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Research News
14  ,   Life in Translation
She went to Paris looking for something. She found it. By Patrick Lewis
16  |  Saving Diesel
The engine that drives modern commerce gets an upgrade. By Richard Banner
21   |   Bowser's Brain
Dogs are just dumb animals who don't understand a thing. Right? By Silver Donald Cameron
24  I  The Land Ethic
Foresters have to be educated to see the land from all perspectives. By Hamish Kimmins
30  !  Islam and the Art of Beautiful Writing
A vision of God as seen through the calligrapher's art. By Elizabeth Negrave
34 Learning to Fly
A co-op student gets to try the big time. By Vanessa Clarke
35 [ Chronicle
36 I The Arts
38 ( Books
40 | Letters
42 i Class Acts
44  I   In Memoriam
46  |  Alumni News
The Magazine of the University of British Columbia
Editor Christopher Petty, mfa'86
Assistant Editor Vanessa Clarke
Designer Chris Dahl
Board of Directors
President Gregory Clark, bcom'86, LLB'89
Senior VP Jane Hungerford, BED'67
Past President Linda Thorstad, Bsc'77, Msc'84
Treasurer Tammie Mark, bcom'88
Members at Large '00 - '02
John Grunau, BA'67
Darlene Marzari, MSW'68
Colin Smith, BASc'65
Members at Large '01 - '03
Martin Ertl, BSC'93
Paul Rosenau, BLA'87, MA'87
Billy Wan, bcom'8z
Executive Director
Agnes Papke, bsc(agr)'66
Editorial Committee
Vanessa Clarke
Chris Dahl
Sid Katz
Scott McRae
Christopher Petty
Herbert Rosengarten
Trek (formerly the UBC Alumni Chronicle) is
published three times a year by the UBC Alumni
Association and distributed free of charge to UBC alumni
and friends. Opinions expressed in the magazine do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Alumni Association or
the university. Letters to the editor are welcome. Address
correspondence to:
Christopher Petty, Editor
UBC Alumni Association,
6251 Cecil Green Park Road,
Vancouver, bc, Canada  v6t izi
or send e-mail to cpetty@alutnni.ubc.ca.
Letters will be published at the editor's discretion
and may be edited for space.
For advertising rates and information, contact
the editor at 604-822-8914.
Contact Numbers at UBC
Address Changes
822-8921
Alumni Association
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toll free 800-883-3088
Trek Editor
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Volume 55, Number 3
Printed in Canada by Mite
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Cover photograph: Courtesy: UBC Library   j   The Chung Collector ingenuity and innovation
t this issue
Innovations start with questions. An
infant plopped down in front of his first
pile of pureed peas might ask himself,
"How do I get that stuff from there to
here?" After a few experiments — pushing
his face in and sucking; swinging his arms
and knocking the bowl over the edge — he
grabs a handful and squishes it on his head
and then in his mouth. "Hey!" he says.
"That's it!"
Our in-born tendency to question our
surroundings and find work-arounds for
problems have resulted in life-altering
inventions, all the way from corned beef to
computers. Ingenuity and innovation are
requirements of the process. Both are hallmarks of this university, and both are featured in this issue of Trek:
•      Hamish Kimmins ("The Land Ethic,"
page 24) talks about the process of change
in the forest industry and forestry education, and how the questions of sustainability, proper forest use and the needs of people can be addressed. His forest modeling
software is an innovation that supplies
brand-new answers.
• In the late 1900s, Rudolph Diesel
("Saving Diesel," page 16) wanted to find
a way to create cheap power when he came
upon his idea for the engine that bears his
name. A century later, UBC's Phil Hill
wanted to save that venerable engine when
he set about finding a way to make it work
more cleanly and efficiently.
• "Islam and the Art of Beautiful
Writing," page 30, reports on an exhibit at
the Museum of Anthropology that shows
how the Islamic culture evolved a way of
expressing the mysteries of spirituality and
life without using the human form.
Calligraphy answers the question with
grace and elegance.
Universities are sometimes criticized
for being insular and self-absorbed. Faculty
members, some say, are concerned only
with their own aggrandizement. Thus the
old joke: "The reason university politics
are so petty is because the stakes are so
small."
Perhaps. But no other institution in
our society is so able to ask and answer so
many important questions. Nowhere else
can someone sit him or herself down in
front of a pile of pureed peas and start
experimenting.
— Christopher Petty, Editor.
contributors
Richard Banner ("Saving
Diesel") graduated from
UBC's School of Law in 1978,
and has worked as an environmental and social activist
in BC. He lives in Vancouver
and works as a freelance
writer and editor, researching
and developing education
materials, public information
pieces and corporate bumpf.
Silver Donald Cameron,
BA'60, MA, PhD ("Bowser's
Brain") is the award-winning
author of 15 books, many TV
and radio scripts, and countless magazine articles. He
currently writes a weekly column for the Halifax Sunday
Herald. Dr. Cameron was also
the first dean of the School
of Community Studies at the
University College of Cape
Breton, and has served as
writer-in-residence at three
universities.
Hamish Kimmins ("The Land
Ethic") is a professor in Forest
Science and Forest Ecology in
the Faculty of Forestry. He is
also Canada Research Chair
and director of International
Programs. His main research
interests are forest ecology, the
sustainability of managed
forests and modeling forest systems. He has published numerous papers and two books.
Forest Ecology, a Basis for
Sustainable Forest Management, is a standard text.
Patrick Lewis ("Life in
Translation") is a writer and
editor living and working in
Vancouver. A sometimes contributor to Trek and other
publications, most of Patrick's
recent writing has been in the
areas of social policy research
and analysis.
Elizabeth Negrave, MA'96
("Islam and the Art of
Beautiful Writing") taught
technical writing at UBC for
several years. She currently
works as a Business
Development Officer in the
Faculty of Applied Science,
writing and editing grant
proposals.
4   Trek   Winter 2002 RESEARCH NEWS
Teaching matters
■ A UBC Zoology professor has been chosen
from 16 nominees nationwide as Canadian
Professor of the Year. Lee Gass was honoured
by the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (ccae) and the Council
for the Advancement and Support of
Fducation (case) for his dedication to undergraduate education and his contributions to
the community, UBC and the teaching profession. Past recognition of his teaching include
a Killam Teaching prize and a 3M Teaching
fellowship in 1999. He is currently director
of the Integrated Science Program.
Gass is pleased to receive the award
since he feels it emphasizes the importance of
teaching and gives it the recognition it
deserves.
New course shakes things up
B Despite our recent preoccupation with
human-orchestrated calamity, the threat of
natural disaster remains an everyday reality.
According to Natural Resources Canada, the
Pacific Coast is Canada's most earthquake-
prone area, with more than 100 earthquakes
of magnitude five or over recorded in the offshore region west of Vancouver Island in the
past 70 years.
This fall, instructors from the Earth and
Ocean Sciences Department (eosc) at UBC
offered an appropriate new first-year survey
course called The Catastrophic Earth —
Natural Disasters.
The course is offered in five different
sections: The Shaking Earth (earthquakes,
volcanoes); The Turbulent Atmosphere
(hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes); The
Unstable Ground (landslides, mud flows,
floods); The Violent Ocean (tsunamis, storm
surges); and impacts from Space and Mass
Extinction Events (meteor strike, comet
dust). The course looks at natural disasters
as they occur and studies how they are char-
Zoology Professor Lee Gass is this year's
CCAE/CASE professor of the year. CCAE/CASE
professors are selected for their superior teaching and community involvement.
actenzed in the popular media. Students go
on field trips to examine natural disaster
sites, and consider how the Vancouver region
would fare in the event of a meteor strike.
Course leader Professor Roland Stull is
enthusiastic about the course content and the
calibre of experts involved in its design and
delivery. The department even won a grant to
fund development of innovative lab space
and Stull is instilling his own enthusiasm for
the subject area into his students.
Law for the people
■ The faculty of Law encourages its students
to engage in clinical practice throvigh
community service, helping them to connect
what they learn in theory with the off-
campus world. Such programs represent
priceless experiential learning for the students
and a valuable legal resource for the
community.
One of these programs is the First
Nations Legal Clinic Program, located in the
Downtown Eastside. Demand for the clinic's
legal services outstrips the supply of student
talent, since all the time students put in is
volunteered. Other programs include a
Criminal Clinic, in existence since 1974,
allowing students to assist practising lawyers
in defence or prosecution.
Some outreach programs have been
initiated by the students themselves. One of
the largest is the Law Students Legal Advice
Program, which is run by students with
funding from the provincial government via
the Community Legal Assistance Society.
Approximately 150 students are involved in
this program at any one time.
As well as running their own programs,
Photograph by Kent Kallberg
Winter 2002   Trek   5 MEASURING UBC'S SIGNIFICANCE
> RESEARCH NEWS
In his remarks to graduates at the
Fall, 2001 UBC Congregation,
Chancellor Bill Sauder observed that
when he graduated in 1948
Canadian employers were impressed
with a UBC degree. Now, he said, a
UBC degree is recognized around the
world, thanks to the fact that "UBC
has grown from a strong national
university to a significant international one."
However we define the term
"significant" as applied to a university, recent developments suggest that UBC's reputation is growing on
both the national and the international scene.
First is the announcement concerning the Canadian Research
Chairs program. The federal government created this program at
the urging of universities as a way to stop the brain drain and to
attract top researchers from abroad. UBC has been allocated
$116.5 million, which puts us in the top three of the research universities involved in the program. The funding will secure 156
chairs over the next five years and will involve diverse research
from the study of adult stem cells to condensed matter physics.
A second development comes in the form of a gift from
Finning International. The company has donated 15 acres of land
east of False Creek to a consortium made up of UBC, Simon Fraser
University, bcit, and Emily Carr College. This will give us the
opportunity to develop concerted research and learning programs
to attract world-class researchers to hi-tech facilities on the site.
Another important step is the opening, on 30 November 2001,
of UBC's new campus at Robson Square. This brings opportunities
for life-long learning, professional development and career advancement to the downtown core, and shows our commitment to make
higher education more accessible.
In a truly international development, we have joined with
Korea University to build a residence at UBC to house too Korean
students who will take classes at UBC for one year. This is modeled
on our current agreement with Ritsumeikan University in Japan,
and we are developing a similar program for Mexican students
from Tec de Monterrey.
Finally, for the third year in a row UBC has placed second
among doctoral/medical universities in Canada in the Maclean's
survey, behind the University of Toronto. Our researchers, students,
teachers and staff are recognized as being among the best in the
country.
By strengthening our research and scholarly capabilities, by
creating a first-class learning environment, and by developing
opportunities to reach out to the larger community, we will continue to build an institution that wins praise at home and abroad, and
that deserves to be called "a significant international university."
— Martha Piper, President, University of British Columbia
UBC Law students can volunteer in others through the Pro Bono
Program. Established for three years and run by paid students, this
program matches volunteer students with various legal service
organizations across the Lower Mainland. At the campus level, the
AMS Student Legal Fund Society  involves Law students in cases with
potential significance for students.
Finning cultivates high tech
■ Some of Vancouver's most desirable land has been donated to the
cause of high tech. Finning International gave 80 percent of its 18.7
acre holdings on the False Creek flats to be shared equally by UBC,
sfu, the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design and bcit.
The four institutions will collaborate on the creation of a high
tech educational centre that will attract students, industry and
investment to the area.
The land, bordered by Terminal Avenue, Main Street, Great
Northern Way and Clark Drive, is worth about $34 million.
Chair examines children's gastric problems
9 UBC is the first university in Canada to boast a research chair in
Pediatric Gastroenterology.
Gastrointestinal disorders in children can affect all age ranges
and cause symptoms such as inflammation and ulceration of the
digestive tract, pain, vomiting, bloody diarrhea, chronic fatigue and
drastic weight loss or gain. Affected children often miss school
because of repeated visits to the hospital. Current treatment includes
lifetime medication or surgical removal of parts of the digestive tract.
The new chair will allow research into better alternatives and will
draw more attention to gastric conditions and their treatment.
The bulk of the research will take place at bc's Children's
Hospital, which is at present the province's only consultation and
treatment centre for pediatric gastroenterology.
The chair, worth $3.5 million, represents fundraising efforts by
the Child Foundation (Children with Intestinal and Liver Disorders),
an organization which has been working since 1995 to find a cure
for conditions like Chrohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. UBC
contributed $500,000 to the fund, while the provincial government
added $1,000,000.
For more information about child's work, see their website at
www.child.ca.
New resources for the under 6
■ A UBC professor has conducted research that will be used by the
United Way to strengthen community resources for young children.
Professor Clyde Hertzman's research is providing support for the
organization's "Success by 6" program, which is focused on
providing comprehensive community services for children under six
across the Lower Mainland.
6   Trek   Winter 2002 Concerned with the determinants of
health, Hertzman's research demonstrates
how critical life's early years are for the
development of long-term good health, coping mechanisms and a sense of well-being in
children. The data he collected for the United
Way project included information on where
under-sixes are located in the community,
their learning requirements and the capacity of existing programs for fulfilling
them. Hertzman and the United Way
developed a community resources map as
a tool for effective service provision.
Herbal health or herbal
hoax?
• Regarded with disdain by the doubting
Thomases, accepted blindly by true
believers and approached with hopeful
caution by those in between, herbal medicine
has been around long enough to secure itself
a permanent spot on many drugstore shelves.
But its success is problematic to those in the
medical profession, particularly those in
pharmacy.
With increased pressure on services,
people need to be as informed as possible
about their own health and the types of
treatment available. In the case of herbal
medications, this awareness is made more
difficult by a paucity of research, unregulated
quality control and a proliferation of formulas. Herbal medications are often categorized
as food supplements by manufacturers and
don't face the same stringent standards.
According to a recent survey sponsored
by the Nonprescription Drug Manufacturers
Association of Canada, about a third of
Canadians use herbal medication. But
consumers tend not to have the same healthy
fear of herbal products that they do for
traditional prescription medication, and are
less likely to ask for a professional opinion.
Most think of herbal medication as harmless,
which is often not the case.
It was for these reasons that
Pharmaceutical Sciences instructor Lynda
Eccott and colleague Kath MacLeod
developed the elective course Alternative
Medicines in Pharmacy Practice.
"The risks associated with herbal sup-
New resources for under 6: Clyde Hertzman is
looking into services available to kids in the
Lower Mainland.
plements can be significant," says MacLeod.
"That's why our students must be prepared
to counsel patients to make informed
decisions about these products."
Major problems with herbal medication
include low quality and inappropriate use,
due partly to the lack of uniformity in the
concentration of active ingredients. This,
coupled with the perceived lack of harm,
can lead to overuse and possible damage.
Other problems include inadequate
warnings about side-effects and
inconsistent dosage instructions. Herbal
medication can also have negative
interactions with traditional
medication.
Pharmacy students are taught to
encourage clients to report side-effects,
which suggests that this program could have
far-reaching effects on the future regulation
of herbal medication. The ndmac survey
found that pharmacists are currently asked
for advice about herbal products only to
percent of the time.
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Photograph by Kent Kallberg
Winter 2002   Trek   7 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AT ROBSON SQUARE
RESEARCH MEWS
IN THE LAST ISSUE OF TREK,
I outlined some of the services we
provide to our members and to the
university. As the only campus
organization that regularly
communicates with UBC's alumni
and friends, we maintain a link that
is vital to the university's well-being
and that keeps grads informed about
their alma mater. We are proud to be
such an important part of the university's affairs.
By the time you read this, UBC at Robson Square will be in
operation. The university has leased and renovated over
60,000 square feet of space in the heart of Vancouver, and will
offer programs for credit and non-credit study, counselling,
public lectures, special exhibits, professional development
seminars and international cultural events. Both the library and
the bookstore will have branches at Robson Square.
Synergies created by the presence of Continuing Studies,
Career Services, the Women's Resources Centre and the faculty
of Commerce expand opportunities for grads of all ages and
disciplines.
I am pleased to report that your Alumni Association is part
of the Robson Square experience. As a key partner in the UBC
Connections Centre, our new downtown office offers expanded services to alumni and students.Here are some examples:
Mentoring: We organize mentoring events with UBC Career
Services, faculties and undergrad societies on campus. At the
Robson Square location, we are able to develop stronger
connections with companies and grads who work downtown,
giving current greater access to the experience of our members.
