The Ubyssey, October 21 2025 - give and take

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EDITORIAL

Editor-in-Chief

Aisha Chaudhry eic@ubyssey.ca

Managing Editor

Saumya Kamra managing@ubyssey.ca

News Editor Stephen Kosar news@ubyssey.ca

Arts & Culture Editor

Julian Coyle Forst culture@ubyssey.ca

Features Editor Elena Massing features@ubyssey.ca

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Editor Spencer Izen deputymanaging@ubyssey.ca opinion@ubyssey.ca

Humour Editor Kyla Flynn humour@ubyssey.ca

Sports & Recreation Editor Caleb Peterson sports@ubyssey.ca

Research Editor Elita Menezes research@ubyssey.ca

Illustration & Print Editor

Ayla Cilliers illustration@ubyssey.ca

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Photo Editor Sidney Shaw photo@ubyssey.ca

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The Ubyssey acknowledges we operate on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the Coast Salish peoples including the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations.

The Vilest Rag is The Ubyssey’s new weekly podcast

Elena Massing Features Editor

sexism, homophobia, transphobia, harassment or discrimination. Authors and/or submissions will not be precluded from publication based solely on association with particular ideologies or subject matter that some may find objectionable. Approval for publication is, however, dependent on the quality of the argument and The Ubyssey editorial board’s judgment of appropriate content. Submissions may be sent by email to opinion@ ubyssey.ca. Please include your student number or other proof of identification. Anonymous submissions will be accepted on extremely rare occasions. Requests for anonymity will be granted upon agreement from seven-eighths of the editorial board. Full opinions policy may be found at ubyssey.ca/pages/submit-an-opinion It is agreed by all persons placing display or classified advertising that if the UPS fails to publish an advertisement or if an error in the ad occurs the liability of the UPS will not be greater than the price paid for the ad. The UPS shall not be responsible for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value or the impact of the ads. LEGAL

encouraged to participate. Editorials are written by The Ubyssey’s editorial board and they do not necessarily reflect the views of the UPS or UBC. All editorial content appearing in The Ubyssey is the property of the UPS. Stories, opinions, photographs and artwork contained herein cannot be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of the Ubyssey Publications Society. The Ubyssey is a founding member of Canadian University Press (CUP) and adheres to CUP’s guiding principles. The Ubyssey accepts opinion articles on any topic related to UBC and/or topics relevant to students attending UBC. Submissions must be written by UBC students, professors, alumni or those in a suitable position (as determined by the opinion editor) to speak on UBC-related matters. Submissions must not contain racism,

The Ubyssey periodically receives grants from the Government of Canada to fund web development and summer editorial positions.

The Ubyssey has produced podcasts in the past — there was CULT!, an arts and culture podcast hosted by Olamide Olaniyan from 2017–18, and Since 1918, which had a brief stint around six years ago. Since then, however, we haven’t been taking advantage of audio forms as much as we could’ve been.

We recognize that people aren’t picking up a physical newspaper as often as they used to and are opting to scroll through social media rather than getting their news directly from the journalistic source. But we think this needs to change — we want people to go beyond the headline and engage with their campus in a more thoughtful way, and maybe this means giving you different ways to consume accurate, thoroughly-researched information.

So, this year, we’re getting back behind the microphone to give podcasting another go.

The Vilest Rag is a new weekly podcast on all things UBC and Ubyssey. For the next couple of months, each episode will feature a member of our editorial board. They’ll be breaking down the type of work they do at the newspaper and how they ended up finding their way to journalism.

Our editors lead pretty interesting lives outside of The Ubyssey as well, so don’t worry — we won’t

just be talking about reporting. Editor-in-Chief Aisha Chaudhry reveals her love for Fyre Festival, News Editor Stephen Kosar opens up about his past as a child actor and Sports and Recreation Editor Caleb Peterson outs himself as a podcaster (not that we can judge him now).

Over the years, we’ve noticed a lot of our readers don’t fully understand how The Ubyssey operates and what our responsibilities are as journalists, which is why we’ll be having these conversations with members of The Ubyssey team for an inside look at what it takes to keep a newspaper running. It’s important to us that we are being as clear as possible about why we make certain decisions, and we’re always striving to better serve our readers.

Our publication is undergoing a lot of changes at the moment, and we think it’s important for you to know about them. On the show, we talk about our strategic plan, Ubyssey, Reloaded, and our new Contributing Journalist Program.

We’ll also be going over some of our favourite articles published each week. With our new staffing model, we currently have a team of over 50 editors, reporters and contributors who produce high-quality work and deserve to have their efforts recognized. After we’ve spoken with all of the editors, we’ll be inviting reporters onto the show to unpack how they found and told

specific stories.

This podcast won’t just be focusing on UBC in the present. “Since 1918” is a segment within The Vilest Rag where Columnist Quyen Schroeder goes through The Ubyssey’s archives to find interesting moments in our university’s history. Students back then confronted a lot of the same issues we’re currently facing — like housing crises, university funding and human rights advocacy — and it’s fascinating to look back at how students made their voices heard and ultimately made it through. They also talk about the more absurd parts of our past, like the reverend that blessed The Vilest Rag with its name and how engineering students had a bad habit of kidnapping Ubyssey editors.

Tune in to The Vilest Rag to learn more about your campus and to meet the people behind the articles. A new episode comes out every Thursday morning.

Find the show on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or by scanning the QR code below. U

AYLA CILLIERS

AYLA CILLIERS / THE UBYSSEY

This year, The Ubyssey is getting back behind the microphone to give podcasting another go.

Fifth annual intergenerational march commemorates residential school survivors

Zoé Stojanovic & Julian Coyle Forst Contributor & Arts & Culture Editor

Editor’s Note: This article contains mention of violence against Indigenous communities, residential schools and abuse.

Marking Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30, UBC’s Faculties of Land and Food Systems (LFS) and Forestry hosted the fifth annual Intergenerational March to Commemorate Orange Shirt Day.

As crowds of students, families and Vancouverites gathered at the outdoor amphitheatre beside the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, orange shirts, sweaters and scarves gradually filled the space. Attendees sat on benches and steps, laid on the grass and leaned against railings until the amphitheatre became an orange sea of people on the day of reflection.

The federal statutory holiday started in 2021, in recognition of the impacts of settler-colonial violence on Indigenous peoples throughout Canada’s history. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) called for a national holiday to honour survivors of residential schools and their communities in their 2015 calls to action, ensuring that “public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.”

Dana-Lyn Mackenzie, senior manager of EDI & Indigeneity at the Faculty of Forestry and lead organizer of the march, opened the event by thanking participants and laying out the theme of this year’s programming — “honouring youth, carrying hope.” In that spirit, Mackenzie handed off the microphone to Indigenous students, including her own daughter, to introduce the various speakers and performers throughout the event.

Musqueam Councillor Alec Guerin opened with a welcome to the Musqueam land on which UBC’s Point Grey campus is situated. Distinct from a land acknowledgment, Guerin reminded listeners that this welcome was a legal tradition passed down by generations of Musqueam leaders before him. He emphasized that reconciliation is not solely awareness, but rather a responsibility that falls on every person and that stretches far beyond a single day of the year.

Guerin’s welcome was followed by a speech from MP Wade Grant, representative of Vancouver Quadra in the House of Commons and a former Musqueam councillor himself. Grant thanked government officials, including Premier David Eby, for their presence at the march and reminded the audience of the importance of attending and commemorating Truth and Reconciliation Day ceremonies.

An Indigenous student drumming group followed Grant, performing two prayer songs in commemoration of the

“

Guerin emphasized that reconciliation is not solely awareness, but rather a responsibility that falls on every person and that stretches far beyond one single day of the year.

victims of residential schools. Each performer then took up the microphone to introduce themselves, their nation and their connection to the trauma caused by the residential school system, naming family members and loved ones who were subject to it and suffered under it. Their speeches pointed to an idea that would become a hallmark of this year’s march — that the impact of residential schools and colonial violence is not limited to those who experienced it firsthand. It

reverberates across generations and shapes both Indigenous and settler communities across the continent.

Squamish Elder Sam George took the stage after the drumming group to speak on his own experiences at St. Paul’s Residential School in North Vancouver. George attended St. Paul’s until he was 15 years old, and the abuses that he experienced and witnessed there have impacted him throughout his life, he said. After leaving residential school,

out for lunch.

After George’s speech, Cree performers Mitchell Tourangeau and Aileen Michel (Li’l Bear) spoke on the impact of intergenerational trauma from residential schools — neither of them attended, but both had relatives whose trauma from the experience manifested in abuse towards their family. Tourangeau also spoke on the repercussions of the Sixties Scoop, an era of widespread abduction of Indigenous children by the Canadian government. These children were removed from their families by child welfare agents and put up for adoption into non-Indigenous families.

The pair performed a set of traditional songs, with Tourangeau drumming and singing while Michel danced in bear regalia. Complete with long furs and a bear-head hood, the regalia combined with Michel’s lumbering movements gave a lifelike impression of the animal.

With the last of the day’s opening performances complete, Mackenzie returned to direct marchers towards Main Mall and the Reconciliation Pole at Thunderbird Commons. She emphasized the weight of the subject matter being discussed and encouraged listeners to take time and reflect on their feelings and reactions.

The march’s route was lined with several signs displaying quotes from Indigenous elders, Canadian officials, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that highlighted the brutality of colonialism and the residential school system. This invited marchers to reflect on their place in Canada, marking the march as an occasion for serious thought and introspection.

