r* environmental attles I've evei been involved in were led by First . Tara Cullis, co-founder and president of the David Suzuki Foundation FEATURE TURNING POINTS BC First Nations welcomed Tara Cullis, BA'70, into their world - and she, in turn, is helping to preserve it. COVER IMAGE REALM OF THE SUPERNATURAL By April SGaana Jaad White, BSc'82 To touch the realm of the supernatural, where travel in water is as in air, one must first achieve pureness of body and mind through fasting, drinking salt water and bathing in the sea. The most powerful underwater Supernatural Being, a being with both human spirit and form, wears the cloak of Killer Whale - SGaan. This lone matriarch's dorsal fin breaks the barrier between two worlds. Our challenge is to protect the magic of Myth Time by treading lightly on the natural world, the plane that connects us to the spirit of our ancestors - to maintain balance on the edge of the earth. In 2012, UBC alumna April White of the Haida Nation donated this artwork to the Raincoast Conservation Foundation's Art for an Oil-Free Coast, a sale to raise money for a campaign against Enbridge's Northern Gateway project, which would see an increase in oil-tanker traffic on BC's ecologically diverse coast. Quote: Dr. Tara Cullis is a long-time environmental activist whose work with First Nations communities on the BC coast during the 1990s was an important part of their efforts to preserve what is now known as the Great Bear Rainforest. Read her story on page 8. I DEPARTMENTS 2 EDITOR'S COLUMN lLO CLASS ACTS 3 TAKE NOTE t\\) IN MEM y EVENTS D w EMPIRE OF ^^f THE SON A UBC thesis takes *v^\ centre stage at the National Arts Centre. * mil • ■ 1 ■ THE LAST WORD WITH METEOROLOGIST KRISTI GORDON Q: What is your latest purchase? A: A pinata. No, not for me - for my son's birthday. I would have filled it with potato chips and mini bottles of wine if it was for me. editor's note CONNECTED WE STAND It wasn't only the Canadian immigration website that crashed during the US election - UBC's took a bit of a hammering, too. The day after Donald J. Trump became president-elect, UBC's own new president, Santa J. Ono, tweeted: "A single graduate program website at UBC received >30,000 hits between midnight and 3am PST after the US election." The world has never been more connected electronically - what happens in one country quickly ripples across borders. Twitter has, of course, been in the vanguard of this communications revolution with its culture-matching brevity. And, if you have something longer to say, you can always include a link to a video, an article, or even a thesis. Professor Ono uses Twitter not to shock and shame, but to be accessible and connect with the UBC community and beyond; the idea is to tear down ivory towers, not build walls. He is also an ambitious president. He knows UBC is already great - excellent, he says - and so will be aiming higher (see page 30). You can follow the progress and stay connected @ubcprez. IT MUST BE SOMETHING IN THE AIR Commenting on the creepy clown sightings that have been hitting the headlines lately, UBC theatre and film head Stephen Heatley says that "Clowns do what many people wish they could do. They are outliers; they have their own private logic with which they make sense of their world in their own unique way, and they are often allowed to say and do things that 'nice' people will censor themselves from doing. This makes them disruptors, and the world has always been fascinated by those who don't toe the conventional line." (See page 6.) SOME WELCOME NEWS As far as I'm concerned, the only thing better than bacon is bacon-wrapped bacon, so I was happy to learn about the findings of UBC Okanagan researchers who say that saturated fat, such as that found in meat and butter, is not necessarily the dietary undesirable we thought it was (see page 12). There are probably other reasons why bacon is bad for you, and bad for the planet too, but, until I stop being willfully ignorant, you'll find me at the Bacon Sandwich Festival. Vanessa Clarke Editor EDITOR Vanessa Clarke, BA ASSISTANT EDITOR Alison Huggins,B/i GRAPHIC DESIGNER Pamela Yan, BDes BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAIR Faye Wightman, BSc'8l (Nursing) VICECHAIR Gregg Saretsky, BSc'82, MBA'84 TREASURER Barbara Anderson, BSc'78 MEMBERS AT LARGE [TERMS ENDING 2017] Barbara Anderson, BSc'78 Shelina Esmail, B/V93 Ross Langford, BCom'89, LLB'89 MEMBERS AT LARGE [TERMS ENDING 2018] Stephen Brooks, BA'92 Randy Findlay, BASc'73, PEng, ICDD Leslie Lee, BCom'84 Faye Wightman, BSc'8i (Nursing) MEMBERS AT LARGE [TERMS ENDING 2019] Amir Adnani, BSc'oi Aleem Bandali, BA'99 Valerie Casselton, BA'77 Gregg Saretsky, BSc'82, MBA'84 EX-OFFICIO PRESIDENT'S DESIGNATE Barbara Miles, BA, Postgrad Cert, of Ed. INTERIM UBC PRESIDENT Professor Santa J. Ono UBC CHANCELLOR Lindsay Gordon, BA'73, MBA'76 ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, ALUMNI/ EXECUTIVE D\R£CTOR, ALUMNIUBC Jeff Todd, BA Trek magazine is published two times a year in print 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. Address correspondence to: The Editor, alumni UBC 6163 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1 email to trek.magazine@ubc.ca Letters are published at the editor's discretion and may be edited forspace ADVERTISING Jenna McCann jenna.mccann@ubc.ca 604.822.8917 CONTACT NUMBERS AT UBC Address Changes 604.822.8921 via email alumni.ubc@ubc.ca alumni UBC/ UBC Welcome Centre 604.822.3313 toll free 800.883.3088 Volume 72, Number 2 | Printed in Canada by Mitchell Press Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40063528 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Records Department UBC Development Office Suite 500 - 5950 University Boulevard Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3 £5 Paper from responsible sources ESS FSC C011267 KID NOT SLEEPING? HELP IS ON ITS WAY Parents of children who don't sleep well have a new resource to help them develop better sleep habits and routines for their child. Called Better Nights, Better Days, the online program was created by UBC nursing professor Wendy Hall working with a team of sleep experts from other universities. It includes a module on the elements of healthy sleep, common sleep problems, a sleep diary, and other methods to help children develop better sleeping habits. The whole program takes about a month to complete and can be accessed from any web-enabled device. "Research tells us that as many as three out of 10 children in industrialized countries - and 25 per cent of Canadian children - experience sleep issues. That's highly concerning because studies show even a small amount of sleep loss is associated with behavioural difficulties or learning disabilities," says Hall, a member of both the Canadian Sleep Society and the American Academy for Sleep Medicine. Sleep deprivation also affects parents' quality of life, Hall adds. In families where the children aren't sleeping or sleeping well, the parents are often tired and mentally and physically stressed. Research out of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Michigan suggests that only two per cent of children with a sleep problem who had primary care checkups received any sleep-related recommendation from their care providers, says Hall. "Addressed early on, parents can break the cycle of poor sleep and help their children achieve good health habits to carry into adulthood. But it's not always convenient or even possible for parents to get their children into behavioural treatment programs," says Hall. "With Better Nights, Better Days, families have easy access to sleep support that can complement clinical and other resources that they may choose to access." The resource is available on a pilot basis across Canada, except for the Maritime provinces and BC, where a sufficient number of participants have already registered. Parents with children ages one to 10 who experience sleep issues - including difficulties falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking too early - are invited to sign up at www.betternightsbetterdays.ca. (Interested parties from the Maritimes and BC and can sign up to be notified when the resource is publicly available.) OPTIMAL WALKING AND CYCLING SPEEDS Cyclists should be riding at speeds between 12 and 20 kilometres per hour, while pedestrians should be moving at two to six kilometres per hour on city roads to minimize their inhalation of air pollution while still getting the health benefits of exercise, according to UBC research. "The faster you move, the harder you breathe and the more pollution you could potentially inhale, but you also are exposed to traffic for a shorter period of time. This analysis shows where the sweet spot is," says Alex Bigazzi, a UBC transportation expert in the Department of Civil Engineering and School of Community and Regional Planning who conducted the analysis. Using a US Census-based computer model of 10,000 people, Bigazzi calculated ideal travel speeds that he calls the minimum-dose speeds (MDS) for different age and sex groups. For female cyclists under 20, the ideal speed TAKft OTE linked to the least pollution risk is 12.5 kilometres per hour on average on a flat road. For male cyclists in the same age group, it's 13.3 kilometres per hour. Ideal travel speeds were at 13 and 15 kilometres per hour for female and male cyclists in the 20-60 age group. Female and male pedestrians under 20 years old should be walking at speeds around three kilometres per hour, while their older counterparts should look at reaching at least four kilometres per hour, to breathe in the least amount of pollution over a trip. Bigazzi also computed these ideal travel speeds for other road grades. "If you move at much faster speeds than the MDS - say, cycling around 10 kilometres faster than the optimal range - your inhalation of air pollution is significantly higher," says Bigazzi. "The good news is, the MDS numbers align pretty closely with how fast most people actually travel." The findings build on Bigazzi's research on the high amounts of toxic chemicals absorbed by cyclists on busy city streets. Future research will validate the minimum-dose speed estimates with on-road data. male<20 male 20-60 male>60 female <20 female 20-60 female >60 Optimal walking and cycling speeds for city roads to minimize air pollution inhalation REMOVING CANCER'S "INVISIBILITY CLOAK" UBC researchers have discovered how cancer cells become invisible to the body's immune system, a crucial step that allows tumours to metastasize and spread throughout the body. "The immune system is efficient at identifying and halting the emergence and spread of primary tumours, but when metastatic tumours appear the immune system is no longer able to recognize the cancer