Young Alumni: Our active Young Alumni Network
organizes mentoring opportunities, social events and
professional seminars for grads of the last 10 years. Robson
Square puts us within walking distance of thousands of our
recent alumni, who are now able to access these services
without coming out to campus.
Alumni Connections: With an office and staff on site, we are
able to provide personal service to alumni who want to get
involved with Association affairs, inquire about alumni
merchandise, membership cards, and program information, or
who wish to sign up with our On-line Community.
We're excited to be involved with UBC at Robson Square.
Our Association has been at the forefront of alumni cultivation
at UBC since 1917, and we will continue to develop programs
and opportunities that serve you and benefit the university.
Please visit us at our downtown office, and become part of
UBC at Robson Square.
- Greg Clark bcom'86, LLB'89
President, University of British Columbia Alumni Association
Adventures in screenwriting
■ As the film industry continues to thrive in bc, two professors from
the Theatre, Film and Creative Writing department are giving UBC
students a leg-up into the industry. Inspired by their own successful
film-making partnership, Creative Writing Associate Professor Peggy
Ashcroft and Film Assistant Professor Sharon McGowan are
encouraging cooperative projects between students from each of the
disciplines, with very successful results.
One of these groups (graduate students Geoff Inverarity from
Creative Writing, Byron LaMarque from Film, and Kelly-Ruth
Mercier from Theatre) produced an award-winning screenplay, Still
Life With Scissors, which will air on the CBC this spring.
Ashcroft and McGowan have already produced two acclaimed
films (The Lotus Eaters and Better than Chocolate), and have a third
in the pipeline (Saint Monica).
The two professors realized that good teamwork can produce
outstanding results and they resolved to help UBC students experience
the benefits of professional collaboration at an early stage in their
careers. The idea is rooted in an advanced course in directing initiated
by Film Associate Professor John Wright, who facilitated the teaming
of undergraduate acting students with graduate directing students.
Thompson soon became involved on the writing front, adding another
discipline to the mix.
Since they are familiar with the work of individual students,
Thompson and McGowan feel they are well placed for suggesting and
guiding the best collaborations.
"Unlike other areas of life," says McGowan, "in film, opposites
usually don't attract." They hope students will benefit creatively and
will be more employable by the time they complete their respective
courses.
Health and education in the Punjab
■ Twenty years ago, Vancouver resident Budh Singh Dhahan initiated
a project that linked UBC's School of Nursing to a local Indo-
Canadian charity and the Guru Nanak College of Nursing in Dhahan-
Kaleran, Punjab. The vision which continues to drives this project
is improved health care for the people of rural Punjab and an
opportunity to modernize nurse education.
Today, Dhahan's son, Barj Singh Dhahan BA'83, runs tne local
charity that funds the Punjab project. "We know if we offer health
education in rural areas and particularly if we educate young women,
we will create leaders who will have a positive influence on life in
India," he says. The School of Nursing continues to provide an
advisory committee, with Professor Sally Thorne as chair.
Challenges faced during the project have often been culturally
based. For instance, while Canadian nurse education now encourages
informed decision-making by professional nurses, Indian nursing
culture emphasizes the passive role of the nurse. Local perceptions of
Trek   Winter 2002 how health services are used also differ
substantially from those commonly held in
Canada, and learning has taken place on
both sides.
Faculty visit the Punjabi College to see
the results of their work first-hand and to
advise on curriculum. Current students and
Nursing alumni visit to help provide training
and to complete directed-studies programs.
They can learn about tropical diseases and
different models of health-care delivery.
Nursing faculty are currently collecting
health data from the area which will be used
in determining its health and educational
needs. Next spring, students from the Punjab
College will visit bc to get a taste of nursing
education in Canada.
Food of love
« Many assume that the ability to appreciate
classical music is somehow tied to class and
privilege. In an attempt to debunk that
assumption, UBC's Learning Exchange is
offering a 12-week music appreciation course
to residents of the Downtown Eastside.
Karen Lee Morlang is artistic director of
the music program, which is taught by
faculty and students from UBC's School of
Music. "We want to help students get
involved with the music and what goes into
performing it," she says, "and not to feel
intimidated." The free course is delivered at
the level of an introductory, non-credit
university course, and it includes lectures,
concerts, and listening assignments.
Students are also provided with travel
expenses, meals and a UBC library card.
Financed by the AMS Innovative Projects
Fund, the course follows in the tradition of
successful humanities and science programs
already running in the Eastside community,
and its 30 spaces are already full.
Maintaining the ranks
■ When Maclean's magazine released its
annual university rankings recently, UBC
maintained its second place showing among
Canada's medical/doctoral universities. The
University of Toronto remained in first place
out of the 15 universities in the category, and
Queen's University was third. UBC rated top
ROBSON SQUARE
£
WE'RE  DOWNTOWN On November 30, UBC at Robson Square
officially opened its doors. The downtown campus
offers credit and non-credit courses, public lectures,
career services, displays from the Museum of
Anthropology and all the other components essential
to a vibrant, exciting university. UBC hasn't had a
downtown campus since 1922. Now we're back.
Come visit UBC at Robson Square and see what's new.
Winter 2002   Trek   9 > RESEARCH NEWS
ILH
1    -3-t
1
Izak Benbasat
Alan Mackworth
John Grace
CANADA RESEARCH CHAIRS
With the federal government's sharp increase in funding for
science, Canada is shucking its old image as a loveable
underdog and is gaining a reputation as a hotbed of research
and development. Canada's brightest are being enticed by the
creation of the $1.8 billion Canada Research Chairs program.
The funding is creating new research chairs across the country,
with UBC receiving $120 million, or 163 new research chairs
over the next five years. Funding for a chair takes care of
a researcher's salary for five to seven years, providing a
reasonably long-term, secure period for research. The funding
helps to bring back Canadian researchers living abroad, and
attract top-level researchers of all nationalities.
10   Trek   Winter 2002
Photograph by Jonathon Vaughn Robert Hancock
Elizabeth Simpson
Innovation. Cutting edge.
Fresh perspectives.
These five investigators represent the
quality and intensity of UBC research.
They, and their colleagues, draw
students, faculty and funding from
around the world.
ELIZABETH SIMPSON thinks some brain disorders and mental illnesses are linked
to mutated genes. She's studying mice because their genetic and chemical makeup, and their
social structures, are similar to ours. She's hoping to develop new techniques for diagnosing and
treating disorders such as schizophrenia, pathological violence and autism.
ROBERT HANCOCK studies superbugs and the role antibiotics play in their evolution. Hancock is
developing new ways to combat these bugs using very small proteins called peptides. His
research may lead to treatments for multi-resistant staph, tuberculosis and even cystic
fibrosis.
ALAN MACKWORTH examines how we receive, process and use information, and
applies that knowledge to developing artificial intelligence. His research is also unlocking the
secrets of the nervous system and enhancing our understanding of the underlying
principles that make intelligent behaviour possible.
JOHN GRACE'S research explores alternative energy sources that won't impact the health of the
planet. He's examining such low-emission alternatives as low-temperature combustion and the
production of pure hydrogen from natural gas.
IZAK BENBASAT is working on the electronic retail environment and the comparative lack of
human contact during transactions. His work will help guide e-businesses in how to foster a
strong electronic customer base, and should improve the customer service for electronic
shoppers.
Winter 2002   Trek   11 > RESEARCH NEWS
for both the percentage of faculty with phds
and number of faculty receiving research
grants for social sciences and humanities.
Most improvement was seen in the Student
Body categories. These included a jump from
eighth to third place for the percentage of
students who graduate, and a move up to
second position for the proportion of students with a GPA of 75 percent or better.
Don't let the flu bring you down
- The mind-body connection is again under
scrutiny. Psychiatry Assistant Professor Cai
Song has been exploring the connection
between the immune system and the nervous
system for 12 years. She has a strong interest
in links between disorders of the immune
system and depression.
"These are two very complicated
systems," she says, "and psychiatrists and
immunologists usually don't talk." Her own
academic background helps her cross bound
aries and think around corners. She has a
medical degree in Chinese medicine and a
phd in neuropharmacology, with a focus on
neuroimmunology. Song's subject area —
psychoneuroimmunology — explores
microbiological and behavioural links
between the two systems. Her research is
considered groundbreaking, and she is
co-author of the first text in the area.
Song's research shows that depression
can trigger changes in the immune system
and, conversely, that certain treatments
directed at the immune system — such as
chemotherapy — can have an adverse effect
on the chemical balance of the brain. Such
imbalance can lead to depression, memory
problems and anxiety. Her goal is to find
treatments for the immune system that don't
have a negative impact on the psyche. She
would also like to find a better treatment
alternative to anti-depressants, which can
have serious side-effects and a toxic effect on
the immune system. She stresses that not all
depressions are a result of changes to the
immune system, but believes that there is a
The flu can cause more than sniffles:
Psychiatry Assistant Professor Cai Song looks
at the relationship between immune disorders
and depression.
strong connection, often overlooked by
medical practitioners.
Her research may also offer clues to the
causes of Alzheimer's. Her research with
Alzheimer's patients indicated changes in the
immune system that differ from the normal
aging process. Song hypothesizes that
Alzheimer's is connected to an auto-immune
disorder caused by aging of the thymus gland.
This summer, she received a grant to fund
further research into those connections.
Ethical building blocks
■ UBC students are still playing with Lego.
But rather than houses and trucks for the
little people, they're making complex Lego
Mindstorm robots used in games designed to
demonstrate issues of ethics and technology.
Students in Ethics Professor Peter
Danielson's Ethics for Robots graduate
seminar design robots to compete against
each other in situations that involve ethical
choice. The purpose isn't to destroy the opponent, but to demonstrate to students that
technology designed to compete can be tempered with ethical characteristics such as constraint.
12   Trek   Winter 2002 "Technology is just like nature,"
Danielson says. "When it comes out of the
box, it doesn't care about us. It's amoral and
risky, and in the seminar, students take that
technology and produce something that is
moral, sociable and able to get along with
others and with us."
Tehran's loss, our gain
ril Awarded her phd at this fall's congregation, Lucy Marzban began her academic
career in medicine at Tehran University
during Iran's eight-year war with Iraq.
Her studies were often disrupted by
bombing raids and working volunteer shifts
in the hospitals. Eventually, she received her
medical degree in laboratory medicine, with
the second highest marks in her class.
Afterwards, she worked at the Diabetes
Research Centre there and was supervisor of
a medical laboratory in the Health and
Therapeutic Centre at Iran University.
Her original intention was to become a
physician (her grandfather is a surgeon), but
she decided her real passion lay with medical
laboratory science. She also decided to leave
Iran and sought an English-speaking country
where she could pursue further study.
She arrived in Vancouver in 1997, not
knowing a soul. Just as she was about to give
up on finding a supervisor, she met Professor
John McNeill. In the course of their work
together, they made a breakthrough
discovery. They were exploring how the
element vanadium can be used to treat diabetes by experimenting on muscle cells. When
those cells didn't respond, Marzban suggested
that they concentrate on diabetic liver cells
instead. Her approach was successful.
Marzban remains in Vancouver as a
post-doctoral student with Pathology
Assistant Professor Bruce Verchere, studying
diabetes in children.
Millennium plug
■ The Britannia Copper mine near Squamish
used to be one of the world's most productive
mines, but the toxic run-off also turned it
into one of Canada's most polluted. The
mine closed 25 years ago, but copper, zinc
and sulphuric acid still leach from the mine
Old bridges: Researchers read the writing on
the bridge. New patching techniques promise
to prolong the life of bridge decks.
and destroy the local marine environment.
Mining engineers from UBC are
addressing the problem with  an innovative
technique. In the past, concrete plugs were
used to close up mines, but these had a
tendency to corrode in acidic environments.
phd Candidate Brennan Lang has devised a
different type of plug that is cheaper, less
vulnerable to corrosion, and likely to last
1,000 years. Constructed from layers of soil,
sand and clay, the new plug can also withstand high pressures and seismic activity.
Another (concrete) plug will be built in the
same tunnel and the mine will serve as a
research station for faculty and staff.
The research station will cost $100,000
to set up and will be funded from a $3.3
million grant awarded to UBC's Centre for
Environmental Research in Minerals, Metals
and Materials (CERM3). The UBC team has
access to the mine for five years.
Old bridges made new
S A new method for repairing old bridges
by a UBC professor may help dispense with
traffic delays, save time and drastically
reduce repair costs. Professor Nemkumar
Banthia's method involves the high-speed
application of a fibre-reinforced polymer
spray to an existing structure, effectively
doubling its strength, bc's ministry of transportation is funding tests on 46-year old Safe
Bridge in Duncan.
The material carries fibre optic sensors
that can transmit information on traffic,
weather conditions, wear rates and other data
via the Internet. This will allow Banthia's
research team to check up on the product's
performance remotely, bc is a good testing
ground partly because of our high year-round
earthquake activity. Banthia thinks the spray
should increase the amount of seismic energy
a structure can absorb without detriment to
its safety.
The bc Ministry of Transportation
provided $60,000 for the test on the six
metre Safe Bridge. Application of the material
took five days.
The spray is an improvement over previous methods such as steel jacketing and fibre-
reinforced polymer jacketing, because it is
stronger and has greater longevity. The material has properties to reduce metal corrosion
in high-chloride environments and so may
prove to be the ideal material for use on
oil-drilling platforms. The material is also
impermeable, which may give rise to further
applications, such as a lining for farm-animal
manure containers to prevent contamination
of human water supplies.*
Winter 2002   Trek   13 here and now
LIFE   IN   TRANSLATION
AUGUST 8, 2001, le nuit des etoiles
fusillade, the first night of the annual
summer meteor shower. In Paris, the usual
Thursday night crowd is meeting at the
Pont des Arts on the Seine. Once a week
this loose network of 200 to 300 friends
and acquaintances gathers to drink wine,
make contact and reconnect. The chatter is
in both French and English; there is talk of
films and work and friends. Hands in
pockets, dimly illuminated by the lights of
the Institute de France to the south and
the Musee du Louvre to the north, they
only occasionally look up and imagine the
flashes that pass unseen overhead.
I have come here with Lori Thickc.
My second evening in Paris as her guest,
we walked here from Place de la Bastille,
crossing the river on the Pont de Sully,
then strolling west along the Left Bank. At
the Pont des Arts, we have a glass of wine
and mingle with the crowd. Lori chats
briefly in French with a few acquaintances
(after sharing some two-cheek kisses), then
we talk about her life in Paris.
The home she shares with her four
year-old son, Farrell, and Marites, his
weekday nanny, is made up of two small
detached houses joined by a corridor.
Detached houses are a rarity anywhere in
Paris; Lori's are less than a fifteen minute
walk from the river.
Lori came to Paris in 1986 to write
the great (West Coast) Canadian novel.
She and I had been part of a group of six
or eight hopeful writers that met at UBC
in the mid-eighties then carried their energies and critiques into monthly meetings
that shuffled on through the early nineties.
But Lori didn't stay. She packed her bags
and a rough manuscript and came to the
City of Lights.
To me, and others in the group, the
decision seemed spontaneous and poorly
thought out. Now, standing here beneath
the stars, boats passing under the bridge, I
am old enough to admit to envy, and to
recognize how little I knew about her.
Born in the late 1950s in Northern
Ontario and raised in Victoria, Lori
always chose her own way. The daughter
of an amateur inventor and inveterate
dreamer, Lori started her first business at
17, selling flowers, Polaroid photos and
stuffed toys in Victoria's bars. When
success garnered articles of praise in local
papers, her income was suddenly threatened: "I was underage, so I was busted."
Her response was to take on five
employees and become the boss.
Two years later she sold the company
and went to UVic where she earned a ba,
then to UBC for her mfa. Lori worked for
a publisher throughout grad school, editing local guides and books on topics as
diverse as disarmament, herpes and
growing mushrooms. She is the only
person I know who paid back her student
loan the day she graduated.
Her first home in Paris was a garret
off Boulevard de Sebastopol, overlooking
Notre Dame, not too far from where we
now lean against the bridge's rail. She had
no income, no French working papers and
only a small Canada Council grant. "I
kept thinking, 'My God. What did I just
do?'"
Within months she was looking for
work. A friend at the UBC library had
given her the name of a Vancouverite
working as a translator in Paris, and they
started working together. They prepared
user manuals and press releases, translating the text into idiomatic English. Since
many translation companies don't use
native speakers to edit materials, finished
pieces are often awkward at best or, at
worst, indecipherable. "A company won't
find out that its material is nonsensical
until the manual is published and someone
phones up and says 'What the hell does
this mean?'"
