-based op-tomologist would be part of Mon-zur’s assessment. “I think what we can say is that the university has the resources with respect to un-derstanding issues like this and we can call upon those resources.”

Monzur’s friends said they had been in contact with her sporadically in the month lead-ing up to the attack.

“We’ve been very cognizant of not directing too much commu-nication at Rumana,” said Pri-ya Bala-Miller, Monzur’s friend and a PhD student in political science. “This is a really diffi-cult time for her and her fam-ily. It was heartwrenching to see her in the media so vulner-able and so exposed in terms of what she’d been through, so as a friend that was extremely dif-ficult to watch.”

UBC law student Sotonye God-win-Hart, another of Monzur’s friends, described her emotions as she prepared to meet Monzur upon her arrival at YVR. “I ac-tually have mixed feelings. I’m very excited but I’m also ner-vous and worried because she’s my very close friend. She’s still the same person but it’s not the same, so I really can’t say...until I get to see her.”

From fund raising and over 550 individual donations, UBC has collected over $41,000 to support Monzur’s family, and would cover living expenses.

However, they are calling for at least $70,000 in funds to sup-port her family over the next six months.

Bala-Miller said a petition is circulating that asks that jus-tice be served for Monzur’s at-tacker. It has been signed by over 500 people and is directed at Canada’s high commissioner for Bangladesh. “I want to com-mend them for speaking to the media and asking for exempla-ry punishment in this case.” U

Donations for Monzur can be made at rumana.givecentre.com

Rumana Monzur returns to VancouverUBC pledges to fully support student who was blinded in assault in Bangladesh

Supporters gathered downtown to protest the violence against Rumana Monzur last Sunday. eDWarD bUDiman Photo/ThE UBYSSEY

micki [email protected]

The AMS is seeking consulta-tions to decide the fate of the AMS Whistler Lodge, a student service that AMS executives have said is draining money from the student society.

The troubles began after a large amount of lodging options became available following the 2010 Olympics. A leaky roof that could cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair and a lowered number of bookings, attribut-ed to the recession, led to a re-view of the financial feasibility of maintaining the AMS Whis-tler Lodge.

The lodge, a popular option for students heading up to hit the slopes, lost nearly $30,000 last year.

AMS VP Finance Elin Tayyar said that the real loss from the lodge may be even greater, con-sidering the projected gain was $56,000, resulting in $85,000 less earnings than expected.

“If we didn’t have the Whis-tler Lodge, that [deficit] prob -lem would have been gone,” said Tayyar

From 2005-2010, the Whistler Lodge brought $375,000 in rev-enue, but expenses during that period reached $500,000.

Despite the losses, the AMS says it recognizes that the lodge is a service to students. “It’s a big part of the AMS, a massive asset of ours. And it’s an impor-tant one,” said Tayyar.

Charlott Sandor Johansen, for-mer president of the UBC Ski and Board Club, says her club relies heavily on the spaces that are specially reserved for UBC students.

“As a club, we do use the UBC Whistler Lodge a lot. When we have sign-ups for the lodge for Christmas and reading break we generally have a line-up out of the door. The AMS lodge is pretty integral in our lodging options for our members.”

Sandor Johansen did say that some improvements could be made, including general ren-ovations and lowering the age limit to 18, which would allow first-year students to take ad-vantage of the facilities.

VP Administration Mike Sil-ley, the AMS executive member in charge of the lodge, said that

AMS Council had approved con-sultations on whether to keep the lodge

“What we passed in council was $40,000 to hire consultants to look into what our options are—whether it be build a new lodge, restructure the business model, whether it be to move, shut it down or sell the lodge all together,” said Silley

“There are quite a few stu-dents on campus that we felt needed the service, so we didn’t want to arbitrarily cut it.

“That was a precursor to our decision to…hire consultants to give us a better picture of what’s happening.”

Tay yar was certain that change would come out of the consultations. “We’re starting a big process of reviewing the lodge: the past, the current mar-ket and what we want for the fu-ture. What I can say is we won’t be looking at continuing in this trend.”