cells and stop them," says Wilfred Jefferies, senior author of the study working in the Michael Smith Laboratories and a professor of medical genetics and microbiology and immunology at UBC. "We discovered a new mechanism that explains how metastatic tumours can outsmart the immune system and we have begun to reverse this process so tumours are revealed to the immune system once again." Cancer cells genetically change and evolve over time. Researchers discovered that as they evolve, they may lose the ability to create a protein known as interleukein-33, or IL-33. When IL-33 disappears in the tumour, the body's immune system has no way of recognizing the cancer cells and they can begin to spread, or metastasize. The researchers found that the loss of IL-33 occurs in epithelial carcinomas, meaning cancers that begin in tissues that line the surfaces of organs. These cancers include prostate, kidney, breast, lung, uterine, cervical, pancreatic, skin and many others. Working in collaboration with researchers at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, and studying several hundred patients, they found that patients with prostate or renal (kidney) cancers whose tumours have lost IL-33 had take note more rapid recurrence of their cancer over a five-year period. They will now begin studying whether testing for IL-33 is an effective way to monitor the progression of certain cancers. "IL-33 could be among the first immune biomarkersfor prostate cancer and, in the near future, we are planning to examine this in a larger sample size of patients," says Iryna Saranchova, a PhD student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and first author on the study. Researchers have long tried to use the body's own immune system to fight cancer, but only in the last few years have they identified treatments that show potential. In this study, Saranchova, Jefferies and their colleagues at the Michael Smith Laboratories found that putting IL-33 back into metastatic cancers helped revive the immune system's ability to recognize tumours. Further research will examine whether this could be an effective cancer treatment in humans. NEW CANADIAN MEDIA START-UP UBC journalism professors have been awarded approximately $200,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to support the launch of a national version of the globally successful non-profit academic journalism site, TheConversation.com. Alfred Hermida and Mary Lynn Young, both former journalists, are working with the Melbourne-based media organization to develop The Conversation Canada, which will unlock the expertise of the Canadian research sector and share it with the widest possible audience. Since its 2on launch in Australia, The Conversation has expanded into an increasingly global knowledge network, with editions in the UK, the US, France and Africa. It has a monthly audience of 3.3 million unique visitors, with a reach of 35 million. "Scholars at Canadian universities have a lot to contribute globally through The Conversation network," says Alfred Hermida, director of the UBC School of Journalism and a former BBC journalist of 16 years. "News organizations around the country are under intense financial pressure and we believe Canadians, the university sector and the media can all benefit from a new national source of expert analysis." Written by 40,000 academics and researchers worldwide and edited by 90 experienced journalists, The Conversation offers informed, insightful and independent analysis and commentary, as well as breaking news from scholars and researchers. The site is published under Creative Commons licensing, which allows mainstream media outlets like The Washington Post, CNN, The Guardian, Macleans, ABC (Australia), BBC and others to republish its content. "We are looking forward to the launch of the new Canadian service, which will be our sixth country to launch," says The Conversation's editor-in-chief, Andrew Jaspan. "The Conversation's independent, trusted content service will, I hope, play an important role in providing informed content to support better public debate and decision-making." DOES MARIJUANA CAUSE LAZINESS? UBC research suggests there may be some truth to the belief that marijuana use causes laziness - at least in rats. The study found that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, makes rats less willing to try a cognitively demanding task. "Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found that when we gave THC to these rats, they basically became cognitively lazy," says Mason Silveira, the study's lead author and a PhD candidate in UBC's Department of Psychology. "What's interesting, however, is that their ability to do the difficult challenge was unaffected by THC. The rats could still do the task- they just didn't want to." J^S."^ HOW DO HUMMINGBIRDS AVOID CRASHES? Hummingbirds are among nature's most agile fliers. They can travel faster than 50 kilometres per hour and stop on a dime to navigate through dense vegetation. Now researchers have discovered that the tiny birds process visual information differently from other animals, perhaps to handle the demands of their extreme aerial acrobatics. "Birds fly faster than insects and it's more dangerous if they collide with things," says Roslyn Dakin, a postdoctoral fellow in the UBC's Department of Zoology who led the study. "We wanted to know how they avoid collisions and we found that hummingbirds use their environment differently than insects to steer a precise course." The scientists placed hummingbirds in a specially-designed tunnel and projected patterns on the walls to figure out how the birds steer a course to avoid collisions when they are in flight. They set up eight cameras to track the movement of the birds as they flew through the 5.5-metre longtunnel. "We took advantage of hummingbirds' attraction to sugar water to set up a perch on one side of the tunnel and a feeder on the other, and they flew back and forth all day," says Douglas Altshuler, associate professor in the Department of Zoology. "This allowed us to test many different visual stimuli." While not a lot is known about how birds use vision in flight, it is known that bees process distance by how quickly an object goes past their field of vision, like we do as we drive down a road. As we pass by telephone poles on the side of the road quickly, our brains understand that the objects are nearby; buildings in the distance will take some time to pass, letting us know they are further away. When scientists simulated this type of information on thetunnel walls,the hummingbirds didn't react. Instead Dakin and her colleagues found that the birds relied on the size of objects to determine distance. As something gets bigger, this may signal to the birds that they are getting closer, and as something gets smaller, it may signal that they are moving farther away. "When objects grow in size, it can indicate how much time there is until they collide even without knowing the actual size of the object," says Dakin. "Perhapsthis strategy allows birds to more precisely avoid collisions over the very wide range of flight speeds they use." The researchers also found that the hummingbirds used the same technique as flies, known as image velocity, to assess their altitude. When the patterns on the walls simulated going up and down, the researchers found that the birds adjusted their flight. For the study, researchers looked at the effects of both THC and cannabidiol (CBD) on rats' willingness to exert cognitive effort. They trained 29 rats to perform a behavioural experiment in which the animals had to choose whether they wanted an easy or difficult challenge to earn sugary treats. Under normal circumstances, most rats preferred the harder challenge to earn a bigger reward. But when the rats were given THC, the animals switched to the easier option, despite earning a smaller reward. When they looked at the effect of CBD, an ingredient in marijuana that does not result in a high, researchers found the chemical did not have any effect on rats' decision-making or attention. CBD, which is believed to be beneficial in treating pain, epilepsy and even cancer, also didn't block the negative effects of THC. "This was surprising, as it had been suggested that high concentrations of CBD could modulate or reduce the negative effects of THC," says Catharine Winstanley, senior author of the study and an associate professor in UBC's Department of Psychology. "Unfortunately, that did not appear to be the case." Given how essential willingness to exert cognitive effort is for people to achieve success, Winstanley says the findings underscore the importance of realizing the possible effect of cannabis use on impairing willingness to engage in harder tasks. While some people view marijuana as a panacea that can cure all ailments, the findings also highlight a need for more research to determine what THC does to the human brain to alter decision-making. That could eventually allow scientists to block these effects, allowing those who use medical marijuana to enjoy the possible benefits of cannabis without the less desirable cognitive effects. UBC PURCHASES "THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL PRINTED BOOKS" A new chapter in teaching is about to begin for the UBC Library with the acquisition of one of the world's most extraordinary books. Printed in a limited edition of only 438 copies,the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer was published by William Morris's Kelmscott Press in 1896. Morris, a pivotal figure in the arts and crafts movement, spent four years designing what he believed to be the ideal book. Celebrated for its unique type, lavish decorative borders and remarkable illustrations, the poet William Butler Yeats later described it as the "most beautiful of all printed books." "The acquisition of this copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer is a significant coup for UBC," says Gregory Mackie, assistant professor in UBC's department of English. "Books like this one almost never come onto the international market, and only 48 copies exist in the world with this particular binding." Purchased for $202,000 USD, the book is one of the most valuable at UBC's Rare Books and Special Collections. It joins other famous books at UBC, such as the Second Folio of Shakespeare, donated by Walter Koerner in i960, strengtheningthe library's world-renowned Col beck Collection of 19th-century literature, which includes several extremely rare Kelmscott Press books. Despite being published in 19th-century England, the Kelmscott Chaucer has many unexpected connections to Vancouver history, said Katherine Kalsbeek, head of UBC's Rare Books and Special Collections. "Many architects and designers in early