Within six months they had more
work than they could handle.
In 1991 Lori went into business
on her own and created EuroText
(www.eurotext.com). Carrying an
impressive client-base — which includes
3M, bp, Unisys, Virgin, Vivendi, and
France's Ministry of Economy and
Finance, as well as the Prime Minister's
Office — EuroText now has 12 in-house
staff and 200 contractors working across
the Internet. Wisely, she made herself an
employee of the company as soon as it was
created. "Everything was always above
board," she says. "I always paid taxes.
I just didn't have papers."
Visiting her office earlier in the day, I
was aware of an odd juxtaposition of
memory and the here-and-now. Fifteen
years ago, Lori looked like an "Island hippie." Now she heads France's first iso
9001:2000 translation company and is
working on plans to move off-shore and
into other language markets. There is a
slogan, "Quality translation at net speed,"
a corporate philosophy, "Delegating isn't
just asking people to do, it is asking them
to think, to contribute," and even a long-
14   Trek   Winter 2002 Life in Paris, two-cheek kisses, and doing things the right way. BY PATRICK LEWIS
term commitment to making the world a
better place: "We've set up Translators
Without Borders, and we work with
(Nobel Prize-winning) Doctors Without
Borders, as well as Amnesty
International."
"In the past 10 years we've moved
from a seat-of-the-pants
operation to doing it properly. I haven't had any
formal training" — this
from the woman who sold
her first company at 19 to
pay for university — "so
now I study like mad."
Just before midnight
we leave the bridge and
walk home along the banks of the Seine.
Tomorrow, the household will be up early.
A close friend of Lori's is singing the lead
in The Merry Widow in a village deep in
Burgundy's chateau country. We are taking
the car. The fortunate guest: by early
afternoon I will be contemplating fields of
sunflowers and bottles of wine. And come
the night, the three of us, Lori, Farrell and
I, will listen to music beneath the stars.
The river-side freeway is closed for
August and even this late at night, blade
runners and bikers are free-wheeling at the
water's edge. We chat about Farrell, his
sense of humour and the advantage of
being fluent in two languages at the age of
four. And we talk of family, friends and
places we both know. She misses
Vancouver — she and Farrell visit once a
year — but Paris is home. I ask about the
manuscript that supposedly brought her
here, correctly guessing that, complete, it
gathers dust in some drawer. ♦
Mother and son in the garden
Detached houses are a rarity in
Paris. Lori owns two, side-by-side
Here, she walks son Farrell
through the garden between
the houses to school.
Winter 2002   Trek   15 breakthrough
One hundred years after a German engineer demonstrated
the first compression engine, a UBC laboratory develops
technology to ensure the diesel engine can keep its place
as a driver of the world economy. BY RICHARD BANNER
SAVING
DIESEL
A piston compresses air in a 400-
millimetre long steel cylinder to a
pressure of 625 pounds per square inch.
The intense pressure drives the air temperature up to hundreds of degrees Celsius. A
blast of air forces a spray of gasoline into
the chamber. The fuel ignites and explodes,
forcing the piston back and sending a
monitoring valve flying past the heads of
engine designer Rudolph Diesel and chief
engineer Lucien Vogel. The first working
diesel engine is born.
That explosion occurred on August 10,
1893, in Augsburg, Bavaria, in the workshops of Maschinenfabrik-Augsburg A.G.
Diesel and his team refined and tested the
engine, and by February 17, 1897, an independent test showed the machine in continuous operation, generating 17.8 horsepower.
Its efficiency — ranging from 22 to 26 per
cent — doubled the efficiency of internal
combustion engines of the late 1800s.
The following year, three companies
displayed the new diesel engines at a Munich
exposition of power plants. By 1900, Diesel
and his partners had granted over 50
licences and options. Today, the diesel engine
is the moving force that powers the
industrial world.
THE DIESEL ECONOMY
Diesel's invention needed large external air
compressors to operate, so his first engines
were stationary machines for small industries.
At three metres in height and about 250
pounds per horsepower, they were not
intended to compete with the spark-ignition
engines that were already powering motorcars.
By 1910, however, seagoing ships, with room
for large engines, began to use the diesel
engine because its greater efficiency meant that
they could travel farther with less fuel.
With the development of a fuel injection
pump powered by the engine itself, a mobile
engine became possible. Maschinenfabrik-
Augsburg A.G. introduced the first diesel-
driven trucks in 1924 and diesel locomotives
appeared the same year. By the end of the
Second World War the diesel motor had
become the most efficient way to move heavy
loads.
With up to 55 per cent fuel efficiency,
diesel engines remain far more fuel-efficient
than spark-ignition engines, which can only
achieve 3 5 per cent. Diesels generate high
power at low rotating speeds, making them
ideal for heavy moving jobs. They are built to
withstand high pressures and temperatures
and have no need to control the air-fuel mix,
so they are simpler and easier to maintain.
They work with a variety of fuels (including
coal dust, used in several of the early
experiments) so they can burn low-cost heavy
fuel oils that have more energy per litre than
lighter fuels such as gasoline.
As a result, businesses choose diesel
engines wherever cost, power and durability
are important factors — in freight trucking,
marine shipping, railroads and many urban
fleets of buses and delivery vehicles. Diesel
engines have even powered some aircraft,
though their heavier weight is a drawback
against their efficiency. They are widely used
in stationary electricity generators because
they can produce more power at less cost than
most alternatives.
In Europe, new light-weight, high-speed
diesel engine designs are capturing more than
30 per cent of new car sales. In less developed
countries, where reducing the use of imported
fuels is essential, diesel engines are not only
good business, they support the national economy.
A CLOUD OF BLACK SMOKE
But the dominance of the diesel engine faces a
growing threat, especially in the West. Diesel
exhaust contains known carcinogens and lung
16   Trek   Winter 2002 Winter 2002   Trek   17 SAVING DIESEL
irritants, and although diesel trucks account
for only two per cent of traffic in North
America, they produce more than 40 per cent
of vehicle emissions. Forty chemicals in diesel
exhaust are on California's list of toxic air
contaminants, and California's Lung
Association reports that the risk of cancer
from exposure to diesel emissions (which
include fine particles — mainly soot — and
nitrogen oxides) far outweighs cancer risks
from other air contaminants.
All vehicles that burn fuel in air produce
nitrogen oxides, which are a major factor in
chronic lung diseases and asthma. The
amount produced increases as combustion
temperature increases — and because diesel
engines operate at high temperatures, they
produce as much or more nitrogen oxides as
other engines. Strategies to reduce the
nitrogen oxide output of diesel engines tend
to decrease the power and efficiency of the
engine and increase the production of soot
and particulates.
Complete combustion in diesel engines
depends on high pressure and precise control
of the fuel as it is injected into the cylinder.
Worn fuel injectors and over-fuelling can
produce billows of oily, black smoke, and
although electronic control has greatly
improved emissions diesel engines can emit
dangerous particulates even when no smoke
is visible.
The US Clean Air Act of 1969 gave
notice to the industry that changes would be
needed. Diesel manufacturers resisted at first,
but by the 1980s they began to accept the
inevitable, and researchers started looking for
clean air solutions for diesel engines.
Several of the major manufacturers of
heavy-duty diesel engines have agreed to
reduce their emissions by approximately 50
per cent by October 1, 2002, and by 2007
will be required by the US Environmental
Protection Agency to reduce particulate
emissions by 94 per cent and nitrogen oxide
emissions by 90 per cent of current levels.
Meeting these requirements will be diffi
cult and potentially costly, and any approach
that lessens the efficiency of the diesel motor
will reduce its key advantages. The integrated
twenty-first century market relies on efficient
diesel engines not only to carry products to
market, but to supply their raw materials
and assembly parts, to grow, harvest and
mine resources, to transport urban workers
and often to generate electricity. The diesel
economy will hit a deep pothole if a rise in
transportation costs boosts the cost of
virtually every industrial and consumer
product.
SAVING THE DIESEL ENGINE
Many saviours are offering their technologies
to the diesel industry. "Green" diesel technologies range from substituting vegetable
oils for fuel oil to redesigning the engine to
promote better fuel combustion at lower
temperatures. These may not be practical: the
first approach requires reorganizing the
world fuel distribution system, while the
second means re-tooling engine plants.
Taking a new engine through design and
development and into commercial production
can take eight to 10 years and cost as much
as $500 million.
Twenty years ago, Pat McGeer, then
bc's science and technology minister and a
UBC professor, proposed researching the use
of natural gas to fuel vehicles. McGeer
favoured natural gas because of bc's plentiful
supply and its other advantages. It burns at a
lower temperature than diesel fuel, which
reduces the production of nitrogen oxides,
and its simpler molecular structure produces
less soot than more complex fuel oil
molecules.
Natural gas is a good fuel for spark-
ignition engines, but new catalytic converters
allow them to operate with extremely low
emissions while burning gasoline, eliminating
the need for an alternative fuel. No such
technology was available for diesels. Without
a remedy to the exhaust problem, the diesel
was in danger of being legislated into extinc
tion. The diesel engine needed a new
solution.
A long-time advocate of diesel's
efficiency, UBC engineering Professor Phil
Hill turned to the problem in the mid-1980s.
Now retired from UBC, Hill still spends a
few hours a day in his office in the
department of Mechanical Engineering,
where he can keep up with research and chat
with former colleagues and students.
"Prior to 1980, you couldn't get students interested in the diesel because it has
been so-called 'perfected' over a 50-year
period. *\s an undergraduate in the 1950s, I
once told my prof I'd like to work in diesel
because it's a nice engine. He advised against
it because there was so little incentive for
further diesel development. So I didn't, and
turned my attention instead to the gas
turbine. But the pollution picture in the
past decade turned everything upside
down."
Looking for a way to preserve the
advantages of the diesel engine in a world
increasingly concerned about air quality led
Hill to the concept of injecting natural gas
under high pressure.
"We wanted to introduce this into the
market in a practical way," says Hill. "The
idea was to replace the fuel, not the engine."
A natural gas injector could replace the conventional fuel oil injector and fit into the fuel
port of a standard diesel engine.
Although natural gas will burn in a
diesel engine, it will not ignite easily. To
ignite it, a small amount of fuel oil — about
three per cent of the total fuel — must be
added. The pressurized, heated air in the
cylinder ignites the oil, which then ignites the
natural gas.
It's a simple idea, but with many
complications. Injecting gas into the inlet
manifold and compressing it can lead to combustion knock and inefficient combustion.
Hill's research eventually focused on injecting
pressurized natural gas into the already
pressurized combustion cylinder — an
18   Trek   Winter 2002 approach that diesel engineers had considered
too complicated.
To work, the injector must inject the fuel
oil, followed within milliseconds by the
natural gas, into the pressurized cylinder.
Natural gas must be liquefied and stored at -
t30 Celsius in order to provide enough fuel
for practical mobility, and a pressurization
system must boost the pressure from 250 psi
in the tanks to the 4,500 psi needed to inject
it into the cylinders.
"High pressure direct injection, either of
diesel fuel or natural gas, requires precision
machining of the order of tens of millionths
of an inch," Hill says. "Developing the
technology to do it accurately and reliably
has been an important step."
The work was slow and painstaking,
and Hill gives credit to more than a dozen
graduate students who worked with him to
conduct tests and measure, analyze and
model the results. Teamwork, he says, was a
critically important ingredient.
As Hill's method began to prove itself,
he grew concerned about protecting the
public investment. "How do you protect the
Canadian interest in this? Here's where our
industry liaison office plays a crucial role."
Alvin Fowler, then head of UBC's
University-Industrial Liaison Office, discussed
the research with Hill. He decided to file for
patent protection for Hill's injector and con
ducted a market review. The review found
that, although there was significant potential,
no major corporation was interested in
sponsoring the research.
Without increased funding, progress was
slow, and by the end of 1994 "it was getting
beyond the fundraising capability of a very
ordinary professor like me," says Hill.
"Things looked grim. Then Alvin Fowler
introduced Hill to David Demers, a former
IBM executive who was looking for new ideas
to invest in.
GETTING INTO BUSINESS
"When I came into this," says Demers, "I
knew nothing about diesel. Al Fowler
phoned and said you've got to meet Phil
Hill. It was clear that Phil understood the
whole issue of air pollution and what can
be done to solve the crisis of the large
commercial diesels. It was also clear he did
not know how to get from where he was to
where he wanted to be. His research project
was out of money and key people were
drifting away."
Demers felt Hill had a worthwhile idea
and, just as important, felt he could work
next several years to convince engine
companies that Westport's diesel technology
would position them for the next phase of
the diesel economy. And he worked with
them to understand what would help them
sell their engines to their customers, and how
to shape Westport's technology to meet the
needs of engine buyers.
Demers says, "We went to the three
biggest engine companies and said, 'We're the
only one that really has a solution to this
problem and it's going to make you a
We set out the save the diesel engine.
That's really what the company vision is founded on, that diesel
engines are a fabulous technical invention. They have this minor
little defect, but our whole economy is built on these engines.
with him to market the technology. After
three months of careful technical and market
research, Demers requested an option to
license the technology for commercialization.
He incorporated Westport Innovations Inc.
in 1995 and set up an office at the UBC
campus. He began to raise funding through
the Vancouver stock market, government
funding sources — and his own pocket.
"When I first met Phil," says Demers,
"his first words after, 'Hi, how are you?'
were, 'We set out to save the diesel engine.'
That's really what the company vision is
founded on: that diesel engines are a
fabulous technical invention. They have this
minor little defect, but our whole economy is
built on these engines. So Phil said, 'We
don't want to lose the hundred years of
experience and infrastructure. Let's re-jig it
so that it's good for another century.' That's
a pretty bold vision."
It's the vision driving Westport
Innovations. Demers worked hard for the
stronger competitor. Either there's a mchc
market for low emission natural gas products
— and we know there is because people are
buying them for things like transit buses —
or it will become a very large part of your
market, maybe 20 or 30 per cent.' Either
way it was a win-win proposition. One of
the three said, 'You might have something
there.'"
Cummins Inc., the world's largest maker
of diesel engines, already had a natural gas
engine, but it was a very small part of their
business. "It's difficult for a large company
to manage such a small part of their business
separately," says Demers. "Our offer meant
that we could help them manage two markets." Eventually Cummins agreed to help
develop a full product line of natural gas
diesel engines, and put its existing natural gas
business into a joint venture with Westport.
"It's all about timing and circumstances," says Demers. He and Hill agree
that even the most ingenious invention has
Winter 2002   Trek   19 SAVING DIESEL
no value in the marketplace unless it meets a
perceived customer need. "That's what's
difficult for the university researcher,"
Demers says. "To put together a successful
market strategy requires you to be deep into
the politics of the time."
"Our timing anticipated a sea change in
attitude," says Demers. "Most businesses
would really love, given a choice, to do
something that has less social impact, less
environmental impact and makes them more
money. It's just how do we get from where
we are today to where we want to be in the
future."
The joint venture with Cummins takes
Westport Innovations closer to Phil Hill's
goal of saving the diesel engine. The
partnership plans to ship 10,000 natural
gas engines manufactured by Cummins in
2004 and 100,000 engines per year by 2009.
Converting a share of the world diesel
engine market to natural gas engines will
mean targeting areas like China, where the
Cummins Westport joint venture is already
supplying engines, and Beijing has
announced it plans to change to 100 per cent
natural gas buses.
After listing Westport's target markets,
Demers says, "Unfortunately, Canada's not
on the list." Canada has no government
diesel emission regulations and no incentives
for industrial users to switch to clean-air
engines.
Westport Innovations now has about
2.2.5 people on staff, including Phil Hill as
senior scientific advisor and most of his original team of researchers. It's expanded from
a small office on the UBC campus to
150,000 square feet spread over seven buildings in South Vancouver. In addition to its
joint venture with Cummins, Westport has
partnerships with strategically chosen allies
in the world diesel market: Ford trucks,
Isuzu Motors in Japan (45 per cent owned
by General Motors) and the company that
produced Rudolph Diesel's first engines in
Germany.
INTO THE FUTURE
Demers acknowledges that fuel cells, wind
and solar technologies will play an important
role in the future. "As far as we are concerned, more power to them. But everybody
forgets, or dismisses, too years of bright
engineers working on internal combustion.
We really know how to do cool things with
engines. We can make them cheaply and
with incredible energy density.