Regardless of the decision that is made, students can ex-pect to find out the results of these consultations—and the fate of the lodge—come Septem-ber 2011. U

Perennially shaky, AMS Whistler lodge on thin ice

Photo coUrtesy of michael kinGsmill/FLICKR

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PayinGPerhaps the most glaring dis-crepancy in the breakdown of salaries at our university is be-tween genders. Of UBC’s top 20 earners in 2009/2010, none were women. Of the top 100, only 11 were women and even when expand-ed to the top 1000, only 223 were female.

“I think the issue…of greatest concern to the Faculty Associa-tion right now would be gender equity and pay, so we’re working with the administration to see what can be done on that issue,” said Faculty Association Presi-dent Nancy Langton.

“We have concern at two lev-els. One, are women being sys-tematically paid less than men for doing comparable work? Re-search reports point to some sys-temic discriminating. But the other issue is, are women be-ing promoted at the same rate to senior administration that men are?”

A 2009 Statistics Canada re-port on salaries across all Ca-nadian universities showed that the average male profes-sor earned $123,702, compared to $107,143 for females.

The Faculty Association also released two reports in conjunc-tion with the Provost Office on the subject.

Langton stressed that gener-al awareness among senior ad-ministrators would be a key step to combating gender equity, but also noted that when tenured professors originally set their salaries with UBC, men tend to negotiate a higher salary rate.

“I think we need more aware-ness of how salaries get set at the beginning. There is research evidence that women don’t ne-gotiate salaries as well as men do. If there was more informa-tion...potential new hires could look at that,” she said.

—Justin McElroy

GenDer DiviDes Professor Pay

the ProfessorsWhich Ubc emPloyees are PaiD the most, anD Why?

Daniel Muzyka, Sauder $413,010

Mary Anne Bobinski, Law $283,784

Charles F. Shuler, Dentistry $255,623

Simon M. Peacock, Science $255,219

Robert Sindelar, Pharmacy $250,932

John N. Saddler, Forestry $250,729

Nancy Gallini, Arts $249,816

Tyseer Aboulnasr, Applied Science $244,550

Jon E. Shapiro, Education $210,247

Murray Isman, Land & Food Systems $208,334

Barbara Evans, Graduate Studies $203,943

Gavin Stuart, Medicine $431,451

David Johnston, Waterloo $1,041,881

Mahdouh Shoukri, York $480,030

Indira Samarasekera, Alberta $479,000

Alastair Summerlee, Guelph $440,590

Stephen Toope, UBC $483,418

David Turpin, Victoria $417,075

Michael Stevenson, SFU $398,876

David Naylor, Toronto $380,100

David Atkinson, Kwantlen, $235,274

Roger Barnsley, Thompson Rivers $240,662

Greg Lee, Capilano $190,105

Mark Evered, Fraser Valley $160,719

2 011. 0 6 . 21/ u bys se y.c a / f e at u r e /5

Last month, The Vancou-ver Sun released their an-nual database of public-sector employees in Brit-

ish Columbia who make at least $75,000. Because of the length of time it takes for various pub-lic bodies to release their infor-mation, the salaries listed were from the 2009/2010 year—where 3504 people were paid more than $75,000 by UBC.

Naturally, the raw numbers provoke interest. How much does my favourite professor make? Which dean makes the most? What sort of gap is there between males and females? We’ve charted out some of that information here.

At the same time, the basic data can paint a confusing pic-ture. Severance and adminis-trative leave packages can skew numbers and faculty often have secondary sources of income which aren’t publicly released. How much a professor makes has as much to do with their ne-gotiating skills as it does their talent. And of course, the fig-ures are out of date by as much as two years.

Still, the information is re-vealing. We’ve spoken with members of the UBC Faculty Association—the body that rep-resents all UBC faculty—to get a better sense of what the num-bers mean.

PayinG

1 Each year, UBC sets the budget that each faculty can spend on professor salaries. This budget is jointly negotiated between the VP Finance, Provost and respective Dean’s offices.

2 When a new professor is hired or receives tenure, the faculty and professor jointly negotiate their starting salary. What an aver-age starting salary is varies greatly across departments. “Differ-ent faculties have different salaries, so a finance professor is paid considerably more than an English professor and that has to do with market pressures,” explained Langton.

3 Once in a tenure position, there are no automatic raises—at least in the current two-year agreement which expires in 2012. In-stead, increases happen as a result of “Career Progress Increments” and adjustments made based on merit (a one-year measurement of research, teaching and service accomplishments) and performance salary adjustment (a three-year measurement).