The procession down Main Mall was made up in large part of children of all ages peering out of strollers and chasing each other on the grass — though some were clearly too young to understand the context of the ceremony, many appeared to genuinely engage with the signs along the path, reading the quotes aloud to each other and talking about how the content made them feel.

Marchers making their way past the Engineering Cairn — painted bright orange — were invited to add their handprint in white paint to the monument in recognition of the children lost to the residential school system.

George became addicted to drugs and alcohol and went to jail — he found his time in prison greatly preferable to his time at St. Paul’s.

Though George was estranged from his children throughout his life as a result of his trauma and addictions, he’s now been sober for 35 years and has reconnected with many of his relations. He wouldn’t change his life now if he had the option, he said. As if on cue, George’s phone rang during his speech — one of his nieces, he said, likely trying to invite him

At Thunderbird Commons, LFS Dean David Kitts and Forestry Associate Dean, EDI Hisham Zerriffi spoke on the vital place that reconciliation must take in land-based fields of study. They explained that the work their respective faculties do in pursuit of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action and acknowledged the long road that still remains ahead.

After some final words and a thanks to the Creator for the day’s unexpectedly dry weather from Mackenzie, the fifth Intergenerational March to Commemorate Orange Shirt Day dispersed. U

ZOE WAGNER / THE UBYSSEY

Clockwise, from top: MP Wade Grant, Vancouver Quadra, giving a speech at the march; participants walking across main mall; marchers add their handprints to the Engineering Cairn in recognition of the children lost to the residential school system; and an educational board on the day.

SIDNEY SHAW / THE UBYSSEY

SIDNEY SHAW / THE UBYSSEY

SIDNEY SHAW / THE UBYSSEY

Mourners hold vigil for Gaza on anniversary of Oct. 7

Aisha Chaudhry Editor-in-Chief

Oct. 7 means different things to different people.

Tuesday marked two years since Hamas killed 1,200 and kidnapped 251 Israelis — the start of Israel’s retaliation that has led to the killing of 66,000 Palestinians and seriously injured nearly 168,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. On Sept. 16, the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

According to the United Nations Satellite Centre, 78 per cent of structures have been destroyed or damaged in Gaza as of July 1, which has included demolishing all universities and targeting hospitals.

On the morning of Oct. 9, the Israeli government ratified a ceasefire deal with Hamas — the first phase inluded Hamas releasing 20 hostages within 72 hours of the start of the ceasefire. Hamas is also expected to release the bodies of 26 deceased hostages, and Israel is expected to release 250 Palestinian prisoners in their jails and 1,700 detainees from Gaza.

At the Musqueam post, over a hundred community members gathered on the evening of Oct. 7 to grieve together. Palestinian flags blew in the wind, attendants brought flowers and laid out a tarp that stretched metres long, listing the names of the Palestinian children killed by Israel — the UN has reported at least 18,000 kids have

been killed.

The vigil was organized by several UBC clubs and organizations, including Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights, Grad Students for Palestine, Palestinian Solidarity Action and Independent Jewish Voices.

The event included speeches, prayers, recitations of poems and performances of honour and grief songs.

Before this, the UBC Encampment group set up a table near the knoll outside the Nest to provide information about the occupation, what solidarity can look like and what the university could be doing differently. They also created a memorial with dozens of Palestinian flags placed into the grass and chalk on the cement that read “Free Palestine.”

The first speaker at the vigil introduced themselves as Noor and said they were a third-generation Palestinian refugee. They spoke about growing up in Gaza, the weight of being separated from their parents as a teenager, and the horrors of watching members of their family continue to be killed by the Israeli Army.

“I still can’t understand how people can watch a genocide unfold every day and still act like nothing is happening,” said Noor.

“The occupation has almost erased most of my family from existence, but they will never be erased. They will never erase our voice … I carry their names, not as victims, but as proof that Palestinians live with dignity, even in death.”

Noor recalled fond memories of his family, and their speech allowed them to be remembered for the joy and warmth they brought into the world. “I lived among some of the most pure and generous people.”

Several community members performed two songs: one was an honour song from the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Cherokee people called “The Oneness Walk,” and the following song, one community member explained, was meant to help centre grief.

The final speaker of the night opened by asking fellow Indigenous people to stand with them as they spoke. “This is what it looks like [to be] survivors of genocide for all of our Palestinian kin who are here … you will be in the future. [Palestine] will be free,” they said.

The UBC alum recalled their time on campus, explaining that during difficult times they found solace in the First Nations House of Learning. In the house, they explained, there was a “graduation door” that only graduates walked through and their desire to one day walk through that door is what kept them going.

“I was so proud … when I walked through those doors. And then we moved forward in time, and here I am on this campus … and my feelings about graduating from here are nothing the same. I am horrified and ashamed that this was my alma mater.”

Over the past two years, community members have demanded UBC divest from companies that are complicit in Palestinian human

rights abuses and condemn Israel’s actions, through steps such as protests, open letters, building occupations and a two-month encampment.

On May 7 last year, UBC President Benoit-Antoine Bacon released a UBC broadcast about the protests and wrote that UBC’s “Endowment Fund does not directly own any stocks in the companies identified by the [boycott, divest and sanction (BDS)] movement.”

Instead, “capital is held in pooled funds and managed by external investment managers.”

The next week, Bacon released another statement addressing UBC’s stance on the demands of the protestors; reaffirming UBC does not directly own stocks in companies identified by the BDS

movement and did not condemn Israel’s actions.

“As such, like the rest of the world, we hope for a ceasefire and a lasting peaceful resolution in the Middle East,” he wrote.

Bacon has not released another statement on the protests since then.

“There is an important teaching that so many of our people … believe, and that is that our tears, when we cry, it’s cleaning our spirit. Our body is the only thing that holds us earthside,” said the final speaker.

“We are everywhere. For all of the martyrs, they are everywhere … For those of us here: we keep fighting, we clean our spirits and we stay connected. Long live the resistance.” U

“I still can’t understand how people can watch a genocide unfold every day and still act like nothing is happening,” said one speaker.

Point of Inquiry: Is stability worth a restriction on autonomy? The AMS asks students to decide for resource groups

Point of Inquiry is a column written by AMS Columnist Quyen Schroeder about our student union’s governance and policies. It seeks to analyze the AMS with a critical — but constructive — eye.

Quyen Schroder (they/she) is a fourth-year student studying English language and computer science, and they’ve been a committed observer of almost all AMS Council meetings since February 2023. She also ran as “Barry ‘Bee’ Buzzword” in the 2025 AMS presidential election. They can be reached at q.schroeder@ubyssey. ca.

Quyen Schroeder

AMS Columnist

Bylaw changes are coming — and you’ll be able to vote for them on Oct. 22 at the AMS’ Annual General Meeting (AGM).

The AMS Bylaws are the union’s most stable governing document. To change them, the union must call a general meeting or propose a referendum item. Then, two-thirds of voters must vote in favour of the change.

During a general election, for a bylaw change to be quorate — that is, for enough students to vote in it for it to count — eight per cent of UBC’s student body needs to vote. For next week’s AGM, that number is one per cent of students: just over 600 people. By showing up on Oct. 22, your vote for or against these bylaw changes will be significantly more impactful.

I’ll break down these changes so you can decide whether it’s worth turning out to the AGM to support these bylaws or just for the chance at a year-long supply of Blue Chip cookies. While I think you should show up to the AGM, these bylaw changes are unlikely to affect any individual student directly. For the AMS’s resource groups, however, these bylaw changes acknowledge their integral place within the union and the campus community at large.

Most of the bylaw changes are minor, representing clarifications on the duties of AMS executives and small tweaks to wording that align the bylaws with provincial legislation.

FILLING VACANCIES

These bylaw changes allow the AMS to create procedures to deem a seat vacant and to appoint temporary replacements for vacant members. Multiple voting seats on council are currently vacant. The creation of a procedure to fill these seats on an interim basis is beneficial. The Affili-

ate Colleges (which includes Corpus Christi, Saint Mark’s College, Regent College and Vancouver School of Theology) and the Graduate Student Society often struggle to fill seats. A process for appointing members to vacant seats has limited effectiveness without those willing to serve.

I’m somewhat concerned about the potential of this to be used to avoid elections and appoint ideologically complacent replacements. In recent years, AMS executives who ‘left’ the AMS have taken an indefinite leave of absence without technically resigning. As such, the AMS was not required to hold a by-election, meaning they could appoint a replacement, rather than having students vote for one. The procedures the AMS develops for appointing a replacement should address this.

REMOVING COUNCILLORS

There is also a proposed amendment that would allow council to discipline, suspend and remove members of council (which includes both elected councillors and AMS executives) who are “found to be in violation of the Society’s Bylaws, Code, or internal policies.” Additionally, council can declare a member of council who has been removed from office “ineligible to be duly elected” for up to a year.

Clearly, this is in reaction to last year’s expulsion and removal of former VP AUA Drédyn Fontana. He ran for AMS president just months after he was removed from his position as VP AUA. Current AMS President Riley Huntley was vice-chair of the committee that wrote the report that led to Fontana’s removal and ran against Fontana in this spring’s election.

(I ran as joke candidate Barry ‘Bee’ Buzzword against Fontana and Huntley in the 2025–26 AMS Presidential election.)

The AMS should have a procedure to formally discipline and even remove executives. Students should not be stuck with a representative who is unable to execute the duties of their office. This bylaw change provides that mechanism perfectly adequately. It also allows council to suspend an executive, rather than outright removing one, providing a less extreme course of action for minor infractions. Again, this is a positive, allowing for discipline that is less disruptive to the continuity of the union’s operations.