"Socially, I don't think we are going
to accept reduced mobility or the death of
the transportation industry," he says. "If we
could take it all apart and start fresh, we'd
make something completely different. But
given what we've got today, how do we
advance in the most expedient, economical
and attractive way possible?"
"The real challenge is coming up in
2007, 2008, 2009," Hill says. "There's a
great deal of excitement in the industry.
How is this going to be done? It's kind of
fun," he says with a chuckle.
David Demers, the businessman,
delights in his product. Combined with the
ingenuity of Phil Hill and his team of
researchers, and the insight of Rudolph
Diesel, he is launching the second century
of the engine that drives the industrial
world. ♦
NAMESAKE
Rudolph Diesel wanted wealth
and power — wealth for himself
and power for small-scale
manufacturers who could not
afford the expensive steam-
powered machinery being
installed in the huge factories
and revolutionizing European
industry.
War and poverty shaped Diesel's life. Born in Paris to a German
leather goods maker, he fled with his family when the Franco-
Prussian war of 1870 intensified anti-German hostility. Unable to
support a family in England, his father sent the 12-year-old to live
with a cousin in Augsburg, Bavaria. Rudolph excelled in technical
school and by the age of 22 returned to Paris to become managing
director of a Swiss firm manufacturing ice-making equipment.
Diesel was fascinated by thermodynamics — the conversion of
heat to mechanical energy. He theorized that he could produce a
THE LIFE OF RUDOLPH  DIESEL
new type of engine that would be more than twice as efficient
and considerably less costly than the steam engines and internal
combustion engines of the time. An engine that used less fuel and
worked on a smaller scale would allow smaller producers to gain
the benefits of mechanized production. On the strength of his
calculations, he persuaded steam-engine maker Maschinenfabrik
Augsburg, now known as German engine maker m.a.n., and the
Krupp company to build a prototype and develop a working
pressure-ignition engine.
Diesel's patents allowed him to bargain for a 25 per
cent royalty on sales. Seemingly secure in his wealth, he spent
freely on luxuries for his family. His business dealings,
however, were not as effective as his engineering, and his patent
holding company collapsed. Suffering from a painful medical
condition (still unknown), financial troubles and critics who
challenged his patent claims, he disappeared from a ship on a
windless, moonlit night in 1913 while crossing the English
Channel.
20   Trek   Winter 2002 BOWSER'S   BRAIN
. 0   SUM
On that warm summer day, our red-sailed cutter, Silversark, was tied up beside our friends Greg and Denise on their catboat,
BY  SILVER  DONALD  CAMERON
Winter 2002   Trek   21 BOWSER'S   BRAIN
Queen Celeste. Leo the Wonder Whippet
was balanced at our rail, whining quietly
and trembling, eager to jump the gap
between the two vessels to greet his dear
friend Denise. But the gap was wide, and
the boats were rocking.
"Leo," I said quietly, shaking my head,
"forget it." He looked at me sideways, and
then backed down. Denise laughed.
"Does he understand 'forget it?'" she
asked. I looked at Leo, now resignedly
curled up in our cockpit.
"I guess he must," I said. "I never
thought about it."
But I've wondered about it ever since.
When you live with a dog, you communicate constantly. The dog wants you to feed
him, let him out, stroke him, walk him. You
want the dog to come, go, lie down, hop in
the car, fetch the ball. Over the years, each
of you learns the other's patterns. The dog
looks at you with a question. Your nod is
the answer. You're startled at the amount
your dog understands.
All this brought me to Stanley Coren's
much-discussed book The Intelligence of
Dogs. A prize-winning dog trainer, Coren is
also a professor of psychology at UBC who
observes that we rarely consider dogs as a
serious subject of study. School children
study whales, elephants, bats, dinosaurs and
other exotic animals, but not North
America's 52 million dogs, a few of which
they see every day.
Dogs are so familiar that we assume
we understand them. They were the first
domesticated animals, and have shared our
lives for 14,000 years. We have harnessed
their intelligence for millennia — to guard
people and property, sniff out fugitives or
drugs, rescue drowning people, herd flocks,
haul carts, retrieve game, guide the blind.
According to the Kato Indians of
California, says Coren, the dog was here
before we were. The god Nagaicho created
the world and all its animals, including
humans — but his beloved dog tagged along
while he did it.
The nature of "intelligence," in dog or
man, remains mysterious. We think of it as a
general intellectual power, but it is probably
a package of different mental abilities. The
same person can be brilliant in one field and
dozy in another. Einstein couldn't balance his
cheque book. William Faulkner couldn't
spell. Mackenzie King communed with the
intelligence" of 133 different breeds by
surveying 208 dog-obedience judges from
across North America. He found a surprising
consensus. Broadly speaking, the working
dogs — herding dogs and retrievers,
particularly — rank high, spaniels in the
middle, and hounds (including whippets)
from mid-list downwards, with terriers
spread throughout the list. The border collie
was ranked in the top 10 by almost everyone.
The dog looks at you with a question.
Your nod is the answer.
You're startled at the amount your dog understands.
spirit of his dead dog. But one would hardly
claim that any of them lacked intelligence.
How would you measure a dog's intelligence? Traditionally, by its ability to perform
tasks that we teach it. By that standard,
though, the most intelligent soldier in an
army would be not its general, but its most
obedient infantryman. Perhaps some dogs
decline to fetch balls because they are
independent thinkers with other matters on
their minds.
Coren argues that dogs show many different forms of intelligence. They understand
space and size, and are aware of their own
bodies. They accurately judge what they can
and can't do. They solve unexpected
problems. They have complex social rituals
among themselves and with us. Some enjoy
music — Leo likes to hear the piano — and
some can grasp numbers up to five. Dogs
make different sounds to convey different
meanings, and they respond to language.
Coren's own dogs understand more than 60
words, and other dogs have learned more
than 100.
Coren tried to assess the "obedience
Coren points out something that had
not occurred to me before, namely that
intelligent dogs are not for everyone. Border
collies, for instance, have been described as
"bright, quick, and more than a little weird."
A really intelligent dog figures out things
you'd rather he didn't know, and solves
problems efficiently — like how to get out of
the house by crashing right through the
screen door, or through the window if the
door is closed. Bright dogs need active,
engaged owners. If they're bored, they can
become, well, more than a little weird.
By contrast, one veterinarian claims that
Irish setters are "so dumb that they get lost
at the end of their leash." Perhaps — but not
all of them, and they are also gorgeous,
affectionate and playful. If what you want
from a dog is mainly companionship, why
saddle yourself with a sharp-witted, jittery
poodle or a demanding Doberman?
Leo probably understands 40 or 50
words and phrases, including "go git 'im!"
and "forget it." And there's another His
People often use — "I love you." I think he
grasps that, too. ♦
22   Trek   Winter 2002 FACULTY OF  FORESTRY CELEBRATES   \      I   FIFTY   1  I YEARS
marking    time
FORESTRY has been an important part of UBC's offerings since 1919, when H.R. Christie
was appointed first head of the department of Forestry in the faculty of Applied Science.
The first degrees in forestry were awarded in 1923, the first masc was granted in 1933 and
the first phd in 1949. The formal creation of the Faculty of Forestry in 1951 reflected the
growing demand for professional foresters in the province.
In the early days of forestry education at UBC, programs dealt with basic forest operations
and reforestation, reflecting the values of the era. As the industry evolved and public
awareness of the importance of forests developed over the years, the faculty's thrust turned
to forest sciences, wood product development, conservation, soil science, ecology and
cultural issues surrounding forest use. It has become one of the leading faculties of its type
in North America.
Some highlights of Faculty of Forestry programing:
• NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION, an interdisciplinary program focussing on
renewable resources, management of protected areas and ecosystems planning. Students
spend three months at a field school studying three types of ecosystems. They spend
one week living in each. The Conservation Volunteer program matches students with
volunteer jobs, for which they can receive credit towards their tuition fees.
• THE WOOD PRODUCTS PROCESSING PROGRAM is the only one of its type in North
America. Students learn technological skills and a specialized knowledge base in the wood-
manufacturing sector. Students can work for up to 20 months in the Wood Co-op program
and there is never any shortage of employers seeking Wood Products students.
• THE FIRST NATIONS FORESTRY CO-ORDINATOR integrates First Nations issues and
perspectives into the curricula and works to attract First Nations students to the Forestry
program. So far, 14 have graduated and 20 First Nations students are currently enrolled.
Since 1923, the faculty has awarded 3,500 undergrad, 600 masters and 275 doctoral
degrees. There are currently 500 undergraduate and 250 graduate students in the faculty.
Winter 2002   Trek   23 FOREST
24   Trek   Spring 2002
Photograph by Chris Dah FORESTRY: "The art, practice, science
and business of sustaining a desired
balance of values and environmental
services from forested landscapes."
ETHIC
FORESTRY  IS  A  LONG-TERM ACTIVITY.
Trees in Canada can take 50 — 150
years to reach commercial size, and the
re-creation of old forest conditions might
take 100 — 300 years or longer. It can
take many decades to re-establish a forest that has been clearcut, or to change
the structure of a forest once it has been
established.
Human preferences are much more
ephemeral, changing from decade to
decade. In the last 50 years, society's
attitudes about forestry have changed
quickly, and forestry has nor been able
to match this pace of change. It has
created what the American futurist,
Alvin Toffler, called Future Shock.
Future shock occurs when social conditions change faster than individuals can
adapt to the change, or when institutions
within society change more slowly than
its members demand. This future shock
within the industry is made even worse
when pressure from some groups has led
to changes in forestry that have been, in
the long term, undesirable.
Some examples:
* Social pressure in the 1980s to change
bc's original timber licences contributed
significantly to the accelerated logging
and poor road building practices that led
to the Clayoquot Sound protest.
BY    HAMISH    KIMMINS
Winter 2002   Trek   25 THE LAND ETHIC
• Also in the 1980s, pressure from labour
unions in the environmental movement led to
the zero tolerance of waste regulation that
robbed many harvested forestlands of
decaying logs that are such an important part
of the ecology of forests.
• Fifty years of over-zealous forest fire
protection has radically altered many forests
and rendered some of them more susceptible
to damage from fire, insects and disease.
• Social pressure against slash burning has
resulted in its virtual elimination, with
consequent ecological implications,
sometimes beneficial and sometimes not.
• Pressure to ban clearcutting and replace it
everywhere with soft-touch, continuous-forest-cover forestry
(sometimes called
ecoforestry)  may A thing is right
look nicer but will
result, in some
forests, in a loss of their historical ecological
character and some aspects of biodiversity.
But change is an important part of
forestry. Professional foresters have a
responsibility to rethink the way forests are
managed when social values and commercial
requirements change. But they have a second
responsibility to resist changes (and reject
current practices) that have the potential to
do lasting harm to the forest.
Part of the solution to future shock is
good education.
Aldo Leopold and forestry education
Aldo Leopold (1886-1948), forester, farmer,
fisherman, hunter, philosopher and conservationist, is widely considered the grandfather
of the environmental movement. He was the
author of The Land Ethic, required reading
for all foresters. In this essay he challenges
foresters to be ethical in the way they manage the land.
"A thing is right when it tends to
preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of
the biotic community. It is wrong when it
tends otherwise."
Some interpret this to mean that
disturbance and change in forests is wrong.
But what Leopold means by preserve implies
sustain, by integrity he means the maintenance of ecological processes, including
processes of change, by stability he means
change that does not diminish the forest, and
by beauty he refers to ecological rather than
aesthetic beauty. He was impressed by the
complex and ever-changing mosaic of
ecological conditions and processes across a
landscape. This he found beautiful.
On the next page of The Land Ethic he
wrote:
"The evolution of a land ethic is an
intellectual as well as emotional process.
Conservation is paved with good intentions
to understand the land mechanism," and an
ability to understand and predict what is
meant by "a state of harmony between men
and land." We must equip them with a love
of forests, a commitment to life-long learning
to understand how forest ecosystems
function and an understanding of the
critically
important role of disturbance in our forests.
At the same time, our graduates must
understand that forestry is fundamentally
about people, not ecology. It is about jobs,
wealth creation, maintaining rural communities, providing a mixture of material benefits
including wood and many non-wood products, aesthetic and spiritual values, protection
of human communities from floods,
avalanche and landslide, and regulation of
water and stream flow. However, foresters
when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community.
that prove to be futile, or even dangerous,
because they arc devoid of critical understanding either of land, or of economic land
use."
Ihe examples of misguided policy noted
above could have been avoided if those
responsible had read and understood
Leopold's writing. He noted that conservation is "a state of harmony between men and
land," and that "conservation education"
should focus on and "... build an ethical
underpinning for land economics ... and a
universal curiosity to understand the land
mechanism (i.e., forest ecology and
management). Conservation may follow."
Aldo Leopold's writing provides an
excellent foundation for the design of
forestry education. It asserts balance between
social needs and preferences and environmental sciences. It stresses the importance of
ethics and the necessity to respect nature as it
is, not as we might want it to be.
Educating foresters requires that we
develop in students the "universal curiosity
must build strategies to achieve and sustain
these social values on a strong foundation of
ecology and other sciences, and recognize the
critical importance of sustaining all aspects
of diversity.
Forestry as the ultimate multidisdpline
Problems are issues that don't get solved.
Problems often persist because they are
complex, while the solutions that are offered
are too simple.
A fundamental tenet of academic science
is Occam's razor: one should always employ
the simplest available theory, hypothesis or
model. Our entire education system reflects
this approach. We subdivide complex
systems, issues and structures of interest to
society into a series of disciplinary subject
areas (History, Economics, Chemistry,
Physics), and then further subdivide those
into specialized courses. These pieces, which
are the academic equivalent of bricks and
two-by-fours, do not describe the world in
themselves or provide solutions to problems.
26   Trek   Winter 2002 To do so (that is, to construct the houses and
communities society desires), we must
combine knowledge from many disciplines.
In both forestry education and the
complex issues that are problems for society,
there is a critical need for integration of
disciplinary knowledge. We need methods by
which we can integrate the academic bricks
and two-by-fours into academic houses and
communities.
Forestry education involves the basic
biophysical sciences of physics, chemistry,
engineering, hydrology, climatology, geology
and biology and the complex sciences of soils
and ecology. But it also needs the basic social
sciences of economics, sociology, psychology,
organizational behaviour, management and
law, and the complex sciences of planning
and forest management. We teach our stu-
It is wrong when it tends otherwise.
dents genetics, physiology, dendrology, soils,
climatology, entomology, plant pathology, fire
science, wildlife biology, hydrology, silviculture, forest measurement, statistics, recreation
and aesthetics, remote sensing, forest
engineering, forest harvesting systems,
economics, policy, resource law, planning,
management systems, public participation,
ethics, First Nations issues, tenure systems,
stream and fish management, and more.
However, there is a real danger that
these courses remain as academic bricks and
two-by-fours. The critical need in forestry
education is to ensure that the diversity of
knowledge is integrated in a way that leads
to better forest management. We should, and
do, offer  problem-based courses that address
the social and environmental complexity of
the real world.
Dealing with complexity: computer-based
planning tools in forestry
In an ideal world, we would make decisions
about managing our forests by combining a
thorough knowledge of how managed
forests function and evolve with long
experience in judging and meeting social
needs. Unfortunately, in bc we have no
direct
experience of the long-term consequences of
different ways of managing forests, and
social needs change in unpredictable ways.
As a result, our decisions about alternative
management strategies must combine our
western-science-based knowledge with the
experience-based knowledge of First Nations
and forest managers.
One of the most important ways of
supplementing this human thought process
is through forest ecosystem management
models.
The Faculty of Forestry at UBC has
long been recognized for its computer
modeling. Researchers have produced computer modeling of wildlife, timber supply,
growth and yield, sawmilling, forest estate
management, genetics, landscape visualization and many more.
One such modeling activity is the Forest
Ecosystem Management Simulation Group
in the department of Forest Sciences, now
the subject of a senior Canada Research
Chair in Forest Ecosystem Modeling.
By entering data that reflects all aspects
of a forest's life — climate, rainfall, tree and
understory species, growth rates, topography, soil composition, etc. — foresters can
take a particular area of a forest and show,
with computer graphics, how various
methods of regeneration, tending and harvest will effect it. Commercial companies use
such tools to analyze their forests and determine best-use scenarios, taking into account
demands for recreation and other uses.