Vancouver looked to William Morris for inspiration," she says. "From the Morris & Co. stained glass windows to Morris-designed textiles that were imported for houses and churches here, his legacy and impact still endure in this city." Sian Echard, head of the English department, said faculty members recognized the value of the book as a teaching tool. "The Chaucer will not only help our students better understand the English-speaking world's book culture at the end of the 19th century," she says, "but it will also help illuminate that period's profound engagement with the even more distant past of the Middle Ages." The Kelmscott Chaucer is available for viewing at the Rare Books and Special Collections Reading Room in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at UBC. CANADA LEADS HEALTH PROMOTION ON CAMPUSES Canadian universities are leading an international effort to create campuses that will improve the health and well-being of students, faculty and staff. UBC, SFU, Memorial University, Mount Royal University, the University of Calgary and the University of Lethbridge are the first universities to formally adopt the Okanagan Charter: An International Charter for Health Promoting Universities and Colleges, which calls on post-secondary institutions to make a commitment to health and well-being in all policies and practices. The six Canadian universities adopted the charter to inspire other institutions to follow suit, recognizing that universities and colleges can set an example as communities that promote health. Each institution has made individual commitments to enacting the Okanagan Charter in different ways - from campus-wide mental health strategies, to developing campus spaces that support connection and community. As part of its commitment to the charter, UBC will invest an additional $1 million to strengthen a number of efforts already underway, including increasing mental health literacy through regular mental health first aid courses for faculty and staff members. It will also enhance initiatives to support well-being in classrooms and workspaces, and promote active lifestyles with a stationary bike study space at UBC's Okanagan campus library and movement breaks during lectures. Research shows that health and well-being are essential to learning, retention, productivity, satisfaction and building a sense of community. Universities and colleges are in a unique position to promote well-being through education, research, policies and practices that can be developed on campuses. The Okanagan Charter provides a common framework for universities and colleges to lead this important charge. UBC and SFU led its development with international partners from post-secondary institutions, the Pan American Health Organization and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). take note SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSES "A DYING BREED" IN VANCOUVER Vancouver is seen as one of the most livable cities in the world. UBC sociology associate professor Nathanael Lauster believes that's partly because more people live in condos and townhouses than single-family homes in this city. In his new book The Death and Life of the Single-Family House, Lauster discusses how many Vancouverites have accepted the idea that not everyone can live in a detached house, and offers lessons for the rest of North America on howto build livable cities. In your book, you make the case that single-family houses are bad for the environment, urban vitality and people's health. Why is this? Just about any way you look at it, single-family houses tend to be bad for the environment. Their development consumes an enormous amount of land, disrupting and displacing ecologies. Houses also require more energy to heat and cool, and encourage people to drive everywhere, boosting greenhouse gas emissions. Detached houses also tend to deaden city life, as they are surrounded by lots of private and little public space. Urban vitality thrives when the private and public are balanced - when people have places to go and things to do near their homes, and they can walk or bike or take transit to get there. All of these ways of getting around put people in contact with one another and make for an engaging environment. Walking and biking also keep us healthier. A lot of people are still emotionally invested in the idea of owning a single-family house. They grew up in a house and can't imagine not also raising their families in one. What do you say to them? They are not alone. Culturally, many people have come to think of the house as an important symbol of success, and an important aspect of taking proper care of their children. But I suggest they re-think what's important in terms of understandings of success and livability. Most of the people who live here, including parents with children, have made a home without a house. We have people who really enjoy high-rise living and others who thrive better in low-rise neighbourhoods. We have people who love the yard access and porch feel of some of our newer townhouses, and others who prefer the character of life in our older, subdivided mansions. There are lots of lovely ways to make a home. What mistakes have urban planners made in Vancouver, and what lessons can other cities learn from us on building a livable city? Urban planners across North America have made mistakes - not just in Vancouver. I think the biggest was creating what I call the "Great House Reserve" and setting so much land aside for single-family houses. Slowly but surely, however, Vancouver has been building over the Great House Reserve, reincorporating this land back into the urban mix. The city has also renovated the very meaning of single-family residential neighbourhoods by legalizing secondary suites and laneway houses, transforming lots that initially could only support a single household into lots that can now support three. These are building projects that other metropolitan areas can also work toward. But there are still issues that remain. The biggest of these is ensuring livability for all residents, rather than just the wealthy. Allowing more densification of single-family residential areas will go a long way toward opening up new market options for middle class Vancouverites, but we need a lot more subsidized and co-op housing too. CREEPY CLOWNS NOT ANEW PHENOMENON Reports of pranksters dressing up as creepy clowns are sweeping the US, Canada and now Europe. While scary clowns may seem like a new phenomenon, UBC theatre and film head Stephen Heatley and Ernest Mathijs, head of the Centre for Cinema Studies at UBC, explain that clowns have a long, violent and vulgar history on stage and in films. Is this the first time we've seen reports of creepy clowns? EM: There was a "creepy clown" phenomenon in the United Kingdom in 2013 when a scary clown was spotted throughout the town of Northampton. It got a little media attention and copycat sightings have been around ever since. They are mostly modelled on Stephen King's It clown, Pennywise. Now that the hypersensitive and fear-happy American media got a hold of it, it's become a big deal. I think this creepy clown phenomenon is a version of what is generally known as a moral panic, similar to the fear of witches in the 17th and 18th Century, mods and bikers in the 1960s, and heavy metal fans or hooligans in the 1980s. The difference, however, is that clowns do not have a mob mentality - this phenomenon is propelled by media attention. Where did clowns originate? And how did they get so scary? SH: Clowns in contemporary culture, like birthday party clowns, may be happy and funny, but much earlier versions of clownish characters were anything but. Some trace the origins of modern clowns to the Italian commedia dell'arte characters. These stock characters were driven by obsessions and some were downright violent, but in a ridiculous way. Pulcinella, the most vulgar of them all, had a foul mouth and was known to say and do outrageous things that were never socially acceptable. He could get away with this and was thought to be funny because he was so absolutely outrageous and wore a big baggy suit, a ridiculous hat, and a mask with a large hooked nose. The image of the happy clown did not evolve until the 20th century with the advent of commercial clowns like Bozo or Ronald McDonald. Many people argue that it was Stephen King who popularized the "bad clown" in the 1980s. Why do you think people are so fascinated with clowns? SH: Clowns do what many people wish they could do. They are outliers; they have their own private logic with which they make sense of their world in their own unique way, and they are often allowed to say and do things that "nice" people will censor themselves from doing. This makes them disruptors, and the world has always been fascinated by those who don't toe the conventional line. Recent clown-related incidents have led to people being arrested, with some even facing felony charges. Has the creepy clown craze gone too far? EM: Like Gremlins - maybe the most outrageous of clowns - every craze will eventually spin out of control if it's fed. I would love to think that this is a subversive movement, but I fear it is not. D EVENTS dialogues: Why has Vancouver been so slow to join the sharing economy? November 28, 6:30-gpm \ Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Holiday Central at the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre December • Cocktails and Carols: December 2,4:oo-6:3opm • The Christmas Tree Competition - come vote for your favourite UBC tree: December 2-24 • Accepting donations for the UBC food bank Hong Kong Seasonal Celebration December 13 | Hong Kong Bankers Club Join special guests, fellow alumni and friends for a special dinner to celebrate the season. In Conversation with President Santa J. Ono Professor Santa Ono recently took office as the 15th president and vice-chancellor of UBC. In a series of In Conversation events, presented by alumni UBC, Professor Ono will share his early priorities and interests as well as gather input from alumni and friends on how we can continue to strengthen our university. Surrey -January 11 Ottawa - February 7 Toronto - February 9 North Shore - February 76 Lunar New Year Dinner 2017 January iy | Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre In celebration of the Lunar New Year, alumni UBC cordially invites you to a special dinner with UBC president Santa J. Ono. alumNIGHTS Forty under 40 in partnership with UBC's Sauder School of Business January ig | Terminal City Club Grape Debate 2017: What role does the vessel play? January 26 | Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre Featuring the Wines of British Columbia and presented by Odium Brown Limited. SAVE THE DATE! Homecoming 75-77 