I haven’t decided how I feel about the provision allowing council to prevent a removed executive from running for office. On one hand, there is value in preventing someone

council has decided is unfit for office from returning with a vengeance. (Fontana sued the AMS for severance pay and aggravated damages following his removal.) Yet, I also found genuine democratic value in Fontana’s campaign. His platform described procedures intended to address what he and numerous former executives have described as a toxic culture within the AMS. I think if Fontana were elected, he would have earnestly worked to improve the AMS.

Regardless, I take solace in knowing that executive removals are nearly unheard of in our union’s history — Fontana is the only executive to have been removed. Hopefully these new bylaws will never need to be used.

RESOURCE GROUPS

In a previous essay for this column, I expressed my hopes for a stronger relationship between the AMS and its resource groups. These bylaw changes are a tangible display of the AMS’s commitment to those relationships.

The AMS’s resource groups can be broadly split into two divisions. Some provide resources and community to marginalized students at UBC; this includes the UBC Pride Collective, the UBC Disabilities United Collective (DUC), and the UBC Women’s Centre. The rest focus on advocacy: this includes the UBC Social Justice Centre (SJC) and the UBC Student Environment Centre (SEC).

Resource Groups currently exist only as a provision of the AMS Code. Unlike the bylaws, code is easy to change. Only two-thirds of the 33 voting seats on council need to approve a change to the code. While resource groups are constituted under AMS Code, council could decide at any meeting that they don’t want resource groups to exist. Only 22 votes would be required to terminate them.

The proposed bylaw changes intend to enshrine the AMS’s resource groups into the bylaws, creating a permanence and stability for these groups that doesn’t exist now. Should these bylaws go into effect, it would take another successful referendum or AGM vote to remove resource groups. In the near future, this is unlikely given the resource groups’

recent ability to drive electoral turnout.

Adding resource groups to the bylaws does not prevent the AMS from deconstituting a specific resource group — as our union threatened to do to the SJC in 2024. The change protects the concept of resource groups, not an individual resource group. Regardless, enshrining resource groups into the bylaws is valuable, ensuring that they will exist for years to come.

But this also comes with a notable explicit restriction on their autonomy.

As a subsidiary organization, the bylaws would allow council to require resource groups to seek consent to “conduct any functions or activities using the name of the University or the Society” or “conduct any fund-raising activities including any charity drives.” While these restrictions were already in place for clubs and constituencies, these bylaw amendments extend them to resource groups.

I am concerned that this provision might be used to suppress resource groups in the future. I don’t think it’s an imminent concern — I can’t find an instance of the AMS requiring subsidiaries to seek consent for either activity. The section of AMS Code on resource groups reads, “Neither the Clubs and Societies Committee, the Finance Committee, an Executive nor the Executive Committee shall interfere with the discharge of duties by the RGAC specified in this section.” I’d be incredibly surprised if this was used before I graduate — especially by the current administration. However, I’m cognizant that we may be making problems for resource groups in the years and decades to come, particularly if the AMS’s relationship with resource groups regresses.

The AMS has attempted to restrict the dispersal of Resource Group funds before. In 2010, the SJC was planning to give a $700 grant to UBC Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR). SPHR, in turn, was planning to donate that money to a charity that would put that money towards a humanitarian aid flotilla headed for Gaza. The AMS froze the grant. For two weeks, the independence of resource groups remained in question. AMS Executives cited the SJC’s failure to hold an AGM as a reason for the freeze. At the time,

a member of the commission responsible for investigating the SJC’s AGM claimed that the reasoning was provided only after the transfer freeze was already in effect. Indeed, in the first article on the matter, the AMS said the reason for suspending the transaction was that the AMS’s VP finance “felt uncomfortable signing off on the transaction.” The commission’s investigation — likewise having been initiated only after the transfer was frozen — disproved the executives’ allegations about the SJC’s AGM.

I reached out to all five of the AMS’s resource groups. The Pride Collective and DUC supported both of the bylaw proposals — they did not share my concerns about autonomy. The SJC responded, but didn’t indicate a preference. Neither the Women’s Centre nor the SEC responded to my request for comment.

Over the past few months, the AMS has shown its commitments to engage with resource groups were more than just talk. In codifying resource groups in the bylaws, the AMS places them as a central part of their mission. This important change was not made without the input of resource groups — as has been the case in recent years.

The Pride Collective wrote in response to me that it “appreciates [AMS President Riley Huntley] and [AMS Equity and Inclusion Lead Weilan Zhang]’s willingness to engage and support the Resource Groups.” After years of nonexistent or destructive consultation with resource groups, I’m glad to see that the AMS under Huntley’s leadership is engaging in earnest and effecting positive change.

At the AGM on Oct. 22, I will be voting in favour of these changes. I think you should too — especially if you believe in the mission of the AMS Resource Groups. You can pre-register to attend the AGM on the AMS’ website. Broadly, these are all positive changes, and though I have concerns about some, the likelihood of those concerns being relevant is remote, at least in the near future. U

This is an opinion essay, and a part of a regular column. It reflects the columnist’s views and may not reflect the views of The Ubyssey as a whole. Contribute to the conversation by visiting ubyssey.ca/pages/submit-an-opinion.

The AMS will propose amendments to the society’s bylaws on Oct. 22.

PHOTO ELEMENT BY CHARLOTTE ALDEN/ THE UBYSSEY; ILLUSTRATION BY AYLA CILLIERS/THE UBYSSEY

Wednesday Noon Hour concerts return after yearlong hiatus

Zoé Stojanovic Contributor

After a one-year hiatus, the Wednesday Noon Hour concert series is back due to popular demand. Put on hiatus due to administrative changes, the long-running concert series features hour-long performances by visiting and local musicians every Wednesday at noon at the Roy Barnett Recital Hall.

Brought back by acclaimed pianist, UBC professor and Chan Centre Piano Spirio Series curator David Fung, the concert series is making its return after many requests from the UBC community. For Fung, putting together these 24 concerts for the season was a “real investment of time into something that [he] really believe[s] in, which is the cultural life and diversity here on the UBC campus.”

Sept. 24’s Noon Hour concert featured a selection of works performed by Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Acting Principal Cello Nathan Chan. As the audience was ushered into the Roy Barnett Recital Hall, the intimacy of the setting was striking. The proximity to the stage is intense — an ideal conduit for the day’s chamber music. Chan, the featured musician

LIVE MUSIC //

of the week, was enthusiastically greeted by the audience, and the energy he would bring to the performance was already palpable in his introduction to the pieces. As he introduced his first piece, Bach’s celebrated prelude to his Cello Suite No. 3, he primed the audience for his performance by associating the music with evocative imagery of angles, contours and architecture. As he started playing, his introduction rang even truer. With each movement, the audience was transported on a journey — one full of turns and nuances, emphasized by the shifting emotions of each section of the prelude.

The Bach piece was followed by the more contemporary “Alone” by Giovanni Sollima, who Chan introduced as an “innovator” moving the field of cello music forward. “Alone” was performed in a stark manner that truly felt soul-baring. It was easy to see why it was described as “haunting” in the event program. The tension in the room climbed, with contrasting dynamics in the music heightened by Chan’s physicality.

To close the show, Fung joined Chan on stage for the final Cello Sonata by Claude Debussy, accompanying him on the piano. Continuing his engaging audience

interaction, Chan commented on how the piece, written early in Debussy’s career during World War I, was intended for a smaller and more intimate chamber ensemble. For Chan, this was a thoughtful parallel to a period of works being written for smaller ensembles during the pandemic.

The sonata was a fantastic showcase of the interplay between two master artists and the magic that emerges as a result. As each played their instrument, the energy between them never broke, demonstrating an impressive mutual listening that was as fascinating as the music itself. The relationship played out by the instruments was at times playful and light, and at others competing and contentious. The final segment was almost confrontational, and the piece ended with the musicians raising their fists towards one another. The audience let out thrilled cries.

Through the series, Fung hopes to celebrate international guest artists and “build bridges and source talent from our province, our city and, most importantly, our university.” Wednesday Noon Hours are a unique opportunity for students to connect and engage with this music, “to cultivate a conversation with our students, our faculty and

the members of various communities” as well as to “shine a light on the extraordinary talent of the students and faculty at the School of Music,” said Fung. Currently, after the hard work that has gone into reviving the series and planning the concerts for the year, the next step is to get audiences to show up. Fung concluded that his “great hope is that we attract everyone in society, anyone who wants to experience this beautiful respite from their

day, this beautiful mid-day slot on this incredible campus. All are welcome.”

Life at UBC is filled with people, stress, deadlines and more people. There is something profoundly peaceful in being able to escape the outside noise and listen to evocative music for an hour. The program is varied, riveting and runs every week, all-year-long: the perfect opportunity to discover Vancouver’s musical talents, just a step away from your classes. U

Blank Vinyl Project brings down the Biltmore with Versus 2025

Culture Editor & Contributor

Blank Vinyl Project (BVP) is one of UBC’s most ambitious clubs. Each year, on top of weekly free multiband live shows at Koerner’s Pub and offering access to a dedicated jam space for members, the student-run live music club hosts several large-scale ticketed events that regularly draw crowds in the hundreds.

