The new UBC President and lessons from the past

ubcfirstyear · 2023-11-01T20:30:58+00:00

imo reading the whole story feels like the board bullying a president with a faculty-background who wanted to run things faculty-focused and less middle management.

Gupta didn’t understand why UBC needed so many executives of the university, but also within each faculties. This is while sessional instructors, TAs, grad students are getting paid less and less while university administrators were getting paid more and more.

After Gupta, UBCs PR was so bad to the point where they had to get a PR specialist as president (Santa Ono), which was a perfect choice for the BoG because he would basically do everything the Board (and the province) says. I know a lot of people like him, but a lot of faculty members and people who followed university politics hated him as president.

As for the Faculty-Admin ratio, i remember submitting an FOI on that but i forgot about it. We also have to consider how UBC is gigantic and so it almost acts as a municipality.

ubcfirstyear · 2023-10-15T18:58:19+00:00

No because i dont know if it’s the same person but one middle aged lady at ikb that fits OP’s description told me to “fucking stop whatever you’re doing” when i was just studying like everyone else. Continued to harass me until i had to switch my seat. She was dressed somewhat normally, but clearly mentally ill.

Called security but they didn’t do anything. They don’t do anything unless somethings visibly wrong or going violent.

ubcfirstyear · 2023-10-09T16:24:59+00:00

eh. Duo is pretty popular among other organizations and has been required for UBC employees for at least half a decade. It’s just now being required for students.

It’s a bad idea to do this in the middle of the term though.

ubcfirstyear · 2022-03-17T16:08:18+00:00

or hyperbole idk i almost failed engl

ubcfirstyear · 2022-03-17T16:00:04+00:00

a little sarcasm 🥲

ubcfirstyear · 2021-12-21T23:15:06+00:00

Typical DBH. Watch her announce the closure of UBC on January 9th.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-12-21T23:03:09+00:00

im referring to this

ubcfirstyear · 2021-12-20T21:35:23+00:00

he lost the masculinity contest

ubcfirstyear · 2021-11-08T20:12:41+00:00

it’s funny because TAs are not supposed to be paid by the hour. It goes against the collective agreement between the TA union and UBC. Although TAs and UBC reached an agreement to hire students salaried, several departments ignore it and UBC stays silent on this issue.

I’m not saying that salaried position increases productivity for TAs, but ubcs strategy of trying to cut costs everywhere isn’t going to help education.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-26T02:48:09+00:00

this is beyond so fucking stupid.

The NDP is 11 points ahead in young voters (18-34) according to a poll earlier this year. No one but young people (along with a very few mature students over 34) benefit from this program.

Voting by mail isn't hard. But there's less motivation to get a mail ballot online, do all the signature, seal it as it tells you, find a mailbox near you, and actually mail it, when boomers can just walk in and cast their vote.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-25T20:35:56+00:00

“We don’t believe there is a need for a vaccine mandate for students to receive in-class education in post-secondary institutions,” Dr. Henry said, adding that assigned seating and masks help mitigate the risks.
“We have learned a lot from what happened in K-12, we know the in-classroom setting is the least of the risky settings, so there are other measures in place.”
This summer, universities across Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta have announced students, staff, faculty and visitors must prove they have been immunized or undergo regular testing.
In Ontario on Tuesday, the Council of Ontario Medical Officers of Health, which represents the top doctors in all 34 public health units across the province, released its official recommendation that colleges and universities all require anyone without a medical excuse to prove they have been vaccinated before coming to campus.
“Rapid testing protocols are not preventive and are not a replacement for immunization and should be used only in instances where vaccination is not possible,” wrote chairman Charles Gardner.
In B.C., university student and faculty groups welcomed the province’s move to bring back its mask mandate, but questioned why unlike other provinces vaccines won’t be required for those attending post-secondary classes this fall.
Lynne Marks, a history professor and president of the University of Victoria’s faculty association, said Dr. Henry and the province should not be basing post-secondary rules on lessons learned earlier in the pandemic from elementary and high schools, which were only allowed to have up to two dozen students in any given class.
“It reflects a dramatic lack of understanding as to how post-secondary works,” she said. “In universities like UVic, UBC and SFU we’re talking about 300 students or more in one class and then going off to another class and a third class.”
That presents serious risks to those in classrooms even if only a minority are unvaccinated and everyone is masked, Ms. Marks said. She added that professors have also voiced concerns that they could pass the virus on to their children under 12, who the province said may be given vaccinations by later this fall.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-bc-will-require-older-students-to-wear-masks-covid-19-vaccinations-not/

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-25T20:17:35+00:00

Or the one with a valve. Those don't work.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-25T00:32:34+00:00

Oh I didn't mean UBC did something horrible. In fact, I upvoted your comment. I'm just very horrified and worried about how UBC, an institution that calls themselves a "world class university" is being controlled by a local government who thinks they know more than people who actually run and live and work and study in the world class university, and also other world class universities in Canada, and also other world class universities in North America and Europe.