4 While full-time tenured faculty cannot hold another job with a different institution, there are alternative ways for professors to earn extra income, including being named a research chair, publish-ing a book or giving “executive education” lectures to middle and senior management at various institutions. However, much of this income may be paid to a separate business set up by the professor, and thus would not be included in the Vancouver Sun’s calculations.

hoW Profs Get PaiD

Because of the flexibility and lower salary inherent in ses-sional rather than tenured posi-tions, many cash-strapped facul-ties have opted to use more ses-sionals over the last decade and UBC is no exception.

“It’s a problem,” admits Lang-ton. “Salaries for sessionals are considerably lower than those for tenure-stream faculty...ses-sionals are paid less at UBC, on average, than they are at some colleges.” The faculty association

pushed for changes to their agreement, but were rebuffed in the most recent round of col-lective bargaining last year.

Faculties are required to pay sessionals a minimum salary that is on a sliding scale, based on credits taught per-term and an eight step scale that every lec-turer is placed on which reflects seniority and other factors.

Newly hired sessionals are au-tomatically paid the rate of the lowest step when they begin.

You can find the exact calcula-tions online, but a professor at the first step, teaching 9 credits every semester, makes $53,730 in a year.

In 2009/2010, the high-est paid sessional lecturers at UBC were Chuck Campbell in the Sauder School of Business ($164,941), followed by Econom-ics Professor Robert Gateman ($139,494).

—Justin McElroy

sessionals Get short enD of salary stick

the Professors

meDicine-256

arts-113

aPPlieD science-66

science-178

lanD anD fooD systems-12

saUDer-97

Ubc-110

school of hUman PoPUlation anD PUblic health-16

nUrsinG-7

hUman kinetics-7

laW-27

school of commUnity anD reGional PlanninG-4

forestry-14

Dentistry-12

school of architectUre-4

colleGe of interDisciPlinary stUDies-16

eDUcation-36

environmental health-2

Ubc library DePartment-2

Pharmacy-16

the toP 1000 PaiD PeoPle at Ubc in 2009/2010, broken DoWn by DePartment

colleGe of health DisciPlines-1

6 / u b y s s e y. c a / s p o r t s / 2 0 11 . 0 7. 0 6

SPortS & CUltUrE eDitor DRAKE FENTON » [email protected]

eDitor GINNY MONACO » [email protected]

Drake [email protected]

BC cycling enthusiasts might want to Tivo the tour July 12, as UBC campus hosts a number of high octane pro/am races.

The inaugural UBC Grand Prix, hosted by Mahoney & Sons, is one of four races in the B.C. Su-perweek cycling series. The race will be broken down into four dif-ferent categories: men, women, kids and corporate teams. Par-ticipants will race on a 1.35 ki-lometre, four-cornered circuit that begins and ends at Univer-sity Boulevard, near the parking lot of the bookstore.

The Grand Prix is a criterium race. In cycling jargon, this means that competitors will race contin-uously for a set amount of time on a short closed-circuit course. The first person to finish is the win-ner. Though there is a single win-ner, the race is far from an indi-vidual event.

Dr Jack Taunton, the co-found-er of the Vancouver Sun Run and the leader behind bringing the Grand Prix to UBC, explained that in a criterium race, teamwork is a necessity for victory.

“If you are in there as an indi-vidual rider, rather than with a team around you, it’s very diffi-cult to win,” he said. “If you were to go off on your own then I would send one of my teammates up to slow you down, while I would

not be working and saving ener-gy for a sprint.”

When the race has finished, teammates split whatever priz-es the members have won.

Race director Mark Ernsting said that the course is technical and challenging.

“The left hand turn at corner number four, going into the fin-ish line, will be about a 60-kilo-metre an hour corner,” he said, referring to the left turn on to

University Boulevard from East Mall. “That is definitely going to be a corner that causes some ac-cidents,” he added.

The Superweek cycling series include three other events around the Lower Mainland. From July 8-10 there will be the Tour de Del-ta, a three part race. On July 14, there will be the Giro di Burnaby and from July 15–17 White Rock will host the Tour de White Rock, another three-part race.

With its deadly corner number four, UBC’s Grand Prix may end up being the most technically challeng-ing of the four competitions, but the risk should be well-worth the reward. Between the male and female events there is more than $10,000 in prize money.