September 201; 2016-17 alumni UBC Board of Directors CHAIR Faye Wightman, BSc'87 (Nursing VICE CHAIR Gregg Saretsky, BSc'82, MBA'84 TREASURER Barbara Anderson, BSc'78 TERMS ENDING 2017 Barbara Anderson, BSc'78 Shelina Esmail, BA'93 Ross Langford, BCom'89, LLB'89 TERMS ENDING 2018 Stephen Brooks, BA'92 Randy Findlay, BASc'73, PEng, IC Leslie Lee, BCom'84 Faye Wightman, BSc'87 (Nursing TERMS ENDING 2019 Amir Adnani, BSc'ot Aleem Bandali, BA'99 Valerie Casselton, BA'jj Gregg Saretsky, BSc'82, MBA'84 Ex-OfficiO: PRESIDENT'S DESIGNATE VICE PRESIDENT, DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT Barbara Miles, UBC PRESIDENT AND VICE-CHANCELLOR Professor Santa J. Ono UBC CHANCELLOR Lindsay Gordon, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT.ALUMNI/ EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALUMNI UBC Jeff Todd, BA n 0 Barbara Anderson Valerie Casselton Ross Langford Gregg Saretsky Faye Wightman www.alumni.ubc.ca/events BC First Nations welcomed ^^^^^ra BA'70, into their world - and she, in turn, is helping to preserve it. try Anderson, BA' fun times with First itions people, it felt ni<e peeling Saran Wrap off British Columbia, and then there was whole other British Photo by Martin Dee. Tara Cullis was anxious to finish packing for the family's annual fall move from Vancouver to Toronto, so when her husband suggested they take in the second annual Stein Valley "Voices for the Wilderness" Festival on Labour Day Weekend, she very nearly declined. She was a busy woman: she ran a thriving business, taught at Harvard, was the mother of two little girls, and was head-over-heels in love with her very public husband, David Suzuki. Living in Toronto for the school year made Cullis's weekly commute to Harvard bearable. And it meant Suzuki, a UBC prof, could spend part of the year close to CBC headquarters for his TV and radio work. Designed to draw attention to the logging that threatened the Stein Valley, the festival that year was held on a stunning site, near where the Stein River and the Thompson flow into the Fraser. The Stein Valley encompasses 107,000 hectares of spectacular forests, glaciers, lowlands, rivers, and tundra. In 1986, this complex and irreplaceable biodiversity - sacred to First Nations people for eons - was at imminent risk of being logged into oblivion. When Cullis and Suzuki arrived that late-August afternoon with their toddler, Sarika, and six-year-old Severn, the place was swarming with festival-goers and throbbing with feasting, music, storytelling and speeches. Tepees, and tents of all shapes and sizes, dotted the landscape. The family was hosted in a neat-looking tepee that was open at the bottom to help keep it cooler. Clouds of dust wafted in, covering their belongings including the milk in Sarika's cup. The bugs were getting in, too, and were biting. That night, when it came time for the little girls to sleep, a musician named Seeker sat down by the campfire just outside the entrance to their tepee and started drumming loudly, and singing in a high-pitched voice. It was so loud it sounded as though he was right there, inside the tepee. Surely the children won't sleep through this, Cullis worried. It's going to be dreadful tomorrow. They'll be exhausted and whiney and crying all day. And this drumming! Will it happen like this every night? What have I got myself into! But the children slept, and the next day they were happy and well rested. And somehow, too, the next day a switch flipped for Cullis. She felt something different was going on, beyond her previous understanding. "The drum especially, it gets to you," she says. "I think it's a real shortcut to finding out what's important." The drumming magnified the crowd's desperate passion to preserve the Stein Valley, and it moved Cullis to a whole new level of consciousness. She felt "that frisson of excitement" that comes from sensing something really significant lurking just beneath the surface. "I love it when one gets that sense that this is the end of a string and, if you pull on it, it's connected to 'unseen high events' as Malcolm Lowry writes." It wasn't the first time Cullis had experienced a catalyzing event. In December of 1972, she was a 22-year-old graduate student enrolled in comparative literature at Carleton when David Suzuki was invited to give a speech there. "I saw her in an audience of 400 people," Suzuki says. "She was sensationally beautiful. I have a picture of her that I love, where she looks like Rita Hayworth." The attraction was mutual; within weeks they were engaged, and a year later they were married. Although Cullis had emigrated from England to Canada as a five year old, she had never applied for a Canadian passport; nor had her brother. When she married she kept her maiden name, no ordinary choice in 1973. When she and her brother applied for Canadian passports - she wanted one so she could travel in Europe on her honeymoon - her brother was given the "welcome to Canada" speech while she was unceremoniously refused. Apparently, it was unacceptable to have retained her maiden name! Cullis used a British passport to tide her over, but en route to Europe they stopped in Ottawa, where she pled her case that "Canada should come into the 20th century." The officials agreed and gave her a passport. In this first activist cause that she and Suzuki shared, Cullis became the first married woman in Canada to become a Canadian citizen under her maiden name. Now, 14 years after meeting Suzuki, Cullis was again entering a whole new world. She signed on to help coordinate future Stein festivals, inviting such personages as Buffy Ste. Marie, John Denver, and Gordon Lightfoot, to boost attendance. Strong public support led to the area being preserved for posterity as the Stein Valley Nlaka'pamux Heritage Park. At the same time, Cullis also became involved in the fight to save Gwaii Haanas, (then South Moresby.) She and Canada's Green Party leader Elizabeth May worked together on this project. "She has a natural instinct for campaigning for a cause," May notes. One of Cullis's ideas was to hire a plane with a banner, spreading the word to literally thousands of people as they lay tanning on the beaches of Vancouver. "She thinks of the best and smartest things to do," says May. And she has fun in the process. "I don't know anyone who has as much fun as Tara Cullis," says her daughter Sarika. "I think that that's what allows her to do the heavy things she does in life. She's friends with everybody who comes into her house, or works on her house, or drops things off, like the milkman - those are her people, and she's one of them." Cullis began getting to know people from many BC First Nations, including a young Coast Salish woman, Patricia Kelly, whom she'd met at the Stein. Soon she was counting them among her closest friends. "When we started sharing fun times with First Nations people, it felt like peeling Saran Wrap off British Columbia, and then there was a whole other British Columbia underneath," she says, joyfully. Finding environmental needs more urgent than her teaching work, Cullis resigned her coveted position at Harvard and immersed herself in environmentalism. It was a drastic shift that meant stepping completely out of her comfort zone. When, in 1989, Suzuki did a five-part radio show, It's a Matter of Survival, about global warming and the future of the planet, the response was mind-boggling - 17,000 people sent letters to the CBC asking what they could do to make a difference. Suzuki acquired a nickname: Dr. Doom and Gloom. "You've got to start giving people hope. We've got to start offering solutions," Cullis insisted. "And that," says Sarika, "was the genesis of the David Suzuki Foundation." With the help of friends, Cullis mailed a letter to each of those 17,000 supporters, asking: "If we create an organization designed to find solutions, would you be willing to support it?" They hadn't reckoned at all on the response. When the first bag of mail arrived at their tiny office above a fume-filled autobody shop on West 12th Avenue in Kitsilano, Cullis and Patricia Kelly sat down to open the envelopes and see what people were saying, and they were shocked. In one was a $10 bill; in another, 30 dollars. One woman sent a cheque for daughters in the Stein Valley, 1987. "She's of that generation of feminists that says, 'You can do it all, but you do have to do it all.' It's kind of a reverse sexism." a thousand dollars. It was Christmastime, and each day the mailman trudged Santa-like up their stairs with another bulging sack. They had their answer, and Cullis knew there was no turning back. After a few months, people started calling: "I sent you $20. Can you tell me what you did with my money? Is it helping?" Those were heady days, but Cullis was also terrified; she had no idea how to track the mail and the funds, organize a database, balance books, or manage the inquiries. She had to learn it all from scratch, fast. Each day when school was out, Sarika would walk to their office a block away, and play among the boxes on the floor while Cullis and Kelly did the deskwork. After, once they got home and had dinner and put the girls in bed, the two would work until the small hours. Kelly lived with Cullis's family in those days. For about 18 months it went on like this. Cullis began to have nightmares. She dreamt that she was far out on the limb of a tree, sawing off the limb. She had the dream night after night. Always she would awaken before she could complete it. As Kelly says, "Tara was a feminist in the sandwich generation." She managed her household and helped look after her parents and Suzuki's parents while taking on the almost overwhelming work of starting the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) and serving as its volunteer president. She edited Suzuki's written work. She did the paperwork for their other business and, through all this, she was a fiercely loyal and deeply devoted wife and mother. "She's always said that she wanted to raise her kids without baggage," Sarika says. "And people would actively emulate her, because they could see what a great mom she was - I found that fascinating, that other people recognized that as well." Michele Souda, a friend from student days and former Harvard colleague, says Cullis was a great inspiration to her as a mother. "When I would be with my daughter I was completely with my daughter, because Tara had helped me understand the importance of this. I could get other things done, but not while I was being with my daughter." Cullis managed all these things superbly well, but she was out of balance and she knew it. In fact, balance was something she'd spent years thinking about, at least in a theoretical way. She wrote her doctoral thesis on the rupture of science