BVP’s independent music festival, Goosehunt, is the largest of these, typically featuring around 10 half-hour-long sets from various local bands and artists. Think of Versus, the club’s annual battle of the bands, as Goosehunt in miniature. Goslinghunt, if you

will. 2025’s iteration pitted six groups against each other in short 15-minute sets over the evening of Oct. 2.

With only enough time for four or five songs at most, the bands — Shimbashi Station, Bella Blanche with Somatone, Anteater Eater, Infidelity, Mom Cuts My Hair and Chronic Fatigue — were each up against the clock.

Where Goosehunt tends to showcase the best and brightest of UBC and Vancouver’s thriving independent scene, BVP Creative Director Emily Yang said the club’s goal with Versus is “to give certain bands — who we think deserve it — a platform in the scene.” This meant the artist booking team leaned toward

giving precedence to newer, less established bands. Bella Blanche with Somatone, for example — a languid, country-infused set in the vein of Lana Del Rey meets Mojave 3 — played Versus as their first live show.

Like Versus 2024, the event was hosted at the Biltmore Cabaret in Mount Pleasant. Though Events Coordinators Kaia Santorineos and Nina Liendo were familiar with planning shows at Koerner’s Pub — BVP’s usual stomping ground and the yearly venue for Goosehunt — interfacing with an independent venue posed new challenges.

Santorineos explained that, while BVP is not for profit, venues are invested in making as much money from each show as possible. “There are definitely some difficulties … [with] how much money [independent venues] want to make,” she said. “How much money our crowd is spending at the bar isn’t always what they want.”

Despite some organizational challenges, Versus came together smoothly. Backed by months of preparation and a dedicated team, the night had the polish of a much larger show.

Shimbashi Station kicked off the night with a set of J-pop-inspired tunes that layered ‘90s poprock melodies over impressively tight instrumentals. Anteater Eater followed Blanche & co. with an indie rock set elevated by all-in vocals from the lead vocal-gui-

tarist and backing vocal-bassist. Their song “PunK DreamZ,” with its tongue-in-cheek take on the chorus of “Blitzkrieg Bop,” was a highlight.

Up next, Infidelity’s drummer held down intricate beats while the rest of the band — guitar, bass, keys and saxophone — built up impressive runs that dropped into walls of sound. Mom Cuts My Hair followed with slow, low riding verses that built to driving choruses buoyed by excellent vocals and prominent basslines.

Chronic Fatigue closed out the night, combining punk instrumentals and choruses with rap-rock vocals on the verses from frontperson Sam Patterson. During their song “Bus Beers,” Patterson cracked open a cold one, poured it into a dog bowl he’d produced from … somewhere, and chugged it while the crowd chanted the two-words chorus — no points for guessing the words.

After all the bands had played, the audience was invited to vote on their favourite set of the night. BVP’s execs had iterated on their voting process slightly since the previous year with the addition of a field asking which sets voters had actually seen — previously every vote was weighted equally regardless of whether a respondent had arrived at 7:30 or 11. “It’s not a foolproof system,” admitted Yang, “but we’re trying to make it more fair. We want to reward bands who bring the energy and keep people engaged all night.” Of course, the

form still didn’t require emails — so yes, you could technically vote as many times as you wanted — but even with its imperfections, the new process was an improvement.

At the end of the night, Infidelity took the prize — a guaranteed spot in 2026’s Goosehunt lineup — with Shimbashi Station bringing up second place.

For the organizing team, the real prize was the energy in the room.

“It’s very exciting every year ... We’re all unpaid volunteers putting a lot of time outside of school into this. But I think it’s really worth it when you see how much it means to people,” Yang told The Ubyssey

Looking ahead, BVP continues to provide UBC students with community spaces for local music lovers. According to Yang, one main goal for the year is to build connections between BVP and other AMS clubs and campus groups like CiTR, the UBC Jazz Club and the UBC Sustainability Hub.

BVP’s executives are also pushing to include a broader range of music at club events, which currently skew heavily towards indie rock — a reflection of the broader Vancouver independent scene. The club hosts an EDM night yearly, and last year hosted an Arab Music Night at Koerner’s. They also host Guateque, a Latin music night, every November — Santorineos and Liendo are currently in the booking stages of this year’s iteration. U

Fung joined Chan on stage for the final “Cello Sonata.”

ZOE WAGNER / THE UBYSSEY

Julian Coyle Forst & Morgan Stouck Arts &

Shimbashi Station at Versus 2025

COURTESY BLANK VINYL PROJECT

UBC’s student-directed seminars

What if you could not only take a university course on zombies, online dating, or Disney fandom, but create it yourself? At UBC, upper-year undergraduates can do exactly that through the Student Directed Seminars (SDS) program. This initiative empowers students to design and lead their own three-credit courses, stepping into the role of both scholar and instructor. More than just niche topics, these seminars are a rare opportunity for students to take ownership of their learning and bring underexplored, often deeply personal interests into an academic space.

Facilitating a course through the SDS program is a rewarding but demanding process. It requires more than just a good idea — it takes academic maturity, leadership and serious time management skills. Students must reflect on their readiness to lead, find a tenured faculty sponsor to mentor them and secure a separate faculty recommender who can vouch for their facilitation and communication skills. From there, students must develop a detailed course proposal that clearly outlines the academic value of their seminar and how it differs from existing UBC offerings.

What drives students to take on the challenge? For many, it starts with a personal spark — an idea they couldn’t stop thinking about, a gap they noticed in existing coursework or a subject they felt deserved more attention in the classroom.

For Thea Sheridan-Jonah, a political science major with a minor in First Nations and Indigenous studies, the idea to create a course on the politics of drug policy grew out of years of activism and community organizing. As the longtime president of the UBC chapter of Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP), she was already deeply involved in harm reduction and drug-user liberation work on campus.

“There are a variety of groups doing harm reduction work on campus,” she explained, “but there wasn’t really an active coalition together.” That gap led her to co-found the Harm Reduction Coalition, a network that brought together organizations like CSSDP and The FentaNIL Project. It was through this collaboration that she and fellow seminar organizer Kaden Anderson-Hancock realized they had been thinking the same thing: though UBC offered some

courses on drug-related topics, there was little direct focus on drug policy within political science.

“There’s an anthropology course about drug policy and about drugs, there’s been sociology courses about them, and there’s been political science courses about housing and policing,” said Sheridan-Jonah, “but not specifically about drug policy.

blind spot, Anderson-Hancock and Sheridan-Jonah joined forces to propose a student-directed seminar — one that would bring drug policy into sharper academic focus at UBC.

The opportunity to lead a course can also provide students with a testing ground for future aspirations. Aatisha Avasthi, now an MA student in English literature at UBC, initially became

“I think [the subject] is a really helpful first step into analyzing policy and analyzing specifically how policy impacts people on a day-to-day basis, because harm reduction as a field or practice has so much research behind it specifically based in the lived experience of people who use drugs.”

In an attempt to address this

interested in facilitating a seminar as a first step towards a career as a professor. The SDS program gave her the chance to step into that role early on with her seminar on anti-colonial and feminist frameworks in undergraduate study. It allowed her to explore what it might feel like to design a course of her own and gain experience

that aligns with her long-term academic goals.

Though the SDS program offers an attractive level of freedom and opportunities for experience, bringing a seminar to life is no easy feat. There is a detailed and thorough proposal process to complete before students can even host their first class.

“The actual first step in the process of the student seminar is to find a supervisor — a faculty sponsor for the course that has some area of knowledge, preferably in [your] topic,” said Anderson-Hancock. For him and Sheridan-Jonah, that sponsor was Dr. Carey Doberstein, an associate professor of political science whose research focuses on governance and policy in reference to the housing affordability and drug crises in Canada.

“We had a meeting and constructed what we thought could be filling these gaps [in drug policy education] in the UBC curriculum. The proposal process is quite long. You have to [write a proposal with] a rationale saying why this should be a student seminar at UBC.”

”The [proposal] process itself was a lot,” agreed Avasthi. “There was a huge form that we had to fill out … The questions do require you to be mindful and intentional about [the seminar].”

After going through this process, in addition to creating the syllabus and conducting countless meetings with sponsors, the seminar can finally begin in earnest. Unlike traditional lecture-based classes led by professors, student-directed seminars tend to be smaller, more collaborative and discussion-driven. The minimum enrolment for each seminar is seven student participants (including the facilitator) and the maximum is 15, making these classes significantly more intimate than the average lecture hall.

Anna Mondragon, who facilitated the existential psychology seminar, Search for Meaning: Logotherapy as a Therapeutic Approach , noticed a clear difference from traditional lectures. The students in her seminar trended towards an “active way of learning, as opposed to passive learning,” the latter of which can be the norm for classes with a large number of enrolled students.

“[In traditional lectures], you just show up, you just sit there and you don’t get that much engagement or time for discussions,” Mondragon said. “Since our class was less of a formal class, and it

Words by Jeff Lee, illustration by Abbie Lee

seminars put students at the podium

was also way smaller, we got a lot of time to discuss topics that we were really interested in.”

Anderson-Hancock agreed, saying the structure of student-directed seminars tends to be more collaborative. “There isn’t a lecture done by Thea or myself or anyone; instead, there are group presentations on topics that serve as a substitute for a traditional lecture.”

It’s important to note that in student-directed seminars, the student facilitator isn’t acting as a professor.

"Although [SheridanJonah] and I are the course facilitators, we're not professors; we're not teaching assistants, but we are facilitating the discussion that we're having in this course."

