The Thunderbird Gazette

I ran for Sen­ate to advance sus­tain­ab­il­ity pre­cisely because it’s our university’s aca­demic gov­ern­ing body, not in spite of this. For a uni­ver­sity, sus­tain­ab­il­ity is a both an oppor­tun­ity and an oblig­a­tion, and there exists incred­ible poten­tial to achieve this vis­ion. UBC’s aca­demic role is a cru­cial part of this poten­tial. Right now, most assign­ments, essays and papers are seen only by one’s prof and one’s recycle bin. Were our learn­ing har­nessed to cre­ate sus­tain­ab­il­ity solu­tions, we would not only get a more sus­tain­able cam­pus, but a more mean­ing­ful education.

Research is a sim­ilar story. At its worst, it’s simply tossed down from the Ivory Tower in the hope that someone some­where will make use of it. Instead, we could part­ner with the com­munity to address sus­tain­ab­il­ity chal­lenges and use our cam­pus as a “liv­ing labor­at­ory” for sus­tain­ab­il­ity solutions.

This is why the Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Aca­demic Strategy work­ing group made recom­mend­a­tions in areas of teach­ing and research as well as oper­a­tions when out­lining the future of sus­tain­ab­il­ity at UBC. Spe­cific­ally, meas­ures out­lined include the cre­ation of up to a minor in sus­tain­ab­il­ity in every degree pro­gram and the devel­op­ment on inter­dis­cip­lin­ary research pro­jects focused on UBC’s oper­a­tions. The imple­ment­a­tions of these and other pro­pos­als out­lined in the strategy will be my top pri­or­ity over the com­ing year.

Sus­tain­ab­il­ity must be a part of UBC’s aca­demic role, not simply to its oper­a­tions. The task of advan­cing sus­tain­ab­il­ity is not simply about “green­ing” our oper­a­tions and offer­ing a few sus­tain­ab­il­ity courses. It is about har­ness­ing and con­nect­ing our aca­demic and oper­a­tional assets, link­ing them to the wider com­munity, and address­ing the pro­found sus­tain­ab­il­ity chal­lenges we face.

The design and con­struc­tion of the new SUB is guided by its sus­tain­ab­il­ity charter which states “[t]he new SUB will serve as [a] plat­form for learn­ing and action around sus­tain­ab­il­ity, pro­mot­ing pos­it­ive social change, respons­ible beha­viour as local and global cit­izens, and adapt­ive pat­terns of sus­tain­able life all within a vibrant UBC cam­pus com­munity.” And so it should. The LEED rat­ing sys­tem is a meas­ure­ment tool of a building’s envir­on­mental per­form­ance, account­ing for such factors as energy effi­ciency and mater­i­als use. A more com­pre­hens­ive stand­ard, the Liv­ing Build­ing Chal­lenge, will also guide the process.

The crit­ics are right that the simple achieve­ment of a LEED Plat­inum stand­ard should not be a goal in and of itself. The appear­ance of such a rat­ing, how­ever, is not the only motiv­a­tion for going through the LEED pro­cess. As an inter­na­tional stand­ard, it can be help­ful for com­mu­nic­at­ing expect­a­tions to archi­tects and con­tract­ors. Fur­ther­more, LEED can set the bar for envir­on­mental per­form­ance and allow the AMS to exper­i­ment over and above this standard.

While I’m not an expert in green build­ing or the SUB Renewal pro­cess, con­ver­sa­tions with those who are have led me to believe that LEED is an import­ant tool in the cre­ation of a genu­inely sus­tain­able Stu­dent Union Build­ing. But by no means should we stop there. I sin­cerely hope that Eka­ter­ina Dovjenko, this year’s incom­ing VP Admin­is­tra­tion, will live up to the ambi­tious vis­ion set out in the sus­tain­ab­il­ity charter.

If there’s one thing that sucks more than exams, it’s hav­ing three in two days. Back in first year I remem­ber hav­ing 3 exams within 26 hours. I emailed someone in the naïve hope that UBC would bend just a little. “The policy is very clear,” I was told, “Exams can only moved if three or more are sched­uled within 24 hours.” How silly of me to expect sympathy.

Year after year, stu­dent sen­ator can­did­ates cam­paign on this issue. Year after year, noth­ing happens.

This past year, stu­dent sen­at­ors suc­ceeded in learn­ing why. Basic­ally, in order to extend the hard­ship period, more make-up exams would need to be sched­uled. To do so, we need more exam slots. And to get more exam slots, we need either a longer exam period or more finals in the early morn­ing or late evening.

Pre­sum­ably, exams at 7pm on Christ­mas Eve aren’t what advoc­ates of a longer exam hard­ship period have in mind.

It’s time for us to move on to more import­ant issues.

In short, it’s a great idea. Credit/D/Fail allows stu­dents to take chal­len­ging elect­ive courses without wor­ry­ing about their GPA. A math major with a pen­chant for eight­eenth cen­tury poetry can take that Eng­lish class she’s always wanted to and still get into grad school. It’s regret­table, how­ever, that it’s tak­ing so long.

I have a strong con­vic­tion that elec­ted rep­res­ent­at­ives must be account­able to their con­stitu­ents. Account­ab­il­ity to stu­dents will be a top pri­or­ity over the com­ing year.

It’s easy for stu­dent sen­at­ors to work in isol­a­tion from those who elec­ted them see­ing as many stu­dents have never heard of the Sen­ate, much less under­stand what it does. I’m plan­ning on turn­ing my face­book cam­paign page into an updates feed where I can keep stu­dents in touch and dis­cuss import­ant issues as they come up. I’ll also be hold­ing reg­u­lar office hours after my term starts.

As much as pos­sible, I’d like to con­nect stu­dents to body whose decisions affect their aca­demic lives. I’ve out­lined a few ideas for how to accom­plish that, and I’m open to fur­ther suggestions.

If you like what you’re read­ing, please con­sider vot­ing for us at the ongo­ing voter-funded media com­pet­i­tion. It’s a small but appre­ci­ated way to keep us motivated!