This and other models are analytical
decision-support tools for professional
foresters. They are less suitable for members
of the public who are increasingly involved
in forest land-use planning and management
practice decisions. As a result, we have
developed the high school educational forest
management game FORTOON, which helps
students understand the various dynamics
that influence forest use, and, more recently,
an  interactive watershed landscape model
called Possible Forest Futures. This is
designed to help local groups determine
how their needs and desires for the forest
fit into a diverse program of forest
management.
Our models have been or are currently
being used in Norway, Scotland, several
parts of Canada, the us, China and
Thailand, while applications for New
Zealand, Australia and Brazil are in the
planning stages. The main function of these
modeling programs is to analyze how the
demands on a forest — timber, social and
environmental — promote sustainability
under alternative management practices.
This is important in the green certification of
forestry, which is becoming essential in the
marketing of forest products. Our models
are also being used to examine the role of
forests and forestry in global climate change,
and in examining traditional tropical shifting
cultivation (Thailand), agroforestry (China),
and problems of forest decline due to mismanagement (China).
These models are being used as the ecologically based drivers of timber supply
analysis models (atlas), wildlife habitat
models (simfor) and advanced visualization
models, all developed within the faculty.
These integrated  systems are bringing teams
of faculty members together from all three
departments in the Faculty of Forestry and
elsewhere and are being applied currently to
three locations in bc where there is public
concern over forest management.
This system of modeling incorporates
the basic tenets of good forest practice, and
allows for maximum input from all the
sectors of society that have an interest in our
forests. In as much as Toffler's Future Shock
provides its own model for how societies
move toward dysfunction as change progresses, these systems reflect a new approach
to making important social decisions in an
informed and involving way. *
Winter 2002   Trek   27 BEGINNINGS
THE SOF   RON FORESTERS
When Russian tanks invaded Hungary in the autumn of 1956,
students at the Sopron School of Forestry knew it was time to move
on. Many students had been involved in the anti-Soviet activities that
had swept Hungary in the weeks and months before the invasion,
and staying on was not a viable option. And anyway: the school had
a tradition of patriotism and activism. Begun some 200 years earlier
at the University of Selmecbanya, the forestry school had picked
up and moved to Sopron after Selmecbanya became part of
Czechoslovakia after World War 1 and the breakup of the Austro-
Hungarian Empire.
But in 1956, with Hungary occupied by the Soviets, the school
was forced to find a home outside the country. Faculty, students and
their families, some 300 people, fled to Austria with little more than
the clothes on their backs, where they would appeal to the international community for a home.
Enter the Canadians.
When the Faculty of Forestry opened in 19 51, Canada faced a
serious shortage of trained foresters. The business of forestry continued to boom across the country, but outdated management practices,
limited scientific advance and a growing awareness of environmental
concern in the public were beginning to threaten the industry. The
new faculty, one of four in the country, hoped to train a new
generation of scientific foresters, men and women who would
modernize forestry and insure the industry's growth.
The dean of Forestry, George Allen, heard of the plight of the
Sopron foresters and recognized the incredible opportunity to
increase the talent pool of the faculty and to reach out to the men
and women displaced by the Soviets. After a hurried trip to Austria
to talk to the group, and with the assistance of Jack Pickersgill, the
Canadian Minister of Immigration, arrangements were made to
bring the Sopron foresters and their families to Canada.
With the cooperation of the Powell River company, some
of the students and faculty were settled initially in Powell River,
while others came immediately to Vancouver. Few knew any
English, and most found the ways of the new world strange and
difficult.
But faculty and students soon came together on campus, and
the synergy Dean Allen hoped would develop became fact. The
majority of the students in the Sopron division of the Faculty of
Forestry finished their degrees by 1961 and, along with the faculty,
most stayed in bc to work in the forest industry or at UBC.
The addition of the Sopron foresters gave the faculty the boost
it needed to develop rapidly. Partly because of that synergy, UBC's
Faculty of Forestry has become one of the top forestry research
facilities in North America. +
28   Trek   Winter 2002 lands and buildings
THE FOREST SCIENCES BUILDING
when you step through the doors of the Forest Sciences
Building, you enter a state-of-the-art showcase of Canadian wood
and advanced wood products. The most impressive features of the
inner atrium are the clusters of Parallam beams that reach four
storeys to the glass ceiling above. It's like walking into a mature
forest with branches spread above, nearly obliterating the sky.
You expect to hear birdsong and the quiet soughing of the breeze,
high overhead.
The walls of the atrium are lined with sound-moderating
medium-density fibreboard panels that are covered by a veneer of
edge-sliced Douglas fir. The wooden seating benches and the stair
trends to the second floor are solid Douglas fir.
The four-storey block next to the atrium houses research
laboratories and offices for faculty, staff and graduate students.
The upper three levels of this building are made of wood and
engineered wood products. The building's designers had to prove
several building code equivalencies to show how wood products
did, in fact, bear weight and stresses as well or better than
traditional building materials. ♦
Photographs by Elizabeth Minish
Winter 2002   Trek   29 THE   DIVINE   WORD
SLAM AND THE ART OF BEAUTIFUL WRITING
BY   ELIZABETH   NEGRAVE,   MA'96
In the late 13TH century, the most eminent man in Islam was
master calligrapher Yaqut al-Musta 'simi. He was celebrated for
introducing a new method of trimming reed pens (he gave them an
oblique cut), elevating the already-lyrical Arabic script to the
articulation of ideal form. He had an unflagging devotion to his art.
In 12.58 the Mongols plundered Baghdad, but Yaqut refused to
suspend his daily practice of copying out two sections of the Koran.
Retreating to the top of a minaret he continued writing, while below
him the city burned.
Another scene drawn from the warp and weft of lore takes place
250 years later, during the Ottoman rule of Sultan Bayazid 11. The
great calligrapher of the day was Shayk Hamdullah al-Amasi. Under
his tutelage the Sultan tried to master the delicate art himself. Good
handwriting is a serious skill: it can be a sign of moral rectitude,
a talisman against pain. It is "spiritual geometry by means of a
corporeal instrument." Thus the image of Hamdallah, bowing intently
over his own gifted hand while the all-powerful Sultan —- his admirer,
obeisant — holds the inkpot as the master writes.
The fundamental characteristic of Islam is a passion for the
written script, comparable to the Christian world's reverence for
iconography. The central truth of Islam is the Divine Word, visibly
revealed in the Koran as transcribed by the Prophet Muhammad.
Calligraphy is both the medium of this truth and its aesthetic
expression. It is the only universal art of Islam, the highest art, and it
is the theme unifying a variety of objects on display at the UBC
Museum of Anthropology's "Spirit of Islam" exhibition, which runs
until May.
Jill Baird, MoA's curator of education and public programs, says
the idea for the exhibition took shape two years ago. "There are 1.2
billion Muslims in the world, and in North America we don't know
what Islamic histories and traditions represent."
The exhibition's curator, Carol Mayer, chose calligraphy as the
vehicle for raising awareness because of its importance in Islamic
culture and because, as Mayer says, "few expressions can be interpret-
30   Trek   Spring 2002 Astrolabe. Brass, used to tell time and locate celestial objects. Iran, 1388.       Left: The Blue Qur'an. Kufic script, gold on blue vellum. North Africa or Spain. 10th C.
Spring 2002   Trek   31 .SLAM   AND   THE   ART   OF   BEAUTIFUL   WRITING
ed on so many levels."
The objects, many of them
borrowed from the Nasser D.
Khalili Collection of Islamic
Art and the Institute of Ismaeli
Studies in London, represent
more than a thousand years of
sacred and secular art. Each
one is approached, says Mayer,
as a  portal into some aspect of
Islamic culture.
But the objects have an
extravagant beauty of their
own, aside from their cultural
connection: a mosque lamp,
gilded, enameled and set with
glass; furniture and a playing
board that shimmer with intri-
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glazed tile mosaic from Pakistan
retains the same fluvial motion
as when embroidered onto a
satin Egyptian textile panel for
the place of pilgrimage at
Mecca. This is because each
style has been codified into a set
of rules and proportions from
which the calligrapher doesn't
stray. The artist subordinates
individual emotional and
expressive qualities to a
common aesthetic.
"It's a little bit different
from the European view of art
as only a representation of
personal and unique
experiences," says Mamoun
The artist subordinates individual emotional and expressive qualities to a common aesthetic.
cate inlay of mother-of-pearl; silks and other
textiles threaded with silver and gold.
"Handwriting is jewellery fashioned by
the hand from the pure gold of the intellect,"
it is said. Ornamental details are curlicued,
knotted, braided, foliated, floriated, interlaced and looped, embellishing the letters
that, themselves, extend and conjoin in a
kind of choral dance.
This fineness of gesture springs from an
impulse to make the calligraphic text appropriately celebratory of the divine revelation
which is its message, and to enjoin the
viewer's gaze to penetrate more deeply the
Divine Presence behind the Divine Word.
Some of the most extraordinary examples of
the art are illuminated Korans, laboured
over with great care by master calligraphers.
Muslim ornamentalists have inscribed
Arabic onto every conceivable medium:
paper, vellum, textiles, metal, wood,
ceramics, glass, stone and brick. Yet the
forms of the script styles seem remarkably
flexible. There are six main styles of Islamic
calligraphy, four of which are featured in
this exhibit. The thuluth style inscribed onto
Sakkal, a Syrian-born, Seattle-based artist
whose "Bismillah / In the Name of God," a
1994 digital print included in the show, uses
traditional nasta 'liq characters. "To work
with calligraphy you have to make the art as a
traditional craft, absorb what is approved of
as fine work, and work within those limits."
At the same time contemporary calligraphers
such as Sakkal are taking advantage of the
more plastic quality of the script by using
computer graphics. Sakkal achieves a
three-dimensional composition using unconventional layering and colouring: "I can go
beyond tradition because I can create a lot of
designs that wouldn't have been practical in
the past."
Mayer likes the elusiveness of this lack of
human representation. "It doesn't make it
easy," she says. "It's not like a figurative piece
where you can look at it and immediately
make up your mind." The enigma leads to
questions about what the work means. "If it's
very beautiful, but you don't understand it,
you might be curious to take the next step,
and the next, and so forth towards understanding the spirit of Islam."*
32   Trek   Winter 2002 Above: Tile. Thuluth script. Fired ceramic, late 13th C, Iran.
Opposite top: Calligraphic textile. Naskhi script, blue silk. North Africa, 18th C. Sitra.
Opposite below: Thuluth script, gold and silver thread on felt. Mecca, 1985.
Winter 2002   Trek   33 EXCEEDING    EXPECTATIONS
LEARNING TO
FLY
Graduation is a milestone that marks the end of one life phase and the start of
another. For those students still searching for the right career path, however,
graduation can seem more like a millstone. UBC's Arts Co-op Program means
students can enrich their education and test out the world of work before ever
leaving the campus cushion, by vanessa clarke
If
Kurt Anderson were thrown
from the edge of a steep cliff, he would
probably try his hardest to fly. It's this
positive attitude and determination that have
been the International Relations and
Commerce student's hottest assets during his
time in UBC's Arts Co-op Program. From an
office job where he didn't have a desk, to
being handed responsibility for a multi-
million dollar business relocations, Anderson
has stared down from many metaphorical
cliff ledges and has emerged a high-flier in
the making.
For many fourth-year students, choosing
the right career path is a dizzying prospect,
but Anderson is confident about his future.
He credits the co-op program with showing
him the work opportunities available when
he finishes his degree.
"At first, I was only considering work in
international business," he says. "I planned
to live in New Zealand for a year, then
Taipei, then Honolulu. It still sounds
tempting, but the co-op made me realize that
there are a lot of interesting things right here
in Canada." Three work terms organized
through the program have also supplied him
with contacts and mentors in the local
business community, and impressive ink for
his resume.
He wants to do his mba in international
business and aspires to the loftiest rungs of
the executive ladder, but he has yet to
commit to an industry or a location.  In the
meantime, life is crammed to capacity. Since
spring, Anderson has taken three correspondence courses on top of an already gruelling
student workload, started his own consultancy business, proposed to Deborah (a student
at Regent College on campus), prepared for
their August wedding, taken classes in
Spanish and Hebrew, and become treasurer
for the Arts Co-op Students Association.
Whatever industry he eventually chooses,
Anderson's future looks as rosy as the cheeks
of a blushing newlywed. "For me, the co-op
program turned a four-year degree program
into a five-year one," he says, "but I can't
imagine taking a degree without it."
Anderson has had positive outcomes from
all his work terms. A job with
the Department of Indian
Affairs' Litigation
Management branch led to
him starting his own business
as a consultant providing
research and analysis on a
contractual basis for the
department over the summer.
During another placement he
discovered an interest in
human resources management
while designing and researching a database
now used by more than 85,000 Pacific region
employees in the Department of Fisheries to
find training and development opportunities.
Anderson's current position with the
Vancouver Economic Development
Commission, however,  is perhaps his most
satisfying experience to date. The organization's mandate is to promote economic
development for the city of Vancouver, to
serve as a link between City Hall and the
business community and to be a vehicle for
leadership in the definition and realization of
Vancouver's economic potential. As information officer, Anderson's job is to respond to
enquiries from businesses ranging from
multinational corporations to local entrepre
neurs, and find data about Vancouver they
need for decision making.   Often, he deals
with clients considering relocation, so he sells
Vancouver as the most desirable option. His
work is research-intensive, and has included
compiling background business and
economic information for large studies,
quarterly reports, funding proposals executive presentations, media releases and more.
Essentially, he performs public relations and
economic research, a job description with a
lot of prestige attached to it among people
in the field.
For its part, the Commission has found a
motivated student in Kurt, and an ongoing
source of enthusiastic employees for short-
term projects in the program. The recently
appointed director of the vedc, Linda
Thorstad, a UBC alumna herself and former
president of the UBC Alumni Association, is
pleased with the arrangement.
"The partnership has
worked out well," she says.
"Wc threw Kurt off the deep
end and his performance has
been very good." For Kurt,
his job with the Commission
has surpassed all of his
expectations. "I didn't expect
to been given so much responsibility," he says. "It couldn't
be better."
Just as Kurt would suggest the co-op
program for students wishing to enrich and
add value to their education, Linda Thorstad
wouldn't hesitate in recommending it to
other employers. "It's been a favourable
experience for us," she says. "Kurt has
brought a range of skills to the position
above and beyond our expectations. He's
been a real asset to the organization.
He's thoughtful, considerate and a good
performer. The only negative aspect is losing
him at the end of the placement."
Vanessa Clarke is assistant editor of Trek.
For information on how you can hire a co-op
student, call Julie Walchli at 604-822-4223.
34     Trek   Winter 2002 ^*
The Universi
1   fc ' THE ARTS
UBC LIBRARY
Chung Collection
This remarkable selection from the 25,000-
item collection shows, through travel posters,
diaries and photographs, new perspectives on
Chinese immigration to Canada. The exhibit
centrepiece is a four-metre-long model of the
Empress of Asia. At Main Library Chung
Collection and Reading Room, on permanent
display.
BELKIN ART GALLERY
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Andrea Fraser
Jan 11 - Mar 10
New York based artist's video/performance
works.
Art of the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, 1966-1976
Mar 22 - May 26
Propaganda arts of the Chinese Cultural
Revolution. Examines the impact of these
images in the West.
MUSEUM OF ANTHROPOLOGY
ONGOING   EXHIBITIONS
Dempsey Bob:
The Art Goes Back to the Stories
Through December 2002, Theatre Gallery
An exhibition on the work of Tahltan-Tlingit
artist Dempsey Bob, featuring three of his
most recent bronze sculptures. The exhibit is
complemented by a sourcebook developed by
Dempsey's daughter, Tanya Bob, in 2000.
Travel Poster
One of the Canadian Pacific posters on display
at Main Library's Chung Collection
36   Trek   Winter 2002
=lhotograph courtesy: UBC Library A Connoisseurs Collection: Chinese
Ceramics from the Victor Shaw Donation
Through February 2002, Gallery 5
More than 70 ceramics from a much larger
collection of Chinese antiquities.
The Spirit of Islam: Experiencing Islam
Through Calligraphy
Through May 12, 2002, Galleries 8, 9, 10
The exhibition will present a selection of
outstanding examples of Islamic art and
calligraphy from different historical periods.
Includes two interconnected galleries housing
a prayer space and an educational space.
