News

Alex Ohlin, Canadian author and English professor, has been named the new chair of UBC’s creative writing program. On January 1, 2018, she will take over from interim co-chair and creative writing professor Linda Svendsen.

During the May meeting of the UBC Vancouver Senate, a new School of Biomedical Engineering was proposed. When it came time to vote, the motion passed. But every one of the student senators voted against it.

Dr. Susan E. Parker, the current Deputy University Librarian at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, is the new UBC University Librarian. This appointment came after a three month search.

This switchover will occur over a 15 month migration period, where some courses will use the Canvas platform while others will remain on Connect. By September 2018, all courses will be located on Canvas.

In early April, the EUS found out that it was missing $30,000 in Engineering Design Team Council fees — the result of three consecutive years of short fees since the 2014/2015 term. The fund has since been found.

Since the AMS’s Lighter Footprint Strategy was written in 2008, sustainability has become a shifting definition, and as a result, the AMS is redefining its targets. More students are becoming interested and aware of sustainability issues.

The brewery committee will be looking into funding plans, possible commercial operation models, the academic aspect of the brewery, as well as the development of long-term agreements with the university.

While the exact financial statements have yet to be released, VP Finance Alim Lakhiyalov said that thanks to a solid performance last year, the AMS will be able to move forward in the fall with a tentative $356,000 surplus.

“The 480 duplicates other more efficient routes between Richmond and UBC, and has seen declining ridership in recent years,” wrote Jill Drews, a Translink media relations advisor, in an email to The Ubyssey.

According to Dr. Kin Lo, Sauder's senior associate dean of students, the main reason is the “incompatibility” between Sauder's requirements and students' level of progress and maturity. This problem arises from how the degree is structured.

So far, Morrell Andrews noted that “the three main topics that most people are really concerned about are climate and environment, employment, and the UN2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.”

In April 2017, the Board of Governors approved GamePlan, UBC’s athletics and recreation facilities strategy. The strategy is a broad set of proposals to address the needs of the UBC community, determined by consultative processes earlier this year.

Following revelations of mismanaged funds and conflicts of interest exposed by a recent Ubyssey investigation, UBCO student union is in talks with Meyers Norris Penny to conduct an external review of the union’s operations.

UBC student Louis Gonick has been missing for over one month since his disappearance on April 16. Many parties are now involved in the search for him, but none seems to have made a significant breakthrough in this investigation.

This program aims to end the systemic discrimination of gender and sexual minorities by providing BC educators with lesson plans on sexual orientation and gender identity terminology, as well as ways to create inclusive classrooms and community.