- Kaden Anderson-Hancock

As opposed to a traditional course, where students are accountable to their professors via grading, Sheridan-Jonah said that, in a student-directed seminar, participants are accountable “to the other people in the course, and therefore their learning [is] dependent on the learning of all of the rest of the folks in the class.”

Sheridan-Jonah’s facilitation style embodies this spirit of collaborative learning.

“In the first third of the course, [students] each did presentations on current news articles, relating them to topics or the theme of the day. But they all got to bring in some sort of context that was relevant to them.” She believes this approach encourages students to “engage in [ideas] that [they’re] already passionate about while relating them to the course.”

Autonomy extends into the grading process as well. Instead of depending entirely on a professor to assess all coursework, evaluation is shared between faculty and peers depending on the type of assignment.

Sheridan-Jonah explained that individual assignments — like papers and reports — were graded by the seminar sponsor while more collaborative or public-facing work — like group presentations — was assessed through peer review.

”We’d send those peer review marks to Dr. Doberstein,” said Sheridan-Jonah. “He’d say if they were in sync with other POLI 300-level courses. If they were, we’d leave those marks … and then we’d go from there.” This hybrid grading approach reflects the program’s emphasis on student agency, accountability and shared responsibility within the classroom.

”Although [Sheridan-Jonah] and I are the course facilitators, we’re not professors; we’re not teaching assistants, but we are facilitating the discussion that we’re having in this course,” said Anderson-Hancock.

So, what exactly does the facilitator’s role look like in a student-directed seminar?

Mondragon explained that she “was still doing all the things that a teacher would, like Canvas announcements, emails, finding material, doing the PowerPoint presentations for every class, talking with students, dealing with their issues.”

Yet despite taking on many of the behind-the-scenes responsibilities of a traditional instructor, she was still fully part of the learning community: “The role was dual — at the same time, I was a student myself, so I was doing the assignments myself, and all the group work that I came up with.”

While student-directed seminars offer a unique and empowering academic experience, they don’t come without challenges; even after making it through the daunting proposal process, facilitators often juggle a demanding workload that includes course planning, administrative tasks and managing group dynamics, all while being students themselves.

For Sheridan-Jonah, one of the more complex challenges lay in navigating the boundaries of her role. She and Anderson-Hancock were facilitators, she explained, but they felt they were in some ways operating between the role of a professor and a TA. This in-between position made certain situations — like handling absences or accommodations — especially tricky: “We didn’t really have the authority to say what was okay in the course or what wasn’t.”

For Mondragon, the challenge was more personal — stepping into an unfamiliar role with little precedent to follow.

“It was a lot of work trying to figure out how to be a facilitator

and a student at the same time,” she explained, underscoring the dual expectations placed on facilitators to lead effectively while keeping up with the academic demands of the course themselves.

“I think having a co-facilitator made it so much more smooth,” said Anderson-Hancock. He and Sheridan-Jonah “outlined right away what roles [they] would play on each day.” This helped them balance responsibilities like leading discussions and managing technical aspects such as running the screen.

To help prepare facilitators for the demands of running a course, the SDS program provides training and support in advance.

“One of the people from the SDS department [provided] half of the training,” said Mondragon. “They also invited some external resources, some external people to go over ethical topics or any issues that we might run into.”

The training sessions included hands-on components like role-playing and opportunities to ask technical questions in a supportive environment.

“I felt like the resources they were providing were good enough for me to feel prepared,” Mondragon continued. “[There was] nothing that I couldn’t get an answer for, nothing that I couldn’t get help for.”

Dr. Sunaina Assanand, a professor of teaching in the department of psychology at UBC who has been sponsoring and supporting student-directed seminars for many years, emphasized that the support system for student facilitators continues well beyond the initial training phase.

arise within individual seminars, Sheridan-Jonah said that money sometimes became an issue.

“Like most university initiatives,” she said, “I think more funding is always needed.”

In particular, Sheridan-Jonah felt that a larger budget would have allowed for more guest speakers to be brought in beyond the two they were able to host. Increased funding, she believes, would enhance the learning experience by providing students with greater access to diverse perspectives and expert insights.

Despite the challenges that can come with organizing and facilitating a course, student-directed seminars are a valuable option for students pursuing their education in focused or specific fields.

“[The] seminar was just an amazing experience in the sense that I could talk about a topic that wasn’t being offered by UBC and other classes,” said Mondragon.

Sheridan-Jonah echoed this, highlighting both the personal and communal impact of the SDS program. “I would say it’s an incredible opportunity,” she said. “As students and as young people, we often have perspectives and experiences that might not be represented in the courses that professors are offering ... it’s not just important for your own leadership development, but also for other students to be able to engage in courses that might be more relevant to them or relevant to the current context.”

Assanand said the skills that students gain from participating in student-directed seminars extend far beyond the classroom.

“As students and as young people, we often have perspectives and experiences that might not be represented in the courses that professors are offering.”

“I’m available to the student [facilitator] to address any concerns that may arise,” she said. “For instance, conflict or disagreement among students, difficulties with participation or creating classroom etiquette guidelines, challenges that might arise in terms of the reading list or learning assessments.”

- Thea Sheridan-Jonah

“[Students] gain tremendously in terms of prototypical leadership skills such as communication skills, metacognition related to the student-directed seminar context, teamwork, capacity to listen simultaneously. They [also] hone skills to educate. Certainly, while they are peer-learning amongst other students within the seminar, they are creating to a significant degree the learning context.

Alongside the pedagogical and interpersonal challenges that can

“As such, they are able to envision themselves as an educator, and it is a vital experience in terms of the trajectory to create a meaningful learning context for others.” U

INCREASE MY BEWILDERMENT

Words By Naomi Brown, illustration by Abbie Lee

On UBC’s campus, the separation of disciplines manifests not only in the words on a diploma, but geographically as well. I feel this separation in my own legs as they strain to carry me from Buchanan to the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems (ICICS) building every Wednesday afternoon. On this marathon day of three ‘back-tobacks,’ I shuttle first from Buchanan to ICICS, and then return to Buchanan for my final three-hour-long class.

Commuting on foot causes tardiness that even I, a fast walker, can’t seem to avoid. I lament that UBC is planned such that a student cannot walk from a computer science class to a creative writing class within 10 minutes. This inability to move myself between my required courses on time (barring the purchase of a bike or electric scooter) became a stumbling block which provoked me to think about why I have this problem in the first place.

I became a media studies student out of fear of pigeonholing myself. When choosing where to attend university almost four years ago, my predilection was to pick a degree program that would give me the most variety. I have always wanted to study everything; at least in the way of arts and technology. Media studies reflects this desire for the interdisciplinary in its range of courses, but not in its name. I recently spoke to Dr. Clayton Ashton, chair of another UBC cohort — interdisciplinary studies — to compare his views on the program to my experience with interdisciplinary study as a way of learning.

“I think [the program] provides a mixture of things. Some of them are kind of intangible in a way,” said Ashton. Beyond a student’s desire for variety, a degree in interdisciplinary studies can make them “more adaptable to different scenarios, because you’re comfortable working from multiple different perspectives or disciplinary backgrounds ... You have to be able to find a way to fit them together, almost like puzzle pieces, to do something unique.” This task requires critical thinking muscles, communication skills

and adopting a mindset of correspondence: where theoretical and practical experience across a breadth of academic subjects are allowed the space to commune and influence each other.

On a long walk, what else is there to do but think? Thinking as one moves is a great method for working something out, spending time with an issue in order to see different sides of it and cultivate understanding. It is the time spent between point A and point B (in my case, along Main Mall) where ideas are allowed to meld. The lingering thoughts from my media theory course are settling at the same time that I start thinking about what we’ll be doing in my course on human-computer interaction.

That feeling when one course’s content connects to another’s in a completely unexpected way is a large part of what fuels my motivation in university, along with my sense of wonder in the world. These connections materialize like justified rivers on a page — quiet and invisible truths that appear only when you take a step back from the words to see the space as a whole. There’s a one-line prayer in Sufi mysticism (which I learned about from a great book of literary fiction called Martyr! ) that puts it simply: “Oh Lord, increase my bewilderment.”

Wading in the uncertain has always been my modus operandum, evoking in me a mixture of frustration and delight. I remember being in second or third grade driving to school with my dad, always asking him questions, often related to science and humanity. I wanted to understand things about the world around me. I wanted to know why. I would ask my dad until he could no longer provide an explanation. However, I never gave up on that urge to keep feeling my way through the water.

Studying through an interdisciplinary lens today, I have found myself in a process of unlearning, re-learning, and even learning how to learn. The scholar Gregory Bateson called this “deutero-learning” or “triple-loop learning.” These terms describe a high-level sense of how things happen in the world, developed by relating smaller proto-learnings.

In other words, it is a person’s understanding of the context in which their own learning occurs. This means learning with different pieces of knowledge, rather than about those pieces. Deutero-learning becomes extremely useful as a skill when applied to large-scale topics. Ashton explained that a key importance of interdisciplinary study is that “it offers an approach to big, complicated problems.” He put forward the idea that “considering the complexity of the issues we’re facing today ... whether it’s understanding the relationship between climate and economics, or science, or communications … I think each of these problems has so many facets. The ability to think about these problems from multiple perspectives allows us to begin to grasp how to actually approach them, because you can see the many ways into that problem.”

Now, as I struggle with my backpack falling off my shoulder and my umbrella shaking in the wind on those rainy day walks, I’m not purely preoccupied with how to save the world with the interdisciplinary ideas from my classes. I just want to feel the sun on my back, so to speak. What does that is a sense of wonder inside me, fed by discovery.