Continuing Traditions
Through April 30, 2002, Gallery 3
An exhibit module focusing on the evolution
of Coast Salish basketry over the past fifty
years. Prepared by UBC graduate Sharon
Fortney (as part of her ma program) in
collaboration with Museum staff and representatives from the Squamish, Klahoose,
Stlatlimx, and Nlakapamux First Nations.
Photograph courtesy: Museum of Anthropology
UBC SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Feb 13:
THE CHAN CENTRE
Pacific Spirit Concerts
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra:
UBC Music Building, Recital Hall,
Clariphony
Friday & Saturday Jan 18, 19, 8:00 pm
$20/$10 at the door:
Wes Foster, Nicola Everton, Cris
Bernard Labadie, conductor &
Sunday Jan 13, 3:00 pm:
Inguante: clarinets
Stewart Goodyear, piano
Julia Nolan, saxophone, Rita
Mozart, Prinz & Forsyth
Mozart: Serenata Notturna; Piano
Costanzi, harp
Concerto No. 21 and Symphony
Feb 27:
No. 40
Thursday Feb 7, 8:00 pm:
Jean Guy Boisvert, clarinet
Seymour Lipkin, piano
Boulez, Perron & Lemay
Christian Tetzlaff, violin & Leif
Ove Andsnes, piano
Sunday Feb 17,3:00 pm:
Sunday Jan 20, 3:00 pm
Fantastic Music for Winds,
Friday Noon Hour @ Main (UBC
Co-presentation by the Chan Centre
featuring UBC wind faculty
Main Library, Rm 502,12:00 pm, free)
Jan 18:
and the Vancouver Recital Society
Wednesday Noon Hours (12:00
Inspired by Goethe!
UBC Symphony Orchestra
pm, UBC Music Building, Recital Hall,
Thursday Jan 24,12:00 pm (free)
$4.00 at the door)
Feb 15:
Friday Jan 25, 8:00 pm (free)
Jan 16:
Chinese New Year Concert,
A Trombone Among Friends
UBC Chinese Ensemble
Ben Heppner, tenor
Jeremy Berkman (trombone)
Saturday Jan 26, 8:00 pm
Hyperion String Quartet
Masterclasses
"Music at the Chan" Series
(UBC Music Building, Recital Hall)
presentation.
Jan 23:
Sunday Jan 27:
Marc Destrube, violin, Janina
Masterclass with Ben Heppner
Quartetto Gelato
Kuzmas, piano, John Corigliano:
1:00 - 4:00 pm, $10 / $5 at the Door
Saturday Feb 2, 8:00 pm
Violin Sonata
Friday Feb 8, and Saturday Feb 9:
A classical cabaret with charm, wit
Piano Masterclass with Seymour
and sophistication. "Music at the
Jan 30:
Lipkin
Chan" presentation.
Mei Han, zheng
7:00-10:00 pm (Fri) 2:00-5:00 pm
Randy Raine-Reusch, various
(Sat)
Paul Lewis, piano
instruments
$5 / $3 at the door
Sunday Feb 3, 3:00 pm
Presented by the Vancouver Recital
Feb 6:
Borealis String Quartet
Society
Brenda Fedoruk, flute
(UBC Music Building, Recital Hall,
Terence Dawson, piano. Heather
8:00 pm, $ 20 / $10 at the door)
Vancouver Symphony :
Hay, cello
Thursday Jan 17:
Friday Feb 22, 23, 8:00 pm:
Crumb, Pleyel & Martinu
Robert Silverman, piano
Vladimir Spivakov, conductor and
Beethoven & Brahms
violin
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber
Choir
Sunday Feb 24, 8:00 pm
UBC Symphonic Wind Ensemble
Thursday Feb 14,12:00 pm (free)
Small Ensemble Showcase
Friday Feb 8, 8:00 pm
Andrew Dawes, violin, Jane
Coop, piano
Sunday Feb 10,3:00 pm
Beethoven Violin Sonata Cycle Pt 2
Ben Heppner
UBC Music Building, Recital Hall
Sunday Jan 27,1:00-4:00 pm
Winter 2002   Trek   37 BOOKS
iarmenls ot the Kno-
Poems by Norm Sacuta
Fibromyalgia and Female Sexuality
Marline Emmal MA'79
Trafford, $14.95
■ This book is an open discussion of female
sexuality and fibromyalgia and how victims
of the disorder can maintain healthy sexual
relationships. Dr. Emmal, herself a
fibromyalgia sufferer, provides friendly
advice on how to manage the disorder
through different stages of the female
lifecycle: intimacy, menstruation, pregnancy
and menopause. She touches on issues like
pain control, believing that if a sufferer
understands how her sexuality relates to the
condition, she will be more equipped to deal
with its manifestations. The book is also
recommended for the partners of fibromyalgia sufferers. Call 888-232-4444.
Bogman's Music
Tammy Armstrong BFA'98, MFA'2000
Anvil Press, $13.95
si An accessible collection of poetry touching
on themes of childhood, family, love and
faith. A section of the book was shortlisted
for the Acorn Rukeyser Chapbook Contest
and "A Proper Burial for Songbirds" came
third in the League of Canadian Poets
National Poetry Contest. Evocative imagery
draws the reader in and plays on the commonality of human experience.
With Averted Vision
Hannah Main-van der Kamp BA'70
The St. Thomas Poetry Series
B A book for the soul, this collection of
poetry emphasizes the metaphysical and
philosophical dimensions of life. Main-van
der Kamp's poetry is alive with images of
nature and layered with spiritual references.
It is one of a series published by St. Thomas'
Church and reflects the religious meaning of
experience. The collection is Main-van der
Kamp's third. She has also published A Gift
of Ruin (Netherland Press, $19.95) and The
Parable Boat (Wolsak and Wynn, 1999).
When I Grow Up I'm Going to be a
Millionaire (A Children's Guide to Mutual
Funds)
Ted (Edward) Lea BSc'74
Illustrated by Lora Lea
Trafford, $10
% This book encourages children to start
saving for the future. The subject matter is
made more appealing with pictures and takes
the form of a story with two children as the
main characters. The author says he wrote
the book because he was unable to find an
existing one on investment in mutual funds
for children that was aimed at kids rather
than their parents. The financial concepts are
simply explained and will foster an understanding of the basics and perhaps an earlier
sense of financial responsibility.
Arrows to the Moon: Avro's Engineers and
the Space Race
Chris Gainor BA'79
Apogee Books, $28.75
. The Avro Arrow was the most advanced
jet interceptor of its time, and promised to
help create a dynamic, home-grown industry.
Aerospace engineers came from all over the
world to join the Canadian team at Avro
Canada, making that company's talent pool
one of the richest of its type in the world. But
the program was shut down in 1959 after the
Soviets launched Sputnik and the Americans
began the space race. More than 40 years
after the fact, the termination of the Avro
Arrow is still controversial. Many of Avro's
38   Trek   Winter 2002 WHEN I GROW UP
IM GOING TO Be A MILLIONAIRE
i* children t $u-dt ts iwitwsf <*i*ndsj
With Averted Vision
Hannah Main-van der Kamp
Fibromyalgia
and
Female Sexuality
Jtefe ft«Ji ft2
top engineers went south to join nasa, and
became an integral part of team that landed
astronauts on the moon in 1969. This book
recounts the stories of those Avro engineers,
many of whom had come to Canada from
England.
Cafes Vancouver
Richard Wolak and Arthur Wolak BA'90,
dip(art hist)'94
Arelco Promotional Group Inc. $17.95
-  Coffee houses and cafes seem to be
opening on every corner in the Vancouver,
Victoria and Whistler areas. The Wolaks
provide a timely guide to help you decide
where the best caffeine dens are to be found.
Whether you're into poetry slams and live
music or just seeking a quiet place to read the
newspaper, this book provides maps featuring
more than enough cafes to choose from. A
brief description is provided of the food and
beverages on offer, the ambiance and the
clientele.
Garments of the Known
Norm Sacuta mfa'88
Nightwood Editions
B Sacuta's poetry is clean and intelligent,
addressing issues of love and sexuality from a
gay perspective. Loneliness and loss exist
side-by-side with eroticism and wonder, and
we can experience both the pain and the joy
of human interaction. Ranging in setting
from the English countryside to the Canadian
prairie, the poetry is intense but accessible.
Cooks Afloatl
David Hoar bsc'66 and Noreen Rudd MD'65
Harbour Publishing
Ekre's a book that caters first and foremost to gourmet-loving sailors, but if you're
a seafood fan or ever find yourself cooking in
cramped spaces with limited utensils (on a
camping trip, for example), then it will also
hold appeal. The authors spend a lot of time
on their boat and over the years they've
gathered and invented recipes inspired by the
abundance of natural food they've found
along North American waterways. Wild
huckleberries, clams and rock-scallops are
some of the typical ingredients found in these
recipes. The book is spiral-bound so it can be
laid flat. A tasty addition to the camping or
boating gear.
Two Wolves at the Dawn of Time: Kingcome
Inlet Pictographs, 1893 - 1998
Judith Williams
New Star Books Ltd., $29.00
Williams provides a documentation of the
1998 creation of a pictograph on a rockface
in the Kingcome Inlet on the BC coastline and
how it relates to one painted in 1927 by
Mollie Wilson, 100 metres away at Petley
Point. The Petley Point pictograph represents
a political history of the area, and commemorates a potlatch that the Dzawada'enuxw
people held after the department of Native
Affairs had placed a ban on Native ceremonies. The book examines the history of the
area and the enduring culture of its people, in
the wake of the white settler.
Samuel de Champlain (Explorer Chronicles)
Betty Sherwood BA'64 and Janet Snider
Canchron Books, $17.95
i This book is aimed at children in grades
five through eight, and depicts the life of
Samuel de Champlain, founder of New
France. Champlain tells his life story in the
first person and the book is crammed with
large, colourful illustrations. It is easy to read,
entertaining and educational, turning history
lessons into a choice, rather than a chore.
Winter 2002   Trek   39 LL
letters
Dear Editor:
The summer edition of Trek slid through my
letterbox in Winchester, England, like a long-
lost friend. How delighted I was to receive
such a splendid, easy-to-read issue with such
a diverse collection of articles and the introduction of a unique short story.
Though I occasionally visit Canada House
in London, my links with UBC have
gradually diminished. Now, through the
pages of Trek, I feel reunited. I value the
opportunity to read about the work of
colleagues I have known at UBC and look
forward keenly to the next edition.
Congratulations and all good wishes for
your long and happy editorship.
Barbara Large BA'54, MBE
PRECIOUS MEDALS
The Summer issue of Trek had Don Wells
lamenting about the results at the Olympic
Games ("Precious Medals"). He writes about
amateurs, but many of the athletes are not
really amateurs at all. They may not be
overpaid professionals, but the Baileys of the
athletic world spent most of their time
practising their sport and earn most of their
money with it. Perhaps the word amateur has
lost its previous meaning as a sports person
who was not paid for practicing the sport.
Holding to the present fiction may lead to
misguided lamentations.
Bert den Boggende ma'7 5
The article "Precious Medals" in the Trek
Summer 2001 edition reinforces my contention that the goal of maximizing a coun-
our readers write
try's Olympic medal count is inconsistent
with the goal of optimizing its population's
overall participation in sport and other
healthful activities. To win medals requires
the concentration of resources on elite
athletes from the earliest age possible, to the
exclusion of less promising ones. This idea is
expressed in the article by volleyball coach
Doug Reimer, who says "...we need to be
able to identify the best at a younger age,
ind tiien be able to supplement their training
with junior national team programs with
full-time coaches." Although the article does
mention the theory that expansion of
opportunities overall at the grassroots level
might reflect in more top athletes being
produced, it then goes on to suggest that
Canadian taxpayers would not be willing to
support such an approach. This Canadian
taxpayer, for one, would much prefer to
support a national program of health and
participation than to contribute to an
Olympic program that says nothing about
our nation's overall athletic ability.
Warren Forrester msc'6i
LAMENTING THE HUTS
The picture of the army huts published in the
Summer issue ("Hopwood's List") brought
back a flood of memories of my time at UBC
immediately after World War n. I spent a
good deal of class time in these huts along
the West Mall. My "office" as a graduate
assistant was in one of the huts behind a
great cupboard of geological specimens. In
looking back I am impressed by the amount
of hard work and inspired improvision that
went into providing a great number of
veterans with a quality education. The
physical surroundings are not near as
important for a quality education as are the
faculty that teaches and inspires and the
books that are held in the library. Are there
still any of the huts left? There should be at
least one preserved as an historic site.
Gordon Taylor BA'49, MA'50
THE AFGHAN! DOCTOR
I read the article on Dr. Qayumi in the
Summer issue and was greatly impressed by
his commitment to positive human values
and his dedication to teaching. At the same
time, it left me greatly concerned for both his
and his family's safety. I worry that they have
been or will be threatened because they are
originally from Afghanistan. God forbid we
have another witch hunt like that during the
Second World War when Japanese-Canadians
were treated so unjustly. As concerned
citizens, I ask all UBC alumni to be vocal and
call upon governments in Canada and
around the world to protect the rights of
those who are not responsible for the deadly
terrorist attacks on September n and not
turn a blind eye if the public tries to mete out
vigilante-style "justice" on its own.  May
people everywhere recall the wrongs of their
40   Trek   Winter 2002 past and present governments and speak out
against terrorism whether committed by
clandestine groups and/or sanctioned by the
state. Feigned innocence or ignorance is not
good enough anymore.
I would appreciate you kindly
expressing my concern to Dr. Qayumi and his
family and tell him I am proud to know that
Canada and UBC are the home of such a
compassionate and dedicated educator.
Heather Souter ba'oo, Tokyo
CORRECTION
A note to thank you for the lovely tribute to
Fiona and Richard Deane in the summer
2001 edition of Trek. Both were good friends
of mine during our time at UBC, 1929-33.
If I remember correctly, Richie graduated
with the rest of us in '33 and his brother
John graduated in '34. The picture you have
is, I am almost certain, brother John and not
Richie.
I enjoyed the magazine and look forward
to future copies.
Jack Currie Bsc'33
Richie Deane
Regrettably, a picture
published in the In
Memoriam section of
our second issue was
of brother John.
Please accept our
apologies. Ed.
HOPWOOD'S LISTS
I enjoyed the article on Professor Hopwood.
I too recall this English course for Engineers,
but I don't remember my lecturer's name. I
do remember some of the books however:
Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front;
Camus The Plague; Malraux Man's Fate;
Dostoyevski The Possessed. I don't remember
the rest, but I recall the stimulating class discussions on the political issues raised in the
books. And much to my surprise I got 93%
in the Christmas exam and a first for rhe
year, when I only ever managed a 'b' in high
school and a second in English 101! A lot of
credit must go to the lecturer in my course.
Peter Herke BASC'63
"Hopwood's List" reminded me of an
experience I had at UBC during the completion of my bed. Professor David Wangler
provided a similar list of wonderful books
and movies to our educational sociology
class. Today this list is still tacked to my
refrigerator.
His class inspired a life long passion in
classic and educational literature. No other
teacher in my educational career has had
such a profound effect on me. His teaching
strategies and passion for literature have
become the cornerstone of my teaching
philosophy. Thanks for the article and for
creating a thought-provoking magazine.
Rocco Marchese bed'oo
Winter 2002   Trek   41 LLAj J   J\K. I j      Find out who's doing what and where they're doing it
Class Acts are submitted by UBC alumni
of all years who want to stay in touch with
former classmates. Send your info to
vanessac@alumni.ubc.ca or mail it to our
offices (see page 2 for the address). Include
photos if you can, and remember, we'll edit for
space.
40S
Josie Durkin (Kennedy) BA'40 of Laguna
Woods, California, plays badminton and
tennis daily. She and husband Dr. Jim Durkin
recently participated in the San Diego Senior
Olympics in badminton and came home with
several gold medals.
50S
Barbara Nelson Large BA'54 was awarded an
mbe in the Queen's Honours List, which was
presented at the investiture at Buckingham
Palace last October in recognition of her
developmental work in education in HM
Prison Service, The Home Office. She is a
writer and senior lecturer in creative writing,
a member of the Standing Committee for
Writers in Prison of The Arts Council of the
UK, an independent governor of Southampton
Institute (the largest non-university higher
education organization in the uk), director of
the Annual Writers' Conference, now in its
22'"1 year, and Fellow of the Royal Society of
Arts ... Carl and Doreen Knutson (O'Grady)
bsc(pharm)'50 (both) celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary on November 9, 2001.