and literature in the 20th century, which she saw as a reflection of an emerging tendency to think in left-brained ways, substituting the increasing convenience of technology for the beauty of the arts, instead of holding the two in balance. "Back in the 1800s in English literature," she says, "Swift and Pope and others were saying that 'the educated man' or 'the rational man' - it was always a man - has a balance of reason and imagination." But we lost that balance when the rise of technology enabled us to effectively "move mountains with the left side of the brain." Cullis calls herself a synthesist - one who looks at the big picture. "It's a wish to construct and to build, to bring together, because there are constantly forces trying to destroy and break us apart; I choose to be part of the forces that bring us together." And she does this without fanfare. The backbone of the Suzuki Foundation from its inception, and the heart of her family, Cullis has always done things quietly, never seeking the spotlight. But this year, the spotlight finally found her, with alumni UBC awarding her its prestigious Global Citizenship Award. Suzuki is thrilled. "Without Tara," he says, "the Suzuki Foundation would not have been possible; who I am in the public's eye would not have been possible. She made me who I am." As the DSF was getting off the ground in the early '90s, they became aware that one of the last surviving temperate rainforests on the planet was on coastal British Columbia and Haida Gwaii, and it was at risk. It was decided Cullis should focus on this project. Tara Cullis and David Suzuki met in " -.ember 1972 and married a year later. For two years she travelled up and down the coast on behalf of the DSF, visiting communities of the 11 coastal First Nations, observing their needs, listening to their concerns, helping dissolve differences. At the outset, many of these groups were not even speaking to one another, but Cullis would find their commonalities and share them: "Oh, by the way," she'd say, "I was here," and "Oh, by the way, I was there. And you guys are talking about the same things." She became a unifying force. "From the visits she would make with them, with the Haidas, with the Bella Bella, the Bella Coola, the Haisla..." says Patricia Kelly, "all of the people ended up knowing one another. Tara was that slender thread tying people and their ideas together." "After Tara did her outreach and built positive relations," says former Haida Council president, Miles Richardson Jr, "the David Suzuki Foundation brought the people together in a conference and, out of this, the Turning Point Initiative was born." This evolved into Coastal First Nations, the powerful, cohesive alliance that negotiated the preservation of what is now known as the Great Bear Rainforest, comprised of 6.4 million hectares along the BC coast. The key to this success was recognizing that these First Nations had managed the area sustainably for millennia, and acknowledging that they should therefore be relied on to continue managing the area sustainably. It was Cullis's diplomacy in the first place that helped broker an alliance that remains strong today. "All of the big environmental battles I've ever been involved in were led by First Nations," says Cullis. "It's natural, when you're trying to re-find the balance, to appreciate the leadership of First Nations in helping show the way. They're very sophisticated, 21st-century people, but they live more in the right brain than does our own current culture, and I think they've got more of a balance than we've come to." Launching the Suzuki Foundation, moving it forward, and enabling this unprecedented alliance among the coastal First Nations was immensely fulfilling for Cullis, but it was also enormously challenging and stressful. Many times along the way family and friends urged her to give up, but she felt the cause was too important. "There are constantly forces trying to destroy and break us apart; I choose to be part of the forces that bring us together." "We had so many brick walls, but I learned something about myself through it all: I never give up. But I felt I was doing myself an injury - I could feel the strain, though I didn't know what it was going to result in." The physical damage lay dormant for years but on a hot July day in 2013, while swimming off Kitsilano beach, Cullis suffered acute heart failure. Realizing her survival depended on remaining calm, she swam gently back to shore, where a woman called 911 and then called Suzuki. He raced down from their nearby home, barefoot and buck naked beneath his Yukata (a Japanese housecoat). He went to grab her, to hug her, but she told him softly that she needed to just focus on breathing. The ambulance came, took her to hospital. "I cannot think the unthinkable, which is life without Tara," says Suzuki. "Without Tara, I'm nothing - I am nothing as a human being without Tara. We are truly joined at the hip." Wired to work hard and solve problems, Cullis had taken on too much. As her daughter Severn says, "She's of that generation of feminists that says, 'You can do it all, but you do have to do it all.' It's kind of a reverse sexism. Having to look after herself has been a huge take-home lesson. And it is indicative to me that it was heart failure, because her heart is so big." On any given day, Cullis may be seen wearing a wide gold bracelet embossed with a raven, the handiwork of Haida artist Jessie Brillon. Twenty years ago Chief Chee Xial, Miles Richardson Sr, adopted Cullis and her daughters into his Haida Raven clan, naming her Jaad Gaa Skuudagaas, Woman of Knowledge. The families had grown close over the years, and as Miles Richardson Jr. points out, "The really important thing that they've achieved is that they see us as we see ourselves, and they respect us on that basis." It is a great honour and privilege to be adopted and named in a First Nation tribe, and Cullis has since been adopted and named in three more coastal tribes, at Hartley Bay, Bella Bella, and Alert Bay. She has also worked tirelessly for other groups, most notably the Kayapo in Brazil and the Ainu in Japan. "She's totally guileless - her heart is 100 per cent in the right place, and that's why she has such a loving family and why all those adoptive moments have happened," says UBC anthropology professor Wade Davis. "But because she moves so gently through the world, it's often forgotten how strong and important her presence has been." Patricia Kelly concurs. "The fluidity of her language is like a refreshing drink of water, the way she can communicate and impact people. And she's not telling people to change. She's simply saying,'Look what I've found!'" D UBC researchers chew over some long-held beliefs about nutrition ^ By 4^ f i There's a simple genius to Dr. Deanna Gibson's research: What we eat - or, more preciselyj^iat we excrete - is who we are. In plain language, flbop can tell us some very significant things about what's going on in our bodies. Gibson is head of the Microbiome and Inflammatory Disease Research lab on UBC's Okanagan campus. Along with her husband, Sanjoy Ghosh, she leads a team of investigators who focus on the gut, its health, its contents, and its end products. This work may lead to new therapies for chronic inflammatory diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, colitis and Crohn's disease. The results of her research are both shocking and fascinating, and go against popular conceptions of nutrition that have dominated our understanding of what's good for us and what isn't for most of the last hundred years. Gibson's interSrtflthegut (and the route she took to become known as The Poop Lady) began at an early age. "Members of my family have been subject to gastrointestinal issues for as long as I can remember," she says. Itfe what sparked her interest in microbiology and started! her on her current pati^ Chris Petty, MFA'86 Gibson's initial research focussemjii eAdil'ning fecal matter from human infants. She and her team collected diaper samples from babies all over Kelowna (thus the "Poop Lady" appellation. "Even my kids cailme^TCP's.op Lady," she says with a laugh), to find out what species of microbes exist in a person^ut (there aWhundreds), with a goal to learning what impact these microbes have on digestion, the development of gastrointestinal (Gl) diseases, and the overall health of the individual. One of the first successes of her research came with development of a standardized procedure for storing stool samples. She found that simply storing samples in the freezer resulted in inconsistent results - the process itself affected the microbes - and that the microbes appearing in one part of a sample may be different from those that appear in another. Her team developed a process she calls "homogenization," where each sample is mixed and suspended in liquid nitrogen, ensuring no microbial changes can take place between diaper and microscope. The primary goal of her research was to show how the diet of the mother had an impact not only on the fetus, but on the long-term health of the child. In experiments with rodents, Gibson learned that a "bad" diet in the mother resulted in the later development of Gl diseases such as colitis and diabetes in the offspring, while mothers with a "good" diet tended to produce offspring with better health outcomes later in life. "It works in the rodent model," she says, "because we can change the conditions to test certain ideas, and the life spans are quite short. But it seems clearthat the same results will happen in human babies." As well, a mother's diet is reflected in the immune cells and microbes expressed in her breast milk, and these have a direct impact on her offspring's immunity and gut microbes. "No one expected a child's long-term health to be so directly impacted by the mother's diet during pregnancy," she says. "It was an amazing result." To the scientific community, it seemed to go against accepted nutritional dogma. In fact, according to Gibson, nutritional research is often considered to be on the flakey side of science, partly because of bizarre claims made by some less-than-scientific researchers, and partly because, as we learn more, old sureties are replaced by better evidence. In 2011, Gibson won a Grand Challenges Exploration Grant from the Gates Foundation to investigate the relationship between a mother's diet and a child's long- term health, a line of research characterized in media reports as "weird," and "science fiction." That attitude, along with a long history of quackery - magic elixirs, Carter's Little Liver Pills, celebrity diets and various other forms of snake oil - makes for a Doubting Thomas atmosphere in the nutritional field. Though Gibson and her team continue to delve into the relationship between mothers' guts and offsprings' poop, her current research runs right at the heart of eyebrow-lifting nutritional research, and threatens to turn the field - and your diet - on its head. It's all about fat, and no topic in the nutritional canon is more rife with suspicion, second guessing and sleight-of- hand than the function of fat in the human diet. Good Fat/Bad Fat Fat has been the bad guy in dietary circles for decades, particularly saturated fat, such as that found in meat, butter and tropical oils. "We tend to vilify all fats," Gibson says, "especially saturates! fats. But our research shows that some of these fats are protective in some serious Gl diseases." 