For students who declared their major a long time agobut might be feeling bored or not fully satisfied with their choices (in terms of available courses or paths beyond their degree), there are ways to re-enchant yourself with learning through embracing an interdisciplinary mindset and taking personal action.

My first suggestion comes from Ashton, who encourages students to “make good use of electives,” and keep an eye out for events and opportunities to engage with public scholarship. Stepping outside of the panels, talks and networking opportunities that you think are meant for you is a great way to exchange perspectives and meet people who have an alternate approach to issues that you may also be interested in.

Ashton emphasized that a lot of the time, departments and faculty are looking to connect with students regardless of major. One of the best ways to engage in interdisciplinary thinking, for him, lies in “viewing the university as a big public institution where you’re invited to many different places, rather than feeling like once you have a major you

have to stick to that area.”

Using your resources and viewing the whole world as a place of study is the key to staying curious and interested. The library offers one of the greatest opportunities to learn for free on whatever subject you want to know more about. If you live on campus, why not spend more time browsing the endless shelves in Koerner’s basement, or looking through a magnifying lens at microfiche in IKB? If you live off-campus like me, you’re also eligible to sign up for a Vancouver Public Library card, which gives you access to a wealth of additional workbooks, magazines, memoirs, fiction and more. Coming to love reading based on your interests — fiction, non-fiction, whatever — is a powerful way to stay connected to learning throughout your entire life.

So what have I learned from my ghastly Wednesday schedule? For one, the infrastructures of our campus and of academia in general may be lagging behind the kind of academic experience students want in this day and age: the “age of information.” Many of us pick up tens, if not hundreds, of tiny pieces of information along our daily scroll of TikTok or Instagram Reels, which contribute to our immense network of schemas about the world. The challenge facing learners today is not necessarily the attainment of knowledge, but rather determining what information is actually important to know, and how we can apply it to our work, study and interpersonal relationships.

This is where the institution of higher education and the university can help us out; not only by increasing the depth of what we know about a subject, but also guiding us to discover how our knowledge connects with other ways of learning, understanding and knowing across time, space and perspective.

Lastly, I have realized that learning is not a path you follow until you reach some “end,” like a job, expert status or a blind plunge into innovation. As an agent over my own course, my learning will mediate people, places and ideas for my whole life. I will walk back and forth and back and forth, trying to untangle what I thought I knew in order to discover a different approach, or the approach that bridges two others. It will take choosing the hike every time in order to increase my own bewilderment. U

BEGINNING AGAIN

Words By Natalie Vakulin, illustration by Samriddhi Kejriwal

There is a concept in aikido called “beginner’s mind.”

It is the mental state that newcomers to aikido are in — or the mental state for starting anything new. At its core, beginner’s mind means openness to learn without assumption. But the concept is just as important to a black belt as it is to a white belt. Beginner’s mind is necessary for teachers and an important reminder for everyone, especially in a place like UBC.

In the moments before I was awarded my black belt in aikido, I realized that, despite more than a decade of experience in the martial art, I was about to become a beginner all over again. Sitting there, focusing on my breath in the quiet hush that always falls right before a class starts, the ceremony felt daunting. After the bow into class, my whole dojo lined up with feet tucked under them, their attention on my teacher as he called my name. What I needed to do was an easy-to-mess-up sequence of bows, shuffles on my knees, sitting just in the right spot and then some more bowing. My friends also being awarded their black belts couldn’t help me: I was going first.

As I was putting on my belt after the awarding ceremony, one of my teachers came up to congratulate me. He mentioned another common martial arts concept, the idea that true aikido practice only begins at black belt. This idea is that only at black belt can you really begin to learn — before that you are only developing your foundation, the basics. It’s a complicated notion. At black belt, you can begin learning to truly connect to your partner’s energy, their ki. Black belts are told to have a beginner’s mind because when a teacher is trying to show you something and you think that you already know how to do it, you are closing yourself off to the process of learning.

me as much as I have taught them. I’ve had to learn skills like public speaking, communication and empathy. Working with people in a community is rewarding, and being part of the family at my dojo has made me into who I am today. When kids start helping out in the younger classes at my dojo, we usually have them do a lot of watching. The way they learn how to teach, especially from the start, is “monkey see, monkey do.” In order to succeed, they must be willing to imitate what the older teachers are doing — which requires a willingness to learn. I have watched countless kids grow frustrated and quit teaching because they don’t believe they have anything to learn.

Doing a black belt test is a big deal. But maybe the belt awarding ceremony is an even bigger one.

Your test is a balance between keeping your head and letting muscle memory completely take over. Aikido isn’t a competitive sport — you have a partner who, for the most part, is on your side. A test is not combat, but a demonstration, a showcase of your skills and a repetition of moves you have done a thousand times — especially with my teacher, who will drill practice tests until he’s turned you into a perfectionist.

But no one prepared me for the award ceremony, aside from a quick recap the minute before, and now, I was stressing that I’d forget a bow. Though I’d already passed my test, I truly felt like a beginner.

We are all experiencing and learning new things all the time, especially as university students. But it’s not every day that we decide to learn something brand new, because it’s hard. To try something for the first time is to be completely inept, to likely make a fool of yourself again and again and to persevere through the frustration of just not getting it. Think of the last time you tried a new sport or took an elective completely out of your depth. Being ignorant forces you to learn a lot, and quickly.

Obviously a university is a space of learning, but it’s easy to get caught up in surviving the next midterm or finishing an essay just in time for the midnight deadline. When you lose track of beginner’s mind, you take for granted the fact that you know anything about your subject and risk the sort of unnoticed intellectual arrogance that hampers improvement.

Early this summer, I was asked by another dojo to teach at a seminar for kids they were hosting in Kelowna — coincidentally, the same city where I had done my black belt test seven months before. At the end of one class, the organizers had the kids sit in a circle on the mat and ask us questions. One that came up was what each of us was currently working on.

I wanted to come up with something clever or interesting, but with no test in my near future, I was mostly focusing on school. In aikido, you always have something to learn (another martial arts concept designed to shape you into a workaholic) but I didn’t have something I was actively trying to improve.

I told the kids that I was working on approaching my practice with a beginner’s mind. I admit, at the time I blurted it out as a barely formed thought. I haven’t really stopped thinking about it since — I have concluded that it isn’t in my practice that I need to work on having an open mind, but in my teaching.

I have been teaching aikido since around the age of 11. In those eight-odd years, my aikido has definitely improved and I hope my teaching has as well. But the relationship between my teaching and learning has not changed — my processes of learning, and sharing that learning, are so closely tied that I wouldn’t be able to separate them. Whenever I learn something new that I think could be useful for the kids, I file it away for when I can pass it on. I get better so my students can improve, and they make me better in turn.

Teaching is more to me than the classes I lead. I connect with people of all ages, and though the flow of knowledge might appear to be one-way, the children and adults I instruct have taught

At some point, I lost track of beginner’s mind in my teaching. I felt I had gotten good, my friends and I were at a point where there was no one hierarchically above us. No one was putting in the hours or the hard work that we were except my teacher. I was confident, and though there’s nothing wrong with that, it led me to a position from which I couldn’t easily learn more. When I say to myself now that I’m working on having a beginner’s mind, I think about how necessary the mindset is to being an effective teacher, one that is not only open to learning, but is actively putting themselves into a beginner’s shoes, both to understand their students better and to grow themselves. A teacher who is not actively developing their knowledge and their teaching skills is stagnant, and what they can impart is limited.

A good teacher is a student first and foremost. The best is one that still considers themselves a beginner. A small part of it is humility, another part is respect for your students because you see them as fellow learners. But the biggest part is that no student wants to learn from a teacher who no longer cares to learn about the subject, who wouldn’t sit in their own lecture and take notes.

Beginner’s mind is a nebulous martial arts concept told by old men to young black belts in an attempt to prevent them from getting arrogant. But thinking about it this summer, I realized that it’s also something we all let go of at times in favour of the comfort of feeling skilled. Being a beginner is difficult, but is it not also fun? Beginnings are defined — above all else — by their possibilities.

Beginner’s mind can mean something different to everyone. It might be stepping out of your comfort zone, occasionally humbling yourself, not taking yourself too seriously, being more spontaneous, trying something new for the sake of the experience, allowing yourself to fail, being empathetic to someone less experienced that you, being open to the possibility that those you are trying to teach can teach you something too.

University is the time to be a beginner. It is the time to be playful and curious, for new experiences and big firsts. It’s a space for learning and teaching, and should be a space where both can happen at once. U

“Don’t talk to me like I’m fucking Canadian!” I yelled at you.

The ‘t’ is sharp, my voice is gruff — the accent is out.

Your eyes are quivering with fear. I am your ate, not your sister.

Once again, we are fighting about home.

There is more to it. It’s not just wrong or right.

It’s state-sanctioned violence, death by the numbers, murderous architecture, and taxes magically turned into 3,000 pairs of shoes.

It’s the fear that you will never read the books that I do — that you won’t tell your children about the yellow home that raised us.

Here, there are stories of heroes upon heroes, fighting against a powerful tyrant.

I want you to come home. I do. But your home is copper-coloured leaves. You walk to school on safe and wide roads. I yell after you but my feet cannot keep up.

In your home, I am the tyrant.

That Atenista wall that stared down at me every morning: every family member bleeding blue with pride. Representing a generation of believers in democracy — free from the terrors of authoritarian miseducation.