Not long after graduating from UBC, the
couple moved with their young family to
Castlegar where they owned and operated
the local drugstore. They continued their
work in pharmacy until retirement, when
they sold the business and dedicated more of
their time to leisure pursuits. Now they enjoy
curling, watercolour painting and travel.
They particularly enjoy visiting their grandchildren, who are based as far afield as Nova
Scotia, Florida and London, England. Both
are active members of the community —
Linda Thorstad BSC'77, MSC'84 became
executive director of the Vancouver
Economic Development Commission,
in June. The organization's mandate is
to promote economic development in
Vancouver and provide a link between
City Hall and the business community.
She brings to the position skills in
strategic planning, performance assessment, business and organizational
Linda Thorstad, accepting a bouquet
at this year's Alumni Association AGM.
Linda served a two-year term as the
Association's president.
development, sustainable development,
communications and government
relations.
Linda has served on countless
boards and associations including
Science World, bc's Women's Hospital
Foundation, bc Heritage Rivers, and
the Arts Board. She is a founding
member of the Canadian Council for
Professional Geoscientists. In 1996, her
accomplishments were recognized by
the ywca Woman of Distinction
Award for Management and the
Professions.
She also served as president of
the UBC Alumni Association and is
currently vice chair of the UBC Board
of Governors.
Dorothy founded a theatre group and served
for many years on the Arts Council, while
Carl used to be an alderman in (now
defunct) Kinnaird. All three of their children
followed on in the family tradition by graduating from UBC.
6O:
Peter and Dianne MacLaurin (McBride)
BED'67 (both) retired from teaching in July.
They have worked in a number of bc school
districts including Prince George, where they
worked for 21 years. Peter taught Senior
English for 10 years and was a high school
counsellor for Native students for 20 years.
Dianne was a teacher-librarian (elementary
and secondary) for 21 years. They are happy
to retire to their beach house on Quadra
Island, close to their children and grandchildren in Victoria and Seattle.
70S
Don Alper PHD'76 received a Civic Educator
of the Year award in July for co-founding
and heading a political issues seminar at
Western Washington University, involving
both teachers and politicians. He is director
of the Canadian-American Studies Program
at Western ... Steve Davis BASC'78 has recently been elected president of the Independent
Power Producers of bc ... Rob Marris BA'76,
MA'79 drove a bus for Metro Transit until
1982 when he returned to the UK to study
Law, qualifying in 1987. From 1988 to 2001,
he was a trade union lawyer. In 1984 he
moved back to his home town of
Wolverhampton (near Birmingham in the
West Midlands), where he and partner Julia
still live. In June 2001, he was elected
Labour MP for the riding of Wolverhampton
South West ... Brian J. McParland BASc'79,
msc'8i, PHD'85 now resides in Chesham,
England, with wife Sharon and daughters
Siobhan and recent arrival Aine. Brian is a
principal research and development scientist
in radiation physics with Amershan
42   Trek   Winter 2002 Laboratories ... C. David Nixon BCOM'79
received the Governor General's Gold Medal
for academic achievement last fall, for his ma
thesis Resolving Human Rights Complaints
in a Unionized Environment: A Blueprint for
Reform. The thesis was a requirement of
Royal Roads University's Master of Arts
Program in Conflict Analysis and
Management.
8o;
Sean Blackburn BA'89, his spouse Julie
Dagenais Blackburn, and son Nicholas are
pleased to announce the birth of Stephan on
November 24, 2000. Sean works as taxation
manager for Metropolitan Life Insurance
Company. Ottawa is home now, but the
couple would love to hear from their Salish
friends ...  Shelagh Martinusen
bsc(pharm)'86 and husband Dan
Martinusen bsc(pharm)'87 welcome the
arrival of Kevin Norman, a little brother for
Christina (born March 1999). Kevin Norman
was born on November 6 in Victoria.
90S
After UBC , Megan Gilgan BA'96 attended
the London School of Economics to study for
her Masters. She is now working in Kosovo
with the Kosovo Local Initiatives Project
(klip), a S3 million program that funds local
groups carrying out community projects. She
will also run the Canadian International
Development Agency's support program,
responsible for providing logistical, administrative and other support to Canadian organizations working in Kosovo ... Nurez Khimji
BA'92 has been appointed chief financial officer for Marine Bioproducts International, a
company that produces materials used in
dna research ... Sanjay R. Parikh BSc'91,
MD'94 just completed his fellowship in pediatric otolaryngology at Harvard Medical
School and is now the director of Pediatric
Otolaryngology at the Albert Einstein College
of Medicine, New York. ♦
IN MEMORIAM
Raymond Arthur Gaudet bed'Si on June 12,
in Kelowna, after a successful career as a
teacher and administrator ... George R.
Gregory bsc(agr)'5i, BED'63 °f Ottawa, on,
January 10 ... Daniel Goldsmith BA'54,
LLB'55 on February 7 ... George R.A. Howey
BASC(CHEM ENG)'49, MASC'5l(CHEM ENG),
(peng), fcns of Deep River, on, May 2.
George was a retired executive of Ontario
Hydro, Nuclear Branch ... Toby "Big Tobe
from over the Globe" Malkin BCOM'56 of
Fanny Bay, BC, September 20 ... Kenneth
Donald Mclnnes BA'51 of Summerland, bc,
May 17. Kenneth was a high school teacher.
During the war, he served in the Canadian
Army ... Nancy McMinn (Wallick)
bsc(agr)'48 ... Dr. John Robinson
bsc(agr)'44 of Keswick Bridge, nb, August.
John taught for many years in New
Brunswick. After retiring, he started a very
successful Christmas tree farm. ♦
Alternate Routes to Computing
A program offered by the Department of Computer Science
University of British Columbia
ARC
Alternate Routes to Computing
• Are you thinking of making a career change?
• Are you thinking about a career in Information
Technology?
• Are you looking for an education program that
will equip you with the knowledge you need to
turn this aspiration into a reality?
ARC is a 28-month post-baccalaureate diploma program combining 16 months of academic computer
science courses with an 8 or 12 months co-op work
experience.  It is designed for people with an excel-
ent record of academic achievement in any field but
with little or no programming experience.
Features of the ARC program:
• Small class size;
• No high tuition fees. The fees are the same as
those paid by other undergraduate students;
• Industry experience;
• Welcome students from a wide range of academic
backgrounds, e.g. humanities, science, education,
engineering, business.
For more information, visit our web site
www.arc.cs.ubc.ca
or email undergrad-info@cs.ubc.ca.
Wanted, Excellent Teachers!!
FACULTY OF APPLIED SCIENCE
UBC KILLAM TEACHING PRIZE
The University is again recognizing
excellence in teaching through the
awarding of teaching prizes to faculty
members. Two prize winners from the
faculty of Applied Science will be
selected for 2002.
ELIGIBILITY: The prizes are open to full-
time tenure-track faculty in Architecture,
Engineering or Nursing who have five
or more years of teaching experience
at UBC.
CRITERIA: The awards will recognize
sustained teaching accomplishments at all
levels at UBC, and will focus on
those faculty who have demonstrated
that they are able to motivate students
and are responsive to students'
intellectual needs, or have developed
innovative laboratory or lecture
materials.
NOMINATION PROCESS:  Students,
alumni or faculty members may
nominate candidates to the head of
their department, the director of their
school, or the head of the unit in which
the nominee teaches. Letters of
nomination and supporting information
may also be sent directly to:
Prof. Nemy Banthia
Chair,
Killam Selection Committee 2001-2002
Department of Civil Engineering
The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4
E-mail: banthia@civil.ubc.ca
Tel: 604-822-9541
DEADLINE: January 11,2002
WINNERS: Winners will be identified in
early 2002, and will also be honoured
during the Spring Convocation in May.
For further information about the
awards, please contact the Dean's
Office, Faculty of Applied Science, your
department or school office, or the
Selection Committee Chair.
Winter 2002   Trek   43 > IN MEMORIAM
WI   Ellen Adams Bsc'62, MA'64
Ellen was horn in Toronto in
1941. Her degrees were in
Zoology and she started her
^^^Jl working life as a researcher in
gtk Biochemistry. She moved on to
become a freelancer in feature
film sound-editing. She loved working with her
hands and soon added an aoca(hons) in
General Design to her list of accomplishments.
By the 1980s Ellen made a name for herself as a
textile artist. She loved to travel, her adventurous spirit exploring much of North America,
Europe, Australia, Japan, India and Nepal. Her
art is displayed in collections in Canada, Europe
and Japan. She died of cancer at home on her
farmstead in Ayton, on, July 17, 2001.
Dr. Philip Akrigg BA'37, MA'40
On February 8, 2.001. George Philip Vernon
Akrigg  was born in Calgary in 1913. He
received his PHD from the University of
California in 1944. He taught English from
1941 and became a professor emeritus in 1979.
Akrigg wrote a great deal of scholarly material,
notably on Shakespeare, English literature and
the the Renaissance.
Akrigg met Helen Brown Manning BA'43,
MA'64 at UBC. They married and had three children — Marian, Daphne and George. After his
retirement in 1978, Philip and Helen researched
and wrote many books and articles about bc's
history and the origins of its place names. In the
classic, 1001 BC Placenames, first published in
1969 and reissued many times thereafter, names
^^^^^^    like Elephant Crossing,
Houdini Needles, Miniskirt,
Tickletoeteaser Tower, and
Why Not Mountain got the
Akrigg research treatment.
Philip leaves an invaluable and
fascinating resource for historians and anybody wishing to
learn more about bc's history.
Dr. H. Craig Davis
Craig began teaching at UBC in 1968 and was a
professor in the School of Community and
Regional Planning at the time of his retirement
in 1998. He received his bsc from Purdue in
1959, and his ma and phd from Berkeley. Craig
was born on June 13, 1937, in  Springfield
Illinois and died on September 18, 2001, in his
home from a heart attack. He is survived by his
wife D'Anne, his children Ethan and Lauren and
his grandchildren Brennan and Erin.
Dorothy Marie Dobson (Downing) BA'30
Dorothy died at her home on September 1,
2001, aged 91. Born in Brampton, Ontario, she
moved to Vancouver at the age of five and later
attended UBC. She was a charter member of
Alpha Gamma Delta. She worked for North
American Life and, in 1938,
married George Dobson (1904-
1994). The couple had three
children, who were a source of
f   great happiness for Dorothy, an
W    only child.
During her active life, she
enjoyed hiking and canoeing in the
great outdoors. She was also interested in snow-
birding and trailering. She liked to sing and
square-dance and, up until February, she was an
active member of her church and of the wider
community.
Jerry Austin Macdonald BA/BCOM'50 (1926
2001). Jerry was very involved in student
activities on campus. He served for two years
on students' council where he was best known
as president of the Literary and
Scientific Executive, coordinating programs for 72 student
clubs. He also headed the
Social Events Committee,
organized the first Fall Ball on
campus and was instrumental
in bringing the Vancouver
Symphony to campus. He was
a member of Sigma Tau Bhi,
men's honorary fraternity and, as an enthusiastic member of MuSoc, he played clarinet and
saxophone in the orchestra. In his final year, he
was vice president of the National Federation of
University Students seminar in the Netherlands.
Beyond his life at UBC, Jerry was just as
illustrious. As president of Macdonald
Consultants Limited, most of his business career
was spent with the H.A. Simons Group. He
travelled extensively overseas on business
development for large capital projects primarily
in South America and Eastern Europe.
As well as a lifelong dedication to
education, he had a passion for music, a love of
boating and skiing and special expertise in wine
making. He was a member of the Royal
Vancouver Yacht Club, Hollyburn Country
Club and the Canadian Power and Sail
Squadrons (ap). He leaves wife Nancy
(Davidson) BA'49, s°n Ian, and daughters
Patricia, Jocelyn and Karen.
Arthur James Martin BA'49
ma'5-1 of Parksville, BC, on
June 16, 2001. After UBC,
Arthur (sometimes known as
Art, sometimes as Jim) worked
as a research chemist with
Monsanto in Vancouver and
with Imperial Oil Ltd. in
Calgary and Sarnia. He moved to Parksville on
retiring, where he enjoyed many years of playing tennis, gardening and walking. His assorted
fruit trees and large vegetable
garden provided plenty for neighbours as well
as family. His tennis partners and opponents
will remember his strong forehand and his
equally strong will to win.
Betty Helen McKercher (Morton) ba(hons)'42
Betty was born on June 28, 1920, in New
Westminster and died on October 1, 2001, in
Nanaimo. Academic success at Edmonds Street
School and Burnaby South High School led to
UBC and a ba(hons) degree in Zoology under
the guidance of Ian McTaggart-Cowan.
Jobs for women biologists in the 1940s were
rare, so she worked as a chemist for the
Fisheries Research Board until marriage to
fellow UBC graduate R. John (Jack) McKercher
BSF'46, BCOM'45 led her into another of bc's
resource industries — forestry.
The couple spent many years in isolated log
ging camps, principally on Vancouver Island,
but later logged in the Ucluelet area. They
established the first camp at Gold River and it
was this operation that welcomed refugee
forestry students from Hungary. In later life,
Betty and Jack enjoyed providing hospitality to
some of these foresters when they returned to
bc for nostalgic visits.
Ometer years were spent in West Vancouver
and ultimately, the couple
returned to Vancouver Island
where Jack died in 1997. Betty
spent her last years in Nanaimo
close to her daughter Leslie
Heys BA'67 and three grandchildren - two more generations of
UBC graduates.
Peter James McTavish BCOM'4]
Peter was born in 1919 in Calgary, but was
raised and educated in Vancouver. His career
was broad-ranging, reflecting his many passions
in life. Early on, he strove to succeed as a
concert pianist, and received much recognition
for his efforts. He met his future wife, Jean,
44   Trek   Winter 2002 shortly before the war and they
married in her home town of
Seattle on February 6, 1945. In
the forties, he was called on to
join the Royal Canadian Army
and served as an instructor in
ballistics. A few months later he
transferred to the Navy and served as a navigation officer.
After the war, Peter became a marine
electronics expert at a Seattle marina. His love
of boating lasted a lifetime. He stayed at the
marina for eight years, took his family on
summer cruises and was an active member of
the Seattle Yacht Club. Shortly after becoming
an American citizen in 1953, Peter's career took
another turn and he worked in insurance
brokerage until retirement.
Peter contributed much to his community
through his fundraising efforts, membership on
the board of directors for both the Seattle
Symphony Orchestra and Planned Parenthood.
He was mayor of Mercer Island for two years.
William H. Montgomery BA'56,
LLB'59 died of a heart attack in
April in London, England, aged
68. He was former deputy
secretary-general of the
Commonwealth Secretariat,
Department of Foreign Affairs.
From 1961, Bill worked for
External Affairs. He joined the
Commonwealth Secretariat in 1987 and
remained there until his retirement in 1993. His
main focus was on development, serving as
managing director of the Commonwealth Fund
for Technical Cooperation. Bill is survived by
his wife, Julia, and their two children. Friends
and colleagues remember him as an extremely
likeable and capable man.
Peggy Isabel Sanders Nix (Light) BA'49
Peggy Nix thoroughly enjoyed her time at UBC,
often regaling her daughters with tales of her
antics alongside her inseparable chum, Mary
Wellwood (d. 1979). She was a "Student vet,"
having served in the Women's
Royal Canadian Navy between
1943 and 1946, achieving the
rank of Leading Wren.
She lived in Arcadia Camp,
worked hard at her studies,
even taking on some summer
courses, and won the Frances
Willard Essay Prize ($50) in
*>*"
the late '40s. To make some money, she babysat
for professors' children and washed dishes in the
dining hall.
After graduating in 1949, Peggy went to
Kingston to attend Queen's and received a
Diploma in Industrial Relations. While there she
met Slade Clemence Nix, and after a brief stint
working in Montreal, she returned to Ontario
and married him.   Her career was quite varied,
taking in both teaching and real estate work.
Peggy's ashes were committed to the sea near
Halifax on May 6, 2001.
Lynn Kyle Sully bsc(agr)'43 of
White Rock, bc, August 1, 2001.
Lynn was a member of the
Thunderbird Basketball team
that won the National
Championships in 1941. He was
a realtor and notary public in
White Rock until retirement in
1982, after which he spent his time golfing at
Peace Portal Golf Club. Active in community
affairs, Lynn was chairman of the Peace Arch
Hospital Board, was instrumental in the planning
and construction of the South Surrey Indoor
Pool, and served on the Fraser Valley, British
Columbia and Canadian real estate boards. He is
survived by wife Florence (BA'40), daughter Jane.
son Ken and five grandchildren.