12 ■ TREK - f r , \ w V 'No one expected a child's long-term health to be so directly impacted by the mother's diet during pregnancy. It was an amazing result." To the scientific community, it seemed to go against accepted nutritional dogma. Our modern nutritional blest-thinking says saturated fat is just this side of poison. Many studies dispute this claim, but whole industries have grown up that cash in on this idea. Sanjoy Ghosh, assistant professor in the Irving K. Barber Sdaool of Arts and Sciences at UBCO, is poster boy for how long it can take to refute bad science. In 2004 as a PhD student at UBC, he undertook research to prove how saturated fats contribute to some of the more devastating aspects of diabetes. But his research proved the opposite: saturated fats actually provided some protection against these developments. In his attempts to get his research published he was ridiculed and his work considered suspect, but he persevered. Ultimately, his work won him an international research award, and started him on his path to wider research into fat and how it metabolizes in the body. Now, working with Gibson, he and the team have made some groundbreaking discoveries about how the gut interacts with the fats we consume. Their study, which examined how the type of fat consumed had a direct impact on infections in mice, was published by the Journal of Infectious Diseases in the UK. The study showed how mice fed fatty acids found in olive oil and milk fat, which is rich in saturated fat, were better able to fight diseases than mice fed fats rich in polyunsaturated fats such as those found in corn oil. CONSPIRACY THEORIES ANYONE? Much of what we thought we knew about the role of saturated fats in our diet comes from a series of research studies, recently debunked, sponsored by the sugar industry and conducted at Harvard University in the 1960s. The sugar industry was interested in diverting attention away from the harmful effects of sugar by pointing out the possible health risks of consuming too much saturated fat. The researchers agreed to focus their lens on fat, resulting in data that promoted sugar and vilified saturated fat. At the same time, the edible oil industry - producers of canola, sunflower, corn and other polyunsaturated vegetable oils - was able to convince consumers and national health departments that these oils were far better for human health than saturated fats like butter, nimal fat and other dairy products. Unfortunately, no credible science 'exists to support those claims, and new research is showing them to be false. These findings, which ultimately show that saturated fats do not, ,n fact, have an effect on heart disease, follow a huge study conducted, ironically, by the Harvard School of Public Health. That study looked at 72 published papers on heart disease involving more than 600,000 subjects worldwide that exonerated saturated fats. I *\T T f diet & dogma THE TRANS FATS STORY Trans fat is produced by adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them solid. The resulting product, usually referred to as "partially hydrogenated oils" on product packaging, has a long shelf life, works well in cooking and is cheap to produce. Margarine, shortening, snack items, deep fried foods and bakery products benefit most from the use of trans fats, but research in the 1990s showed that consumption of trans fat had a detrimental effect on human health. It tends to increase the production of lipoprotein LDL (bad The research team developed h standardized procedure for storing stool samples. j4t cTTb land. \yw cholesterol), while decreasing the production of lipoprotein HDL, the good one. Also, it promotes a dangerous level of inflammation in human cells and has been shown to increase the risk of heart disease. Some trans fats occur naturally in meat and dairy products, including beef, lamb and butter fat, but in very small quantities. However, research has shown that naturally occurring trans fats may have a beneficial effect as it promotes an increase in both LDL and HDL lipoproteins. Recognizing that trans fats aren't good for human health, their use has been severely reduced, by legislation, in the US, with an outright ban scheduled for 2018. The Canadian government, while monitoring the use of trans fats in industry, has yet to introduce a plan to eliminate them from the Canadian diet. The use of trans fats in commercial food production has, however, decreased considerably over the past decade due largely to consumer demanc For this reason, trans fats are not being investigated at the Gibson lab. But fats are extremely complicated. They are essential for good health - many vitamins and minerals are unavailable to the body without fats to metabolize them - and vital in maintaining a healthy gut microbiome. But their function in the gut goes beyond nutrient metabolism. They are responsible for maintaining microbial balance, regulating inflammation and discouraging bad bacteria. The roles of the various kinds of fat are only now being understood. Fats found in vegetative matter (called Omega 6 fats which also occur in poultry, eggs and grains) have, historically, made up a relatively small part of the human diet. However, fats processed from vegetative sources and made into edible oils have been a part of the human diet for less than one hundred years. These oils, including corn, canola, and sunflower, make up the vast majority of oils used in processed food and in cooking oils at home. Researchers are only now understanding their negative effects. Omega 3 fats (found in fish oils, nuts and some grains) have been touted as "good" fats, and, as a result, have been added as supplements to many foods, including infant formula. Omega 3 supplements are claimed to improve brain function, vitamin A absorption (resulting in better eyesight) and general heart health, while Omega 6 oils are promoted as good for heart health and its positive impact on diabetes. Saturated fats are just bad. All suspect, says Gibson. Her metadata shows that Omega 3 supplements have ncMpact on fetal health, brain function or vision development and suspicions that Omega 6 fats play a role in the development of diabetes are now coming to light. Even scarier, Gibson is now investigating data that shows Omega 3 supplements are actually detrimental to a baby's health, because they encourage the development of a harmful microbiome. The problem is, according to Gibson, inflammation in the gut. While some inflammation is essential for good health - to kill bad bacteria and counter some infections - too much inflammation has been associated with a host of diseases such as diabetes, Gl disease and even cancer. Omega 6 fats epWjias&inf lammation of gut bacteria, while Omega 3 fats discourage it. Our North American diet loads up on Omega 6 fats, with a much smaller portion of Omega 3, while saturated fats are discouraged. This combination is a recipe for dietary disaster because the presence of all that Omega 6 fat ' in the gut produces a constant state of inflammation. Gibson and Ghosh with their children. "Even my kids call me the Poop Lady,"laughs Gibson. No topic in the nutritional canon is more rife with suspicion, second guessing and sleight-of-hand than the function of fat in the human diet. Ironically, supplementing one's diet with Omega 3 fats, such as with fish oil pills or in baby formula, just causes more problems. Too little inflammation in the gut encourages the development of bad bacteria and infection in other parts of the body. The team's research now points to saturated fats as being a possible solution to the imbalance in our gut created by a surfeit of Omega 6 fat. "Saturated fat also causes inflammation in the gut," she says, "but we're discovering that it has all sorts of other, positive effects." It encourages the production and health of the gut's microbiome, and helps to mitigate the effects of inflammation. It also doesn't have the negative effects that some previous, erroneous research said it did have. What's a person to do with all this seemingly contradictory information? Balance, says Gibson. "Saturated fats aren't toxic," she says. "They actually have the ability to promote healing. My recommendation of the ideal diet for those with, and without, IBD is to have a good balance, including olive oils, some saturated fats, and a little fish oil - but from fish in the diet, not supplements." We should, she suggests, start cooking with butter again, drinking whole milk and eating cheese. In moderation, of course. And if the Doubting Thomases need more proof of the validity of this advice, they'll find it in the diaper contents of the next generation. D N3/ ©a. Gibson and her research team are based at the Microbiome and Inflammatory Disease Research lab at UBC Okanagan-. THE TROUBLE WITH BUTTER Recent data about the positive effects of saturated fat have people looking twice at the old standbys, like butter. Up against trans fat and vegetable-based fats, butter seems to be climbing back on top of thegood-for-you food mountain. But is it true? A study of Canadian dairy products by Sanjoy Ghosh and lead author Amy Botta, a PhD student at UBCO, might put a serious drag on butter's ascent. Canadian butter, along with that made in the US and China, has an extremely high Omega 6 to Omega 3 fat ratio as compared to butter produced in countries like France and Germany. Why? Because our dairy cows are fed a diet almost exclusively made of grain, while those in France and Germany are grass fed. The fat produced in grain fed animals reflects the high Omega 6 fat content of their feed. Grass fed animals produce fat much lower in Omega 6 fats. An overabundance of Omega 6 fats in the diet of humans is implicated in the development of various health problems This difference may explain why conflicting research data exists about the perils or benefits of butter and, Ghosh suggests, may illuminate the secret of the French paradox, where the high-fat French diet doesn't seem to cause obesity or an increased incidence of heart disease. The study was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 15% OFF FOOD *Offer expires April 30, 2017. Postcard must be presented upon ordering meal. Maximum 7 postcard redeemable for every four guests. May not be used with any other promotion, discount or special event. 