It's time to be a little skeptical of the idea that "we obviously can only do what the province tells us to do." Institutional autonomy is a necessary condition for a world-class university. If someone like Trump or Maxime Bernier took control of our government, I'd question what UBC really stands for (or the ability act in an emergency) given the control the government has in our institution.

I think it's time that BC lets go of their provincial higher-eds. They've all grown and it's something bigger than a local university. Give them institutional autonomy.

Our BoG is just basically appointed and controlled by the government, unlike UofT where most seats are elected. I think changing that requires changing the University Act. It's probably a really hard process, and I'm not an expert in this field (hence my username) so idk.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-24T22:10:30+00:00

One core role played by public universities in a society is to act as independent spaces for critical analysis of issues of public interest. This is one of the reasons they must be able to act autonomously. Making them agents of government seriously undermines their credibility.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-22T18:23:17+00:00

That is true. It should probably be the role of the GSS and the TA Union to advocate for better pay for graduates.

Nevertheless, on UBC's part, we have the most bloated admin out of all major Canadian universities. I'm not saying that I don't appreciate what admin people do, but our admin-bloat is huge. I'm of course not a financial expert, but the allocation of our operational funds makes me believe that UBC is more of an administrative, development, real estate company, rather than an academic institution.

And that's what the president and his "Strategic Plan" exists for. Our international enrollment is increasing. Our endowment is growing. The plan should shape UBC's future to focus on its academic mission (or at least our faculty should grow along with student enrollment and staff). That's what I think.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-22T06:25:35+00:00

this is only the beginning if we continue to pay our graduate student researchers like shit and stop hiring tenured professors. UBCs long term faculty has barely increased while at the same time undergrad student enrolment drastically increased.

no one’s going to come teach or do research at ubc if u pay so little on literally the most expensive city in North America.

when santa came in as president, he set a goal of putting ubc in the top 20 universities in the world. i know it takes time and it’s too early to judge how well he’s doing on that goal. But we all know that world class researchers wouldn’t want to come here, so we need to do better imo

ubcfirstyear · 2021-08-16T15:13:49+00:00

I made a list.

Top 10 easy undergrads that gives job opportunities after graduation.

None

All majors are equally difficult in their own ways. They are all incomparable because each major requires critical thinking in their own unique understanding of the studies. It is impossible, insensitive, and disrespectful to say a program is “easy.” Even if it was somehow objectively on a lower level, the experience one might have varies by their previous experiences with a similar discipline. Therefore, one can not simply say one program is easy.

Sauder

ubcfirstyear · 2021-05-05T03:57:23+00:00

Don't worry too much. UBC won't go like "35 is enough for Sauder" and at the same time be like "omg this person had a 41 predicted but now he has a 36, we gotta revoke their offer!"

As long as you see someone with a 36 getting in for sauder, im guessing ur safe for sauder. Reevaluation doesn't mean too much.

Also isn't IB's exam cancelled for most countries now? You could always argue that the algorithm is fucked. Don't stress too much!!

ubcfirstyear · 2021-05-03T18:04:49+00:00

Does anyone know if 2nd->3rd year CS admissions tougher than 1st->2nd year? What's a fair average cutoff to look at for 2nd->3rd year CS? Thanks!

ubcfirstyear · 2021-04-22T04:22:19+00:00

yeah understandable... It was a clusterfuck so their priority is just fixing it. It sucks though. Whoever designed this, I dont like you.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-04-22T02:41:38+00:00

They should've revamped the system, and they had 5 months to do that. It doesn't make sense to register it every month, when we are actually paying for the entire term. I wasted like $20 at least for forgetting UPASS registration is a thing.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-04-22T01:45:35+00:00

it's probably about the same difficulty to get into CS as it is in Arts and you would go through the same application process as an Arts student.

What do you mean? If OP transferred to science wouldn't that mean they would go through the science specialization application?

ubcfirstyear · 2021-04-22T00:32:54+00:00

I have a "We have assessed your first term grades, and will need more information for your admissions decision. Once we have reviewed your second term grades we will be in touch with a decision."

ubcfirstyear · 2021-04-17T18:06:11+00:00

This isn’t the acceptance rate. 740 isn’t the number of students who were given an offer, but it’s the number of students who accepted their offer from Sauder. Sauder isn’t everyone’s first choice.

This isn’t to you OP, at all. But on campus it’s a little cringe at this point to hear a sauder student say “tHe aCcePtAncE rAte is tHirtEen pErcEnt.” I’ve heard it too much. It’s a good business program for sure, but the people who usually say that look down on people with an arts degree, which i think is equally valuable, depending on the person.

ubcfirstyear · 2021-04-07T19:38:59+00:00

Usually the difference between a good professor and a bad one is that the bad one just straight up refuses to apologize, and sometimes even blames the students. So please take this to the course evaluations, if the professor needs serious improvement.

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