In order to maintain a level of competition between the large num-ber of contestants in the criterium race—the men’s will have between 90 to 100 riders—there are prizes

called primes. Primes are small purses and at the Grand Prix they may range from $250 to $1,000. They are awarded to riders who win certain laps within the race.

Taunton explained that if three riders had broken away from the main group, over the next few laps a small prime would be awarded to the rider that closed the gap be-tween the group and the riders in the lead.

Primes keep the pace of compe-tition at a high speed and let mul-tiple riders or teams win money. They prevent one rider from con-serving energy for the entire race before making a breakaway sprint near the end.

One team to keep an eye on at the Grand Prix will be Canada’s newly created men’s national team, Spi-derTech. The team has not yet final-ized its roster, but they have been a force in multiple competitions in the European pro race circuit, in-cluding a second-place finish this year by team member Will Rout-ley at Tro Bro Leon, a one-day road race in Brittany, France.

The UBC Grand Prix will begin at 4:30 pm with the corporate chal-lenge race.

The kid’s race will be at 5:30 pm, the women’s pro race will be at 6:30 pm and the men’s pro race will be-gin at 7:45 pm. U

For more information on the UBC Grand Prix visit ubcgrand-prix.com.

Cyclists converge at UBC for first Grand Prix

Case, Mangan and Spirit of the West perform this week

Ginny [email protected]

The last time Vancouverites got to-gether it ended with destruction. Next week, when several thousand Vancouverites converge in Stanley Park for a series of free concerts, the city hopes for celebration.

Summer Live, part of the Van-couver 125th anniversary cele-brations, will take over Stanley Park with free performances by Dan Mangan, Neko Case and Spir-it of the West, among others. The shows run July 8-10 at Brockton Point.

“[The lineup highlights] the sen-sibilities that reflect Vancouver,” said Margaret Specht, the Vancou-ver 125 Project Director. “People like Neko Case who weren’t born and bred here have established deep connections here. This is a celebration of Vancouver arts and culture and what citizens and vis-itors identify with.”

The organizers wanted to make sure that the event was accessible, said Specht. There will be shuttle busses running every 15 minutes from Waterfront Station into the

park and secured valet bicycle parking will be provided.

“There is such a vibrant arts and culture community and some-times there’s barriers for people to really enjoy it,” said Specht. “Sometimes it’s money or some-times it’s accessibility… We want-ed to eliminate those barriers.”

For Specht, the spirit of Vancou-ver was not seen during the riot on June 15, but in the aftermath.

Specht said not much has changed because of the riots and that most of the effects will be seen at the beer and wine gar-den. “The security will be much more rigorous than we might have planned for two weeks ago.”

“I don’t see any of the music or any of our programming attract-ing an element that would want to do anything but enjoy them-selves,” said Specht. U

For more information on Summer Live visit celebrat-evancouver125.ca/2011/01/summer-live-july-8-9-10-2011

“Security will be much more rigorous than we might have planned for two weeks ago.”marGaret sPechtSummer LIve ProjeCt DIreCtor

Cyclists rounding the corner in the Tour de Delta. Photo coUrtesy of tUrbUlentfloW/FLICKR

2011.0 6 . 21/u byssey.ca /opi n ions/7

oPINIoNS Do yoU care? WRITE US A LETTER » [email protected]

virGinie menarD GraPhic/ThE UBYSSEY

oPinions

eDitorialriot Demonstrates neeD for metro PolicinG

Vancouver and Victoria are in many ways outli-ers among Canadian cities. Residents of both cit-ies are more likely to own rain boots than snow gear and in both you’re more likely to hear a few lines of Cantonese than any ‘bonjours’ or ‘mercis.’

But Vancouver and Victoria are different in an-other way as well; they’re the only major Canadian cities that don’t have metropolitan police forces.

Unlike the Toronto Police Service (TPS) or the awkwardly-named Service de la Police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), the VPD and VICPD only have authority in their city proper. The problems asso-ciated with the limited reach were never as clear as during last month’s hockey riot.

The relief units from the suburbs arrived in an hour-and-a-half, just enough time for some post-game hooliganism to turn into a full-blown riot. It demonstrated a lack of coherent planning amongst the various departments and the inabil-ity to respond to large-scale problems of policing.