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Lots of Snow, oy a remote, comfy European-style Lodge \CMG guides & 1 cook so you ids can indulge in Canada's best SELVES! BC's most northwesterly mountain lodge, a short heli flight from Smithers 250-847-3351 Bear Mountaineering& *"Burnie ' Glacier 4 Chalet www.BearMountaineering.ca Getting here is easy -a 1.5 hr flight from Vancouver to start skiing mid-day. Pay Less. Ski More. it should be! There's fabulous food, a trendy contemporary art scene, gorgeous scenery, clean and efficient infrastructure and, before it gets on the mainstream radar, great value. Your travel leader is Susan Lahey, a proud UBC alumna and Asian art expert who lived / in Taiwan for two years. If MAY 13-20,2017 (8 DAYS) \\ m v ,,V -/. ^a Questions about the alumni UBC Travel Club? Please contact Karen Kanigan, Manager, Alumni Services 604 822 9629 | karen.kanigan@ubc.ca alumni ubc For all booking inquiries, please contact Worldwide Quest 1800 3871483 | travel@worldwidequest.com WorldwideQjuest EXPERIENTIAL TRAVEL SINCE 1970 V Members of armed groups who commit acts of horrific violence are typically written off as monsters. But PhD candidate Will Plowright, BA'10, says we have more to gain by understanding them as ordinary human beings trapped in extraordinary circumstances. By Chris Cannon Know your enemy. These three simple words, lifted from Sun Tzu's 2500-year-old masterwork The Art of War, are the foundation of any viable military strategy. Writ large, as most conflicts are grounded in stubborn ignorance, they are often the key to finding a lasting peace. They also lie at the heart of Will Plowright's research, a bold initiative to understand - even humanize - the boogeymen of the world who have largely been written off as enemies of the species. Ever since he found himself face-to-face with members of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in 2011, Plowright has been intrigued by the limited understanding the general public has about the motivations of armed people in foreign lands. His research has since taken him into some of the darkest hearts of Africa, as well as Afghanistan, Colombia, Papua New Guinea, Myanmar, Palestine, and Haiti. This is not what he was expecting to do with his life. A wanderer at heart, he had spent his teens and 20s bouncing between his native Vancouver and backpacking trips around the world, always noticing the pockets of misfortune he felt powerless to affect. After returning home and enrolling at UBC as a seasoned first- year, where he double-majored in history and political science, he continued his travels by volunteering for NGOs in conflict areas: War Child Holland, the Darfur Australia Network, HIV projects in Swaziland, a school for street children in Peru. It was during one of these trips that Plowright's academic future came into focus. He was in Northern Uganda on a grant from the Canadian International Development Agency to study psycho-social support for former child soldiers. A friend working on his PhD had set up an interview with two mid-level LRA officials who were considering defection, and he invited Plowright along for the ride. They met at a bar in the town of Gulu, where both the Ugandan government and the LRA had histories of brutal attacks against the civilian population. Plowright was in unknown territory. It was his 29th birthday. "It was in a fancy hotel owned by an officer in the Ugandan military," he recalls, "so it was quite a strange place to be meeting members of the LRA. It was odd to be in a nice garden of a nice hotel in a very poor country, drinking beer in a restaurant owned by the mortal enemy of the people I was talking to." The Lord's Resistance Army, a mercurial Christian militant group, would soon come to the attention of Western media in the form of its leader, Joseph Kony, deplored for his practice of using child soldiers to achieve his aim of turning Uganda into an ethnically pure theocracy. Over the span of three decades, his Holy Spirit Movement has displaced more than 2 million civilians and turned 66,000 children into soldiers and sex slaves. "They described their lives," continues Plowright, "which involved a great deal of suffering and insecurity, as well as stories of them visiting suffering on others. At the same time, they seemed so nice and normal. I can't think of any word to describe it other than surreal." Jarred by the unexpectedly polite reception in Gulu, Plowright began to realize how little we know our enemy. "That was the defining moment," he says from his temporary home in Holland as he prepares for new missions in Afghanistan and Central African Republic. "You read a lot about guys like that, and the dominant narratives of most conflicts - but especially people like the LRA - is that they're monsters, they're brutal, they're cruel. But then sitting down and talking with them, they're just normal people in sort of horrendous situations. They're able to rationalize why they're involved in conflicts. They don't seem like inhuman psychopaths, just normal guys who got pulled into the conflict against their will." Plowright would spend the next six years trying to understand the nature of fighters in armed groups, focusing not on the dogma of the group, but on the motivation of the individual. Rotating between the field and the classroom - a master's in conflict studies from the London School of Economics before returning to UBC for his PhD - he questioned the widely held assumption that these men and women don't care what the world thinks of them, that they are willing participants in a game of unthinkable brutality. He wanted to collect their individual stories, to trace the many paths that led them each to hell on earth. Where others saw evil, Plowright saw a cycle of victimhood. Sometimes they are born into war. paths that led them When p|0Wright visited Myanmar, he discovered a country under harsh military rule for more than 50 years, locked in an ethnic civil war that has been raging longer than most Burmese have been alive. But most are re-born into war. They have ordinary lives: jobs, families, futures. And then a "barrel bomb" - an army of nails packed into 1,000 kilos of high explosive - indiscriminately falls into their living-room, and they have nothing. "I met guys who were fighting with groups like Al Nusra," says Plowright, "and they were saying, Look, we would never have signed up, but our city's being bombed, and people are being killed, and no one is trying to help us. These are the only people showing up to help us fight back. So in that kind of context, what do you say to someone? That they're wrong for joining up with the only group of people that's trying to help them? It's heartbreaking for these guys. He wanted to collect their individual stories, to trace the many s that led them each to hell on earth. Where others saw evil, Plowright saw a cycle of victimhood. Although the fundamental approach to doctoral education has not changed significantly since it was instituted in the early 19th century as a means to regenerate the professoriate, most PhD graduates now pursue careers outside of academia, where they contribute immeasurably to the public good through diverse forms of scholarship. The Public Scholars Initiative (PSI) is an innovative pilot program intended to explore how a top-tier university can support doctoral pathways that encourage purposeful social contribution, innovative forms of collaborative scholarship, and broader career readiness. It seeks to build connections, community, and capacity for PhD students who are interested in explicitly linking their doctoral work to an arena of public benefit and integrating broader and more career-relevant forms of scholarship into their doctoral education process. Will Plowright was among 39 PhD students to be selected as the first cohort of the PSI in 2015. What does being a Public Scholar mean to you? Marrying the passions of academic research with the practical necessities of the real world. In what ways do you think the PhD experience can be re-imagined with the Public Scholars Initiative? I thinkthe emphasis can be pulled backfrom the abstract and the purely theoretical, and challenge people to adapt their research to the real world, rather than the other way around. How do you envision connecting your PhD work with broader career possibilities? I hope to become a successful academic, while continuing my humanitarian work with organizations like MSF. How does your research engage with the larger community and social partners? I work directly with humanitarian organizations in order to investigate ways that my research can serve a practical purpose for those working in conflict zones, especially on issues related to child soldiers. How do you hope your work can make a contribution to the "public good"? By producing materials for those working in conflict zones, as well as training programs for those going to work in violent contexts. Why did you decide to pursue a graduate degree? I wanted to increase my understanding of the dynamics of conflict from a more theoretical perspective. Whereas I have a large amount of practical experience on the ground, it has been amazing to complement that with a broader understand in the trends of insurgency and humanitarian assistance in conflict zones. Why did you choose to come to British Columbia and study at UBC? I chose to come to UBC because it is an amazing university, with a very well-renowned Department of Political Science. That, and Vancouver is one of the most amazing places in the world. the war whisperer Aleppo in rums. Photo: BARAA AL-HALABI/AFP/ Getty Images -* X^ People in combat zones - soldiers, rebels, journalists, humanitarians, other - are there for a variety of reasons, and cope in a variety of ways. But one thing they have in common, especially the fighters, is that none of them really want to be there, a subtlety missed by the media when they report on non-state armed groups. *■ ■ - This isn't exactly new information in the conflict community. The ones who understand are the ones dodgingthesame bullets and hiding the same shrapnel scars, the humanitarians and mediators and other conflict workers who must negotiate access with the rmed groups. Ultimately, these are Plowright's allies and the most likely means for his work to take meaning - non-military and non-government organizations have little power to stop the carnage, but they can alleviate the suffering of those caught in the middle. Plowright hopes to cooperate with