The weight of this pressure is unbearable. I can teach you how to talk, how to “mano po,” but I cannot tell you why this matters.

I can tell you about Popsy and Oya, how they’ve spent half their lives teaching their children to be critical thinkers in this post-Marcosian society.

But I can’t explain why mom gets upset when I write an essay about the Philippine Drug War. When she bombards me with texts, proclaiming my early death at the hands of the Marcos-Duterte regime, and you come home to a screaming house — another match between her and I about who you’ll become if we don’t tell you about home.

I open my mouth to teach you about the systematic corruption and your eyes glaze over, staring at your phone. I want you to ask why millions of people are forced to fight tooth and nail to have a meal on the table, while we and many others live in bliss.

I cannot explain to you why I would choose death at any point in my life, over the label of DDS or BBM. I’ve studied this since birth, I know it all like the back of my hand, and yet not even that knowledge is enough.

I am to write a textbook for our home — a guide. Someone to carry the legacy of that blue wall for you to understand the yellow.

But how do I teach you to be Filipino? What is a Filipino? How do you measure a Filipino?

We will fight about this time and time again. I will scream at you and tell you to talk to me like “a fucking Filipino.”

You will scream back and tell me you’re “not Filipino.”

This fight will go on. It will surpass us. And someday, this fight will no longer be enough to bridge us together. U

I learn nothing from your death — the rest will be the same. One is gone and all is less, no wisdom in your veins.

Shuffle down the stairs at night when I feel meaning come. Sit inside cold tv light until meaning goes numb.

Teach me this, then teach no more, instructor all my own: dying is an apple core tossed out on the road.

It rots until the seeds get free, and asphalt teaches hopeful trees.

Scare off frat flu with these tips and tricks Ghost your situationship this spooky season

Selena Sallay Contributor

There is nothing more humbling than becoming ill and realizing everything you’re doing to get better is what you should’ve been doing all along. It turns out drinking gallons of caffeine on the regular and getting less than four hours of sleep every night does not fix the broken pieces of your exhaustion or do wonders for your immune system. Who would have thought?

Let’s face it. If you’ve been exposed to a virus this midterm season, it’s frat flu, and it’s too late for you. Good luck. Hopefully you make it to the other side! Take a day off so you’re able to recover quickly (unless you’re an engineering student, then this doesn’t apply to you because wtf are days off) and get well soon!

If you’re one of the lucky ones, yet to encounter this ailment in the throngs of people bumping into each other in the poorly-circulated air of the tight and enclosed spaces that make up our campus, here are some ways to prevent getting sick this season.

BUS

If the frats are where this particular flu begins, then the bus is where it spreads. You are trapped. It seems like you have no choice but to hope that the unmasked six-foot-seven dude in the middle of the bus doesn’t cough all over everyone and let his spit particles fall all over you during your never-ending commute.

Now, I can not take credit for this revolutionary sickness-prevention measure since I saw it happen the other day, like, irl. (I would have applauded this individual, if I was not already holding on for dear life to the little grey loopy thing as the bus swerved around various electric scooter riders.) If someone behind you coughs on the bus, you can be brave and simply get up quickly and move — you can even move to a whole other section of the bus, not just one seat over.

Heed my warning: if you’re not careful, one day your usual trip on the R4 could turn into the canon university event that is catching frat flu, missing one class and then fearing for your life even more when you come back to a lab, an in-class essay, and an exam that is “not a big deal” just “everything we’ve looked over during lectures and the first 400 pages of the textbook” which leads to you reading the first question and then the course code, wondering if you are even in the right class.

LECTURES

Even though it’s spooky season, there is nothing more scary than the person next to you coughing up a lung in a lecture during midterms. Your whole life flashes before your eyes and your whole academic

career boils down to this moment. Your next action could determine whether you pass or fail your courses, or even graduate… so choose wisely.

First, the sitting-somewhere-else strategy can also apply here. Be courageous and finally leave your unassigned-assigned seat you chose that first week of September. Will everyone scoot their chair an inch away from the person having a coughing fit in the corner? Probably. Will people look at them like they are a zombie and start shouting ‘brains’ until they finally leave? I say this is deserved.

In fact, if you’re unable to move, ridicule works great. Personally, I like to point at the cougher and say really loudly, “That was an interesting point, you should tell the professor,” which, if all goes well, will result in the professor asking them to share their comment with the whole class, which will then lead to them running from the classroom in fear because they were playing Clash of Clans instead of paying attention. By using either of these strategies, you should be able to pass that “total GPA-booster” elective you took that’s actually really hard — it turns out university classes are all hard — because that would be so embarrassing if you didn’t.

LIBRARY

I have to fight for my life to find a seat in IKB that isn’t across from someone, because I like to look around and I don’t want some random person thinking I’m checking them out. I am not leaving my spot early, easily or ever (what can I say, I’m locked in) so if you even dare sniffle around me, I am not afraid to start kicking some shins.

If the cougher in your proximity doesn’t take the hint, I suggest starting a TikTok Live to your 25 followers. Call out this person for staying on campus while sick to your four loyal viewers. Coming to classes? Fine. I guess I get it. Just cough into your arm and not onto mine and we’ll probably be fine. But you, as a spreader of frat flu symptoms, have no reason to be in the library! However, if confrontation isn’t your style, then be like everyone on the internet and hide behind a screen! Whether you want to send proof of their ChatGPT usage on their participation assignments to their professor (AI users are cringe and deserve it anyway) or you feel like commenting thumbs down emojis on their recent LinkedIn career update, it is that serious. Quit coughing on me. This method is by far the most effective suggestion on this list.

Finally, try bolstering your immune system on the regular. Get to sleep early. Replace that coffee with some vitamin C for a change — face it, there isn’t enough caffeine left in the world to help you anyway. U

Amy Yang Contributor

You know what the scariest part about October is? It’s not Michael Myers or Ghost Face showing up on your doorstep — it’s running into your failed situationship on campus. You know, the sorry excuse for a human being that subjected you to six months of Sahara-Desert-dry games of 20 questions and 182 automated “wyd” texts at 1:07 a.m. To prevent the very sight of them sending shivers of revulsion down your spine, you are going to have to come up with a plan to counter these sporadic on-campus visual assaults (seeing them in line at the bookstore Starbucks).

But fear not: I have created a comprehensive guide on how to ghost your failed situationship on campus, and I’ll walk you through every step. (Plus, if all else fails, I will turn them

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into a ghost for you *winks.*)

The first thing you don’t want to do is make eye contact with them. To lessen the chances of that, purchase a UBC cherry blossom hoodie from the bookstore and wear it around campus; you will blend right in with all the other UBC students and their mothers who wander around haunting all of Metro Vancouver with school merch. In short, you’ll be barely noticeable — one with the other soulless spirits floating on campus.

Next, every time you walk to your morning lecture, slip a little bit of dirt underneath the concrete pathways. You’re probably thinking, “How would I even have the strength to flip over concrete? What?” My response is to think about the time your ex-situationship dug up your dead hamster and ate him because they needed to hit their post-workout protein goals, and then harness all that unbridled rage. Eventually you’ll have accumulated enough dirt underneath your regular routes that the pathways will elevate you above your ex, so that you’re taking the high road both figuratively (not ranting about them on r/UBC) and literally.

Now that you’re out of sight, you might not exactly be out of mind. Set their sights on someone new… or summon an army of the undead to clobber them. Casually walk into the CSSS and “accidentally” let it slip that [redacted], who lives in [redacted], whose email/phone number is [redacted] is a recruiter sauntering around UBC scouting out prospective interns. Watch all the bloodshot eyes of soulless internship-hungry students stack themselves on top of your ex-situationship until they are smothered into a lifeless corpse.

Here’s a final step to guarantee your paths never cross: if you are not already an engineering student, apply for a dual degree in applied sciences and join a design team. With hardly any time to see the sun, you will never see another soul ever again, let alone your ex-situationship (unless they are a burglar and they break into your dorm or something). Now that people will not be seeing you for the next four to five years, forget “ghosting” — everyone will instead assume you’ve truly become a ghost. And hey, when you’re an engineer, there are things a lot scarier than failed Hinge dates past. Your physics midterm will surely kill you before the eyesore sight of your ex-situationship.

If you are truly out of options (they are, in fact, a burglar), this step is your last resort: hypnotize your past low-commitment, totally casual, grey area fling with chocolate chip cookies from Blue Chip. Simply sprinkle cookie crumbs in front of one of their usual haunts in a trail ending at Place Vanier’s basements (AKA jail). Now comes the easy part: kick them in and lock them up. Do not underestimate the power of what a year in Vanier basements can do to a person; your ex-situationship will be stuck sitting with the carcasses of dead insects behind ominously barred windows until they gradually begin to perish. Let’s just say that after enough time there, you’ll never have to worry about running into them on campus any longer. Successfully ghosted.

(PS if you ever need me to finish the job for you, I’ll be standing by with a shovel.) U

Hopefully you make it to the other side!

Successfully ghosted.

NAVYA CHADHA / THE UBYSSEY

AYLA CILLIERS / THE UBYSSEY

Women’s Hockey overcomes penalties to take down Pandas 3–0

Luiza Teixeira Contributor

UBC women’s hockey kept up their winning streak in Canada West after last Friday’s match against the University of Alberta Pandas, securing a 3–0 victory in an intense game at Father David Bauer Arena.

