BEN CAPPELLACCI VP ACADEMIC AND UNIVERSITY AFFAIRS Ben Cappellacci remembers his first weeks in Totem Park’s Salish house as being “intense,” and was introduced to the campus through the Commerce Frosh. “It was overwhelming,” says Cappellacci. “I mean, I didn’t know a single person there. Every single night for the first week it was just drinking. I actually had a really hard time. For the first couple of weeks I pretty much stayed in my room. I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t talk to anyone.” Now a fourth-year Marketing & International Business student in the Sauder School of Business, Cappellacci was elected the AMS VP Academic and University Affairs. His advice to first years who are having trouble fitting in? “I think the best advice I can give is be true to yourself,” says Cappellacci. “When you come here you really have the opportunity to define who you are...Get out of your comfort zone, try things, and experiment...try to identify the things that make you who you are.”
By the end of first year, Cappellacci had joined the fraternity DKE. He entered campus politics in his third year when he took a job running SafeWalk and served as a student senator for the CUS. “In January of last year, I started asking myself, ‘What am I going to do next year?’” Cappellacci says. “I understood the AMS, but I also understood how the university works. The VP Academic seemed like a broad porfolio, so I decided to run [for it].” As the AMS VP Academic, Cappellacci’s job is to act as the AMS’s liaison between students and the university. Cappellacci says that the two projects he is working on which will impact students the most are the recently implemented Credit/D/Fail system,and changes to the accessibility of student evaluations. Currently, the student evaluations are not always made available to students.
EKATERINA DOVJENKO VP ADMIN She's lived in Kiev, New York and Montreal. She speaks four languages. And as VP Administration, she oversees 300 clubs, the AMS Art Gallery and a myriad of events and the building of a new $110 million SUB. Her name? "It's kind of long, so you can call me Kat," she says. Dovjenko and her family eventually settled in Surrey, where she went to high school. Her parents—"who are a bit of that foreign parent stereotype"— wanted her to stay close to home for university, so she chose to come to UBC. A fourth-year student in the Sauder School of Business, Dovjenko said one of her primary reasons for becoming so involved on campus was seeing the spirit and participation that is ingrained within the Commerce Faculty. "During Frosh week, I was starstruck, if anything, by the Commerce executive team," she said.
"They pretty much indoctri—" She pauses and laughs. "I don't know if I want to use that word. They introduce you to that culture...it has a lot of involvement...I saw these people and thought, 'I want to be just like them.'" This year, Dovjenko looks most forward to overseeing the new SUB project. The AMS has chosen HBBH + BH as the architects for the building, and Dovjenko is excited for the schematic design portion of the planning. "It's where the real fun happens. It's where everyone gets their input, where ideas are melding together and there's no such thing as a wrong design." As for advice to first-year students, Dovjenko says to get inspired, not overwhelmed, by student leaders. "The people you look up to and have done such amazing things really weren't any different than you four years ago." 5