NPA mayoral candidate Suzanne Anton called the riot “a very good argument in favour of a re-gional police force.” We agree.

The principle of a metro force is already work-ing in Vancouver. The Integrated Gang Task Force was set up to respond to a rash of gang shootings in 2007. It’s been an immense improvement over the fragmented approaches of earlier years to a problem that crosses municipal boundaries.

Applying the same principle across all facets of policing in Metro Vancouver could reduce re-dundancies and maybe even renew confidence in policing that has taken some blows recently. See: Surrey Six.

Police work doesn’t follow the same neat bor-ders that the cities and municipalities in Metro Vancouver do. It’s time Vancouver followed the rest of Canada’s lead. U

PUttinG their money Where their moUth is

Last month’s release of public-sector salaries over $75,000 in British Columbia confirmed what any Arts student enjoying the Buchanan renovations, while seeing $100 million buildings spring up everywhere else, already knows: at UBC, all stu-dents are equal, but some get nicer buildings and better-paid professors.

Of the 1000 highest-paid employees at UBC in 2009/2010, over 80% were from two faculties—Commerce and Medicine—which host less than 10% of the student population. That’s to be expect-ed for many reasons, including that these profes-sors need to be compensated at a higher rate be-cause they might find more lucrative options at other institutions.

However, areas in which UBC is less competi-tive globally (namely, undergraduate teaching and the student experience) aren’t seen as priorities, at least if you look at the compensation breakdown, or the number of highly-compensated teaching-fo-cused professors. The university will say they do care about these issues, but this is only partly true. UBC has the money to go above and beyond pay rubrics if they felt these areas were a real priority.

Heck, they’ve done it in the past. In 2007, when President Toope expressed concern with survey results showing low satisfaction with teacher en-gagement in the sciences, they hired Nobel laure-ate Carl Wieman to overhaul teaching methods in certain departments, giving him millions worth of research money and a hefty salary to boot. While the results aren’t revolutionary, teaching methods and student engagement have improved over the last four years and not just because of iClickers.

But in the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Science, in housing and food services, in student develop-ment, you can count on three hands the number of people UBC pays $200,000 a year to (seriously, it’s a grand total of 13). These are the segments of the university that more students directly partic-ipate in than any other, but while UBC can’t go out and hire a renowned expert in these fields, mil-lions can be spent on professors in Commerce and Medicine and in research facilities for much more.

In a university striving to become international-ly lauded, this is perhaps inevitable—that’s where the money, donors, and international rankings respond to. For those of not part of that minori-ty, it’s a stark reminder where UBC’s highest pri-orities ultimately lie. U

arshy [email protected]

Everyone likes a good ranking list. Baseball fanatics spend hours debat-ing whether Roger Clemens’ fastball had more fire than Nolan Ryan’s. Mu-sic aficionados similarly pick and preen over the 19th best Lou Reed track. In more serious arenas, economists and policymakers compare the GDP, GNP or HDI of developing countries, watch-ing with great interest as they rise and fall relative to one another. In this way, the world of academia is no different.

But university rankings are a rela-tively new phenomenon. Although the Maclean’s University Rankings have been around since 1990, it was only in the early 2000s that rankings went worldwide and mainstream.

Since then, they’ve become an om-nipresent (and some might say om-nipotent) reality of post-secondary education.

Students vex over them when decid-ing which university to attend and poli-ticians point to them as either a source of pride or a reason to prod a universi-ty to improve. Most dangerously, uni-versities have begun to adjust their be-haviour to receive better scores.

Conventional wisdom is that these rankings emphasize excellence in re-search above other aspects such as teach-ing or benefiting the local community and a new report by the European Uni-versity Association confirms that the con-ventional wisdom is as much for a reason.

“Global university rankings reflect university research performance far more accurately than teaching,” the re-port declared.

Not only is research most heavily mea-sured, but certain types of research, espe-cially medicine and natural sciences, are held head-and-shoulders above the rest.

Fields where most findings are pub-lished in peer-review journals, as op-posed to books, get much more weight in these rankings. That means that dis-ciplines in the humanities, social sci-ences and some applied sciences get short shrift—which should come as no surprise to an Arts student at UBC.