The ‘Birds had some extra motivation coming into this game. Last year, despite finishing with the best record in the conference, they fell to the Pandas in the Canada West final at home. While UBC was able to exact some revenge, with their most recent matchup against Alberta being the consolation final of the U Sports Championship — where the ‘Birds won 5–1 — the T-Birds still knew the pressure would be on.

“ We came in with a little bit more hunger, [especially] knowing that the Canada West champions [were] coming in,” said head coach Graham Thomas. “That’s something we haven’t been used to in the last [few] years. [It] is usually us that everybody’s coming after.”

It may have been four years since the Pandas last came to Vancouver as defending Canada West champions, but the Thunderbirds weren’t going to let that unfamiliarity get in the way of notching another win.

Before the puck had been dropped, the tension was palpable between the teams, with both sides hooting and hollering, banging their sticks and skates against the boards.

Both teams came out of the gate in the first period playing fast and aggressively. The T-Birds’ defence worked hard, not letting the Pandas stay in the offensive zone for long. That commitment paid off.

Despite going on the power play early, Alberta still wasn’t able to get past UBC’s defence, only managing four shots on goal in the opening period.

The T-Birds, however, didn’t waste their power play opportunity, lighting up the scoreboard for the first time eight minutes into the period. Following a scrum in the corner off the face-off, defender

Jaylyn Morris managed to sneak a shot through Alberta’s defence 15 seconds into their power play began.

She was assisted with a quick pass from forward Annalise Wong, who showed yet again her ability to find great opportunities for the team to score.

Wong, the team’s captain, leads the ‘Birds in assists this season with five.

While the rest of the period saw an escalation of tensions between the teams, the score remained a one-goal advantage for the ‘Birds after one. Alberta was still not able to get past UBC’s defence, with the ‘Birds limiting all chances for the Pandas. Meanwhile, the T-Birds’ forwards were finding plenty of opportunities against the Pandas’ defence — with 11 shots in the frame — but were unable to get past goalie Misty Rey again.

The second period saw Alberta finally make the game competitive,

with the team having more shots on goal than UBC, but still not scoring despite having three power plays in the frame.

Being short a player most of the period, the Thunderbirds had to pull the brakes on offence, despite their narrow lead, but they were able to hold their own, even when shorthanded.

While they can take pride in their penalty kill, the ‘Birds’ high volume of penalties early in the season is a concern.

While the ‘Birds had mostly controlled play, the third and final period began with the tension between the teams reaching its peak, with Alberta’s deficit still only one. Referees had to separate scrums a few times, and while penalties were distributed to both sides, the T-Birds received five out of the seven penalties in the period.

With the ‘Birds still nursing a one-goal lead, the majority of those penalties came at an inopportune

time. In the final five-and-a-half minutes of the game, UBC was shorthanded essentially the entire time, being called for four consecutive penalties, which led to two separate five-on-three advantages for the Pandas — one longer than a minute.

In spite of Alberta’s power play opportunities, they were still unable to get past UBC goalie Mya Lucifora, who posted 20 saves in her second career shutout.

With less than two minutes left in the game, just following the conclusion of the Pandas’ second five-on-three, Alberta’s decision to pull their goalie became their ultimate doom.

UBC forward Mya Healey sent the puck flying across the ice to score an empty netter. Following her teammate’s cue, forward Karine Sandilands scored another empty net goal one minute later to seal the victory.

While perhaps closer than they

would have liked, the ‘Birds were able to face some adversity and still come out on top.

“ We knew [it was] always gonna be a spirited battle — [it] feels like playoff hockey in October,” said Thomas.

He specifically highlighted the talent of the UBC roster — being able to rely on anyone in their lineup to make a play.

“Our huge strength this year is our depth, top to bottom. You can put anybody out there at any given moment,” he said. “Our rookies [have] been great. They don’t look like rookies. They’re making mistakes like everyone else and they’re learning fast [...] but they’re making some really good plays and they’re playing solid.”

Following a rematch against the Pandas the following day, the next challenge ahead of the Thunderbirds will be in Saskatchewan, taking on the University of Regina Cougars on Friday, Oct. 31. U

T-Birds forward Hanna Perrier takes a shot on net. While the ‘Birds only had one goal until the final minutes, it was enough to win.

ZOE WAGNER / THE UBYSSEY

Karine Sandilands, Audrey Church and Elle Lorenz sharing the ice.

ZOE WAGNER / THE UBYSSEY

Brain chip laws: Researchers propose no-fault compensation for high-risk neural devices

Elita Menezes & Stuti Sheth Research Editor & Contributor

Moving a computer cursor with the brain alone was proven possible in 2004, and even done wirelessly in 2021. But as highrisk medical devices advance, an unknown slate of adverse effects and potential injuries — and legal implications — may follow.

An article published in Science by UBC researchers at Neuroethics Canada proposes a no-fault compensation scheme in the face of injury. This allows patients to be compensated for their injuries while companies avoid lawsuits, preserving both innovation and justice.

Ari Rotenberg — UBC alum and first author on the paper — said he first came across this topic by accident, as he was looking through medical device injury cases while putting together a search algorithm for cases of infringement.

“I found the pattern that ... virtually each of the examples I came across were decided in favor of the company rather than the injured patient,” Rotenberg said.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) take signals from the brain, decode them and use that information to operate external technology. For patients with quadriplegia or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — a disease that affects the neurons in the brain and spine, causing gradual loss of muscle movement — BCIs

“restore, if not physical function, [then] a certain quality of life to patients who have these debilitating conditions,” said Rotenberg.

Neurotechnology is expanding, with the first non-US clinical trial for Neuralink’s wireless BCI chip having taken place recently in Canada. Canadian policies on BCIs are in development, according to the Government of Canada.

Implantable BCIs fall under the category of high-risk medical devices, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US. Because of the Medical Device Amendments of 1976, lower levels of government can’t have separate or additive regulations for medical devices.

This was the case in Riegel v. Medtronic, where Charles Riegel’s Medtronic balloon catheter ruptured in his coronary artery, leading to an emergency bypass surgery.

Riegel and his wife, Donna, sued Medtronic under New York’s common - law, alleging negligent design, inadequate warnings and manufacturing defects. However, because the catheter had received proper approval from the FDA, the suit could not go forward because it relied on state law requirements that conflicted with federal approvals.

“As long as the manufacturer abides by all federal laws, they cannot be held liable for these injuries,” said Rotenberg.

Rotenberg explained that the current legal framework is

tipped in favour of manufacturers. Patients must prove the device breaches federal law, which poses the obstacle of gathering information, let alone what information is accessible to the patient. Sixty-five per cent of decisions made during medical device lawsuits post-Riegel to April 2025 favoured manufacturers, while 12 per cent favoured complainants.

Rotenberg emphasized that current laws don’t encourage manufacturers to prioritize safety. “There’s no real reason to go above and beyond the federal standards which are … minimum requirements. We would prefer if every manufacturer exceeded the basic standards for safety and effectiveness, but by taking away the private course of action, there are many fewer incentives,” he said.

The proposed no-fault compensation program is based on the US Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), developed in the 1980s in response to overwhelming lawsuits against vaccine companies. Some manufacturers stopped production, which created vaccine shortages and risked the nation’s health.

Under the VICP, instead of suing companies directly, individuals who believe they’ve been injured by a vaccine can file a petition with a special master in the US Court of Federal Claims. If their injury matches one on the VICP’s Vaccine Injury Table, compensation is awarded, no lawsuit

necessary.

A similar table would be curated in the proposed no-fault compensation program. Experts “who stay on top of the industry and who monitor trends in public health data about device injuries,” according to Rotenberg, would compile a list of injuries. If an injury fits the criteria in the table, the injured patient could avoid legal hurdles and receive compensation more efficiently.

Vaccine producers fund the VICP through a small internal tax on each dose, so they’re protected from runaway lawsuits and the supply of vaccines can remain stable. However, Rotenberg notes that the proposed model can’t work in the same way. “With these medical devices, you’re making [much] fewer, and the production of each one is a lot more expensive, so an excise tax system or an excise tax model would just be a massive increase in the price of each single device.”

From there, the researchers take inspiration from the Price-Anderson Act of 1957, which requires nuclear facilities to have private insurance as a first recourse for accidental harm. If the costs exceed that, a second pool of operator-contributed funds makes up the rest.

The no-fault compensation program seeks to reverse the system so that the multi-funded pool is accessed first and risk-based private insurance is a secondary layer to keep industries

accountable and increase capacity for payment. Rotenberg said that having a public pool as the first means of compensation can allow more government control over the technology, depending on which areas they subsidize.

“[This] would be helpful if there’s a public health crisis and disease is important to treat, but the devices needed to treat it aren’t particularly lucrative,” he said. “Subsidies would be able to change that by making it a much more attractive offer to innovate in a certain area.”

Potential concerns around the model are that innovation may be less incentivized and the public would still have to “shoulder the burden” of medical costs. “I would suggest that the public is already shouldering the burden, at least in the US, through Medicare, and Medicaid in Canada, through our public health system, which we pay into,” Rotenberg said.

“Having it go through the manufacturers would [at least] have this semblance of accountability, instead of just the government and the taxpayer directly picking up the check.”

“Science and innovation … don’t exist in a vacuum. And I think we need to be conscious about the levers and the incentives that drive this larger structure, not individual products or research programs,” said Rotenberg.

“What direction are we going in, and is it the right one?” U

Neurotechnology is expanding, with the first non-US clinical trial for Neuralink’s wireless BCI chip having taken place recently in Canada.

ELIORA-MARGARET KWAKYE / THE UBYSSEY