Douglas Haig Worth BA'40,
dip(soc service)'4i Poet,
humanitarian, community
builder and deeply loved family member, Douglas Haig
Worth started out life on the
Saskatchewan prairies. Later,
he moved to Vancouver and
attended UBC.
He married Phyllis on Nov 1, 1941, with
whom he had five children (four surviving). He
worked for Children's Aid society until the outbreak of WWII, during which he served as an
officer in Canadian army.
After the war, Douglas and his family moved
to Ohio, where he received his masters in
Community Organization from Ohio State .
While there, he was honored as recipient of the
university's Stillman Fellowship Award.
He served as executive director of the United
Way of Central Stark County for nearly 30 years
from 1951, liaising with many community leaders
and succeeding in expanding the services
provided by the organization. Many awards
reflect his achievements; they include the 1966
Certificate of Appreciation Award, from the
Canton Camber of Commerce and the Jessie
Knight Award for outstanding service to youth.
He is remembered as a great orator and an
effective campaigner, advocating and overseeing
the provision of many new community facilities.
Even after retirement, Douglas served until 1986
as director and secretary of The Timken
Foundation, an organization which provides
learning opportunities for the community.
Kew Dock Yip BA'41
Kew Dock Yip died on July 9, 2001, just shy of
his 951'' birthday. Born and raised in Vancouver,
Dock loved Canada and fought for equality
among all its citizens. He was a champion of
Chinese rights in Canada, and is particularly well
known for instigating the 1947 repeal of the
Chinese Exclusion Act, which kept Canada's borders closed to Chinese immigration from 1923,
effectively separating many Chinese families.
Dock's father, Yip Sang Wang, was a wealthy
philanthropist, whose portrait hangs in Canada's
Parliament buildings in recognition of his pioneer
status. After Yip Sang's death the family wealth
was lost to the depression. Dock earned his BA on
a part-time basis, and worked at the Chinese
Consulate to support himself. He went on to
Osgoode Hall in Toronto and, in 1945, became
the first lawyer of Asian descent in Canada.
It was at Osgoode Hall that he met Irving
Himel, his partner in the fight to repeal the
Chinese Exclusion Act.
His practice in Toronto remained open until
1992, and in 1998 he was awarded a medal from
the Law Society of Upper Canada. In 1997, he
was honoured for his positive influence on the
social and cultural evolution of Canada.
His interests weren't confined to Law. He
served as a Toronto School Board trustee for two
terms during the seventies, believing that
education was a key factor in ridding Canada of
the ignorance that breeds racism. He also had a
keen interest in history, in particular Canadian,
American and Chinese. Never complacent, he
took up acting in his 70s and (ironically) played a
mobster in the well known 1985 film, Year ofthe
Dragon. He married Victoria Chow, his childhood sweetheart, and they had three children.
Being the i7THof 19 children (23 if you count
half-siblings), Dock had a large extended family.
To his network of nephews and nieces, he was
often simply referred to as uncle number 17. His
family is joined by the many people whose lives
he touched in remembering Kew Dock Yip with
fondness and respect.
Winter 2002   Trek   45 ALUMNI
EVENTS
Reunion Weekend
More than 1,000 alumni and friends came
back to campus for this year's Alumni
Reunion Weekend on September 28 and 29.
They came from all over Canada, the US and
Europe to share stories with old pals, check
out the changes to the ol' alma mater and
shake hands with former profs. They
spanned the history of UBC, from one of our
earliest grads — Margaret Harvey,
basc(nursing)'29 — to some of the latest
from the 2001 batch, attending their 'zero'
reunion.
Our thanks to everyone who helped make
the weekend such a success. Don't forget to
check out the Reunion Photo Gallery on the
UBC Alumni Website at www.alumni.ubc.ca
Plans for 2002 Alumni Reunions
Next year's Reunion Weekend will run
Friday, October 4 - Sunday, October 6, 2002.
Grads from classes of '52, '77 and '92 make
sure you mark your calendars now, and call
us to assist in planning your class get together. Contact Jane Merling, program coordinator, at 604-822-8918 or
merling@alunmi.ubc.ca to kick-start next
year's reunion plans today!
Ottawa: Chief Justice Beverley McLaughlin LLD'90 receives the UBC Alumni Award of Distinction from
Dr. Martha Piper at the October 20'" Alumni and Friends reception in Ottawa.
Lloyd Axworthy, Director and CEO, Liu
Centre for the Study of Global Issues and
Hong Kong Football Club.
Toronto - December 14
Annual Alumni Holiday Party
Vernon, BC - January 15
Alumni   Dinner   with   the   Canadian   Club,
Vernon Lodge
Nanaimo - February 12
Alumni and friends reception, Coast Bastion
Hotel
BRANCH EVENTS
Seoul, Korea - December 4
Alumni and friends reception with UBC
President Martha Piper, Westin Chosun
Hong Kong - December 6
Annual Christmas party with special guests
MONTHLY BRANCH EVENTS
Toronto - Last Sunday of each month
Toronto Sunday Brunches
Portland, Oregon - First Thursday of
every month
Portland Pub Nights
YA Murder Mystery: The crowd poses for a
wrap-up photo at the annual Young Alumn
Murder Mystery - Murder on the Ranch. Specia
thanks to Roger Haskett, BA'86, BFA'91, MA'92
and his detectives at Murder Unlimited for staging
and sponsoring this event for the past seven years
To host one of your own contact Roger at
604-649-GUNS
46   Trek   Winter 2002 Hong Kong
Business Lunches and Networking Nights
Calgary and Ottawa
Commerce grads have come out in force to
help plan varied events for alumni in both
Ottawa and Calgary. Assisting long serving
branch rep Carole Joling  BA'67 BLs'69 in
Ottawa is Aly Alibhai BCOM'87. Heading up
the Calgary executive is Terry Taylor
BCOM'76. We also have a new branch in the
Lone Star State. Mark Dayton Ai'sc'92 has
volunteering to kick-start alumni activities in
the Dallas-Fort Worth area.  Interested alumni in the region can contact Mark at
mark @mdayton. com.
Toronto, Hong Kong and Singapore alumni
chapters have their own websites. For details
of monthly events, find the link on the UBC'
Alumni Association website,
www.alumni.ubc.ca. ^-
The PIGS held their 20th reunion on campus this summer. These alumnae lived together in Gage towers for twc
years and have been getting together for a weekend every year since then. L-R: Jo-anne Mahon, BSC'81, Pat
Lee, Lorna Nikelski BSR'82, Shawn White BPE'82, BED'86, Karen Johnson BSC'81, Cathy Brown BCOM'82. Now,
as for PIGS and what it stands for . . .
GRADUATE   DIPLOMA
Business Adm in istrati
I core business skills in finance,
accounting, economics, marketing,
management information systems,
and organizational behaviour
I a one-year program
I courses you take online, where you are,
when you can
I cohorts begin spring, summer, and fall
I apply by March 1 for May start
SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Business Administration
Telephone 604.291.5256
Email gdba@sfu.ca
Web www.gdba.sfu.ca
O
O
IN
O
CL
<
>■
CO
EL
a.
<
Expert technical skills got
you where you are today.
Your ability to manage
technology will take you
where you want to go
tomorrow.
Choose the accelerated MOT MBA
from Simon Fraser University.
Engineered for the new economy.
Management of Technology MBA
Phone 604.291.5259
Email motmba@sfu.ca
Web www.sfu.ca/mot/
SIMON FRASER
UNIVERSITY
AT HARBOUR CENTRE
FACULTY
OF BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION
Winter 2002   Trek   47 > fi ..MW NEWS
For more info on these events, contact Janis
Connolly (janisc@alumni.ubc.ca) or Tanya
Walker (twalker@alumni.ubc.ca) or see the
events section of the Alumni Association's web
site at www.alumni.ubc.ca
YOUNG ALUMNI
UBC Young Alumni provides networking
opportunities and organizes events for recent
grads, including financial planning and career
seminars, as well as social and outdoor
activities. To receive Young Alumni notices by
e-mail and to let us know what type of events
and activities you would like to see, contact
Tanya Walker, Alumni Programs officer, at
604-822-8643 or twalker@alumni.ubc.ca.
Young Alumni Ongoing Events
Second Tuesday of every month
Young Alumni Successful Entrepreneur Speaker
Series Networking 5:30-6:30 pm; Speaker 6:30-
7:45 pm Legends Bar & Grill, 608 Dunsmuir
Street (private room downstairs). To register,
e-mail costello@axion.net or phone
604-931-3932. Cost: $5
Third Thursday of every month, 6:30-8:30 pm
UBC Young Alumni POITS, Social and
Networking Nights, Yaletown Brewing Co.
Every other month, 5:30-6:30 pm
Young Alumni Committee Meeting  (next
meeting TBC. Please check the events section
of our web site).
CALL FOR BOARD NOMINATIONS
We need high-calibre leaders to help serve
your needs on the Alumni Association Board
of Directors. The vacant positions are:
1 Treasurer
(one-year term, 2002-2003)
3 Members at Large
(two year term 2002-2004)
All nominations must be in the Alumni
Association Offices by 4:00 pm, February 14,
2002. For information, call 604-822-9565.
UBC ELECTIONS
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS
UBC Senate: Alumni
Representatives
Alumni of The University of British
Columbia are encouraged to run for
eleven positions on the UBC Senate.
Candidates for these Convocation
Senator positions may not be current
UBC faculty members. Nominations
are due at Enrolment Services by 4  '-
p.m. on December 20.
UBC Chancellor
Nominations are being accepted for
the position of Chancellor of The
University of British Columbia. UBC's
Convocation elects the Chancellor. The
Convocation primarily consists of UBC
graduates and full-time faculty members.  Persons applying for the position of Chancellor may not be currently employed by a university.
Nominations are due at Enrolment
Services by 4 p.m. on December 20.
Nomination forms for these positions
are available at Enrolment Services,
Brock Hall, 2016 - 1874 East Mall,
UBC. To have nomination forms
mailed or faxed to you please
telephone (604) 822-9952.
Volunteers Needed
There's more than one way to give
back to your university...
We need volunteers to help with
this year's reunion weekend,
graduation ceremonies, award
dinner and mentoring programs.
These are fun activities that
give you a chance to meet
other grads and today's students.
If you would like to get involved in
alumni activities, please contact
Jane Merling at: 604 822 8918 or
merling@alumni. ubc. ca
822-8918 or merling@alumni.ubc.ca
UBC Online Community
E-mail forwarding
Mentoring
Class notes
Bulletin Boards
Career Services
Relocation advice
www.alumni.ubc.ca
then click on the on-iine community button
UBC I
oLc
Network"
SIMON    FRASER    UNIVERSITY   AT    HARBOUR    CENTRE
/AASC^R op ARCS if) Lte^RAL St^b^s
Join a community of learning ... Rediscover the world of
ideas, study classic texts, and develop new perspectives on
contemporary issues. Earn an advanced degree through
an intellectually challenging, interdisciplinary program.
The Graduate Liberal Studies program was
developed for adults who wish to expand
their intellectual horizons while
studying part time. The program
is offered during evening and
weekend hours at Simon Fraser
University at Harbour Centre,
in downtown Vancouver.
For more information, contact:
Graduate Liberal Studies
Telephone (604)291-5152
Email glsp@sfu.ca
Web www.sfu.ca/gls
Simon Fraser
Uni versity
AT HARBOURCENTRE
Trek   Winter 2002 REUNION WEEKEND
ALUMNI  DAY 2001
Reunions all over campus, special
events and open houses brought
alumni from all over Canada, the
US and overseas to Reunion
Weekend, the last weekend of
September. Grads at the Chan
Centre filled up on cinnamon
buns and coffe before hitting
campus. Reunion Weekend found
Commerce's Catherine Newlands
(left) and Alumni Treasurer
Tammie Mark at The Chan
Centre, laughing at a joke at the
photographer's expense.
TRP The Benefits of
Zmi   Membership
Alumni Affinity Programs
Enjoy Exceptional service and competitive
rates with life insurance through Manulife
and our MasterCard with MBNA Canada
Bank. Support alumni programs and student
scholarships at the same time.
Alumni Acad
Aca,d members have borrowing privileges at
the UBC Library, get discounts to the Chan
Centre, the MoA and UBC recreation
programs, and discounts on many goods
and services. Just $26.75, inlcuding GST.
Travel, 2002
The whole wide world is at your fingertips
with Alumni travel. These tours are informative, educational and fun. Great food, great
sites, and great deals.
Kenya Wildlife Safari March 4
Portugal: Estoril & Algarve    April 19
Dutch & Belgian Waterways   May 3
Ennis, Ireland June 12
Journey of the Czars July 23
Sorrento, Italy Sept. 9
China & Yangtse River    Sept 27
Legends of the Nile    Oct. 3
Costa Rica & Panama Canal    Nov. 28
For more informaton about alumni services,
or if you would prefer not to receive
solicitations about our affinity programs, call
604.822.9629, toll free 800.883.3088,
e-mail market@alumni.ubc.ca
www.alumni.ubc.ca/services
Photographs: Chris Petty
Winter 2002   Trek   49 the 7th annual ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT DINNER
The 7th Annual Alumni Achievement Dinner
celebrated the accomplishments of alumni and
friends of UBC, and raised money for student
scholarships.
Held at the Fairmont Waterfront, it was a
classy affair, and fun for all. Martha Piper, (left)
told the 500 guests about the difference UBC
makes, while MC Stevie Cameron, (right) kept
the evening upbeat, fun and on time.
The UBC Alumni Association would like to
express special thanks to our corporate sponsors
who donated to this worthy cause:
Alcan
Future Shop
Manulife Financial
MBNA Canada Bank
TD Meloche Monnex
Allied Holdings
Owen Bird, Barristers & Solicitors
Smythe Ratcliffe Chartered Accountants
Thorsteinssons
Leader Frames
Pacific Opportunities Co. Ltd.
Sharp's Audio Visual
Sierra Systems
Proudly Supports
The UBC Alumni
Association
u
A,
The two most beautiful words in the English language: I can.
At Alcan, we believe in sharing our success with our community.
As a champion of worthy education programs, scholarships
and bursaries throughout the province, we're an element
of B.C.'s learning-one that proudly supports people ALCAN
seeking to realize their potential. An Element of B.C.
^ALCAN
50   Trek   Winter 2002 TUUM
It's
yours
Recapture the glory of your days at the University of British Columbia with the UBC Alumni
Association Platinum Plus™ or Preferred MasterCard® credit cards. They're the only credit cards
that support the University of British Columbia Alumni Association. Every time you use your
card to make a purchase, you help generate funding for alumni programs—at no additional cost
to you! Plus, with No Annual Fee and a low introductory annual interest rate on cash advance
cheques and balance transfers, if you make your minimum monthly payments on time, your UBC
Alumni credit card can even save you money!
Choose the card that's good for you and for the University. Request your University of British Columbia
Alumni Association Platinum Plus or Preferred MasterCard today.
1-800-416-6345
Quote Priority Code AOAZ
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MasterCard protection      made     affordabl
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We can cover you for less.
If you're like most Canadians, you haven't
given enough thought to really protecting
what matters to you, so the University
of British Columbia Alumni Association-
wants you to know about some invaluable
protection you can easily afford.
Think about it - insurance is more than
just money - it can make all the difference
to your family in its time of need by paying
off outstanding bills, the mortgage, taxes
and taking care of everyday living expenses.
That's why the University of British Columbia
Alumni Association negotiated this affordable
Alumni Insurance Plan. It offers you solid value
at rates economical enough that you can afford
all the coverage you need for your peace of mind.
The Plan is backed by Manulife, one of Canada's
most respected life insurers. The University of.
British Columbia Alumni Association negotiated
a plan that offers you low rates and provides you
with a wide range of important features you
won't easily find elsewhere.
Term
Life
Major Accident
Protection
Income
Protection
Child Life
& Accident
Underwritten by:
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Manulife
Financial
Call Manulife Financial toll-free at
1 888 913-6333
or e-mail am_service@manulife.com
or contact Bruce McRae, your University of
British Columbia Insurance Consultant at:
1 604 734-2732
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Especially for:
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British
Association
The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company