The fact that the rankings are flawed is no big news, but a problem arises when both the public and universities start viewing them as definitive reflec-tions on institution-wide performance.

These rankings create incentives for universities to improve very spe-cific metrics instead of actually im-proving quality and, in some cases, it

also pushes them to actually manipu-late statistics and lie. Don’t think this happens? Well, in 2004 the National Post obtained internal memos from UBC administrators that showed they “pressured faculty members to ma-nipulate enrollment and in some cas-es capped class sizes” in order to im-prove UBC’s rankings in Maclean’s an-nual supplement.

Fans of The Wire will know this bet-ter as ‘ juking the stats.’

Rankings are insidious in other ways as well. Employers start to look at them to see how well-educated a student is (which it doesn’t measure). A human-ities student from SFU who may have a better education than a UBC student may be less likely to get a job because, essentially, UBC has a higher ranking due to its medical research program. That seems truly perverse.

Universities are multi-faceted insti-tutions with a variety of missions, re-search being just one of them. We need to find better ways of explaining that. In an ideal world, there would be pres-tigious ranking systems that accurate-ly measured teaching or ways that uni-versities promote social mobility. In-stead, we’re stuck with one where re-search appears to trump all. U

UBC making the ranks, but at what cost?

brian [email protected]

In general, humanity can be trusted to make simple things much more com-plicated than necessary. A straightfor-ward rule or principle will inevitably become bogged down in countless ca-veats and exceptions. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to fight against it. The stronger among us must stand for clarity and steadfastness.

The issue of whether a comma should be placed before the final item in a list exemplifies this battle.

Hilariously, those who advocate elimination of the serial comma claim they are standing up for simplicity. “Get rid of excessive punctuation!” they cry out, unaware that they are complicating our list-making gram-mar. Unfortunately, the anti-comma faction was given an unwarranted boost in confidence last week.

The serial comma is often referred to as the Oxford comma (though the reason is unclear to me because al-most all universities call for it to be

used). On Wednesday, it emerged that a new Oxford style guide advised read-ers to, “as a general rule,” avoid the serial comma. Much rejoicing ensued among my enemies. Later it emerged that this was only a branding guide for the university; the Oxford University Press has officially stated that it still calls for the serial comma to be used. That this has been largely missed by the comma eliminationists is not sur-prising, as they are a reliably lazy lot.

The only reason why this fight con-tinues is that the print media has declared a vendetta against the se-rial comma. Self-aggrandizing copy editors feel that the comma slows down the reader, which apparent-ly overrules constructing sentences that are grammatically logical. The Ubyssey follows the Canadian Press style guide, which means that my otherwise pristine, smooth, and po-etic prose in these pages is mutilat-ed by a nonsensical rule imposed by smarmy anti-commites.

When we say a list of three or more items out loud, we put a pause between

the items to avoid sounding like a men-tal case. Think of the phrase “a govern-ment of, by, and for the people.” Try saying that without the pause after “by.” It’s pretty obvious which one is the correct form, no? But that doesn’t matter to the copy editors. Can you think of any other case in which we remove the punctuation, and instruct readers to pretend it’s still there when they read it out loud?

It will never make sense to me why any editor thinks that the “and” be-tween the last two items serves as a replacement to the comma, rath-er than the independent function of simply indicating the end of the list. Don’t bother arguing about it, though; they’ll just spew out a stream of irrel-evant comments and schoolyard in-sults until you give up waiting for an actual argument.

So, for now, those of us writing for newspapers have to submit to this weird exception to the otherwise straightforward grammar of lists. But the stronger among us must fight on. Common sense must prevail. U

Oxford Commas: Smart, sensible, and sadly dying

8/ubyssey.ca/our campus/2011.06.21

Geoff lister Photo/ThE UBYSSEY

kalyeena [email protected]

Ah, the joys of parking at UBC. If you’re not one of the lucky people commuting or walking to campus, you must be all too aware of the dread that a park-ing ticket brings. Especially at UBC, which has the fourth most expensive parking of any Ca-nadian university. Apparently, even if you’re not doing some-thing wrong, someone’s assum-ing you’re at fault.

The owner of this fine motor vehicle was as legal as can be, but aside from displaying a park-ing pass, still needed to make it clear. We feel your pain. U

oUr CAMPUS

July 6, 2011

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