humanitarian workers to address the use of child soldiers, who are far easierto kidnap and indoctrinate than adults, and who represent the cycle of victimhood he sees repeating itself - a tragedy not lost on the groups that employ them. He hopes by understanding why armed groups use child soldiers despite the international contempt the practice generates, he can figure out the how that would get them to stop. But in most Western democracies, this knowledge doesn't translate into political will. "You could imagine what would happen to most politicians if they came out and said what I just said," offers Plowright. "No politician is going to stick their neck out to argue we should be humanizing people in armed groups." In the absence of leadership, weturntoourscreensforthe yjQ don't ask message. Even when the terrorist is homegrown, or when our own tneir names. soldiers can't tell the enemy about their bl fromthe populace, we blamethe that brand JS ' demons lurking in the rubble. We inform ourselves with a two-minute video on our news feeds - bodies piled in Paris and Orlando, hospitals bombed in Afghanistan and Syria - we see these atrocities and we blame it on monsters. The media stamp the monsters with theme music and dark graphics, and we respond with Pavlovian efficiency, doing our part by choosingthe sad emoji over the simple like. We don't ask the monsters their names. We only care about their brand, and that brand is ev/7. "People don't generally seekto be evil," Plowright points out. "They do what they do because they think it's right. Now of course whether or not we agree with what they do is a completely different matter. But that doesn't mean it's monsters or psychopaths that do these violent acts that we see in the media and get very upset about. The scary part is that it is just normal people who do these things." Understandably, his work is not always well-received. Summary keywords like terrorist and radical paint a dark picture that does not welcome the light. He's been called naive, a dupe, a fool. He gets random email from strangers questioning his judgment. During a radio interview in Australia, the host called him a terrorist sympathizer. We don't ask the monsters their names. We only care about their brand, and that brand is evil. But he regularly puts his life on the line to steal a quiet moment with the devil. Tea with ISIS. Heinekens with Myanmar rebels. In Syria, he could hardly keep track of the number of fighting groups, and remained tethered to a duo of local handlers to keep him from looking in the wrong direction. Fear became the norm, but also a reminder of what normal is. "Anyone who works in conflict zones, if you're not scared and upset about the violence around you, then you should probably think about leaving," Plowright says. He focused on being conscious of what was going on around him and how it was affecting him emotionally. Explosions and gunfire aren't normal things, but when you're surrounded by them around the clock, they can seem routine, and that's when people begin to take risks. He didn't want to be like the journalists he saw in Aleppo, who, finding themselves in the middle of a gun battle, stopped to take a selfie. People in combat zones- soldiers, rebels, journalists, humanitarians and others-are there for a variety of reasons, and cope in a variety of ways. But one thing they have in common, especially the fighters, is that none of them really want to be there, a subtlety missed by the media when they report on non-state armed groups. Even in the academic literature, which Plowright dove into after his first encounter, he was dismayed by the lack of perspective. "People who are in armed groups, they're seen as terrorists, they're seen as greedy, they're brutes, they're thugs, they're warlords. But it's very rare that people are doing it out of a love for violence, or even just a lust for power, because most of the people involved in armed conflicts have little or no power. They're not seen as human beings, and they're not treated in a lot of the literature as human beings." It's called pseudospeciation: the practice (often unconscious) of relegating others into non- human categories. It's why conflict is so often articulated in racial terms, especially by soldiers, who lean on this coping mechanism to rationalize the sheer inhumanity of their mission. It's what allows us to relegate armed groups-sometimes entire nations-to prey status because they are something other than human. Plowright wants to bring this insidious narrative into the public discussion, o mnnctorc to help us understand the people behind these atrocities and how they got where they are. "The entire point is to try to connect with people on a human - Only Care level," he says, "not just get data from people, but to try to understand them, id, and what they think and feel about what they're caught up in." In short, ignorance of ones foe is the enemy of peace. It s why we keep dropping bombs, landing troops, tripping over our own best intentions, regretting our lack of foresight, and then doing it all again. It's no coincidence that ISIS and similar groups are targeting Western countries, says Plowright. "These things don't just happen out of nowhere. We need to remember our own role in historical events. Over the last 10 or 15 years, the West has invaded, bombed, and/or occupied Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria, Palestine, Libya, Egypt-the list goes on and on. We need to think about these actions and how our involvement in these conflicts justifies what these armed groups do. Because a lot of them see themselves as responding to something we started." War has never been a battle between opposing military forces. In terms of body count, war is simply the slaughter of innocents. In any given conflict, more than half of the dead are civilians-far more if you account for noncombatants who took up arms in desperation -with exponentially more forced into the night as refugees, a status that can last for generations. Those of us who enjoy the relative safety of a superpower or a "peaceful" nation may be surprised to find out who we're fighting. We see animals, and they want to hurt people, so we drop some bombs and then act surprised when they turn their attention our way. "Conflict rarely has a military answer," says Plowright, "and when you engage the military in someone else's conflict, that conflict's going to follow you home." Time and again, we repeat this fallacy that aiming missiles at ISIS or bombing a bronze-age populace into the stone age is going to stop the violence, but usually we just create more misery, more refugees, more armed groups. You cannot understand your enemy from the sky. "The image most people in the West have is that they are rabid, brainwashed Islamofascists - they're psychos, they're crazy - no, they're not," says Plowright. "They're a 19-year-old guy who wanted to go to university until a Russian bomb destroyed his household and killed his family. What is he supposed to do after that? What would you do after that?" D YOUR MEMBERSHIP MATTERS Join at a level that is right for you! Experience the Gallery in the best possible way, with unlimited free access to every exhibition, whenever you like. T Auberge Vancouver Hotel Avis Budget Group BC Lions Broadway Across Canada Contiki Holidays Dreyer Group Mortgages Park'N Fly Sauder Executive Education Sparkling Hill Resort Unhaggle Vancouver Canucks Vancouver Art Gallery EBSCO UBC Library Vancouver Campus Attractions UBC Okanagan Athletics 604.662.4711 mennbership@vanartgallery.bc.ca vana rtgallery.be.ca A Vancouver Artgallery Don't have an A-Card or want more information about these exclusive benefits? Visit alumni.ubc.ca/a-card Interested in becoming an A-Card corporate partner? Contact jenna.mccann@ubc.ca alumniuBC ADVERTORIAL ADVERTORIAL LIFE ON CAMPUS TODAY WESBROOK VILLAGE: A NEIGHBOURHOOD INSPIRED AT UBC €naEi When people set foot in Wesbrook Village for the first time, the reaction is often one of astonishment. With its forest-fresh natural location, best-in-class sustainable architecture, enviable parks and public spaces, and a strong commitment to a healthy community fabric, Wesbrook is certainly a remarkable West Coast neighbourhood. Today, UBC's fifth (and largest) community boasts 4,600 residents, five full parks, and more than 25 shops and services. For the UBC community as a whole, Wesbrook Village affords some big-time benefits. * 1 -1 ORIENT YOURSELF WESBROOK VILLAGE IS EASILY REACHABLE BY CAR, BUS, BIKE, AND CAR SHARE. KEY VANCOUVER LANDMARKS LIE WITHIN 30 MINUTES OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, INCLUDING THE AIRPORT, GRANVILLE ISLAND, ROGERS ARENA, AND YALETOWN'S SEAWALL. THERE'S FREE TWO- HOUR PARKING JUST ACROSS FROM SAVE-ON-FOODS. 1. HOUSE + HOME Wesbrook boasts a broad mosaic of housing options - from rentals (professionally managed by Wesbrook Properties), to retirement residences (Tapestry) to homes for a lifetime. There's truly something for everyone here, knit nicely into our community. Our two newest home collections - Virtuoso from Adera and Eton from Polygon - are now available for viewing. 2. SHOP AROUND When it comes to food, shops, and services, our cup runneth over here at Wesbrook Village. Bike shops, bankers, barbers, bakers, grocers, multiple restaurants and takeout options, liquor store, insurance, optical, medical, dental, and more. There's even a big patio to tip back a Belgian pint. Come on down and explore. Make a day of it. 3. PARKS + REC With five parks and four playgrounds throughout our forested neighbourhood, Wesbrook has a very healthy public realm. And our bright, new Wesbrook Community Centre completes the offering. The 30,000 square foot timber structure offers 200+ programs, a new Splash Pad, fitness centre, and gorgeous purpose-built spaces. 4. ARTS + CULTURE Some of the best arts and culture icons in the Lower Mainland are at UBC - and Wesbrook Village is a stone's throw away. These include: Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, Museum of Anthropology, Nitobe Japanese Garden, Beaty Biodiversity Museum, Morris & Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Frederic Wood Theatre and more. WESBROOK VILLAGE IS FULL OF NEW STORIES, AND NEW TRADITIONS. THE BEST PLACE TO START IS AT THE WELCOME CENTRE. SWING BY SOON, SAY HI, AND SEE WHAT LIFE ON CAMPUS IS LIKE TODAY. DISC0VERWESBR00K.COM I D/WESBR00KVILLAGE I B @WESBR00KVILLAGE I 3378 WESBROOK MALL An annual outreach dental clinic in a remote Aboriginal community provides a powerful learning experience for UBC students. l&t®'lU By Roberta Staley Photos by Tallulah Photography Wearing a dirty straw cowboy hat, grey t-shirt, suspenders and jeans, Jack Ward, 73, sips coffee at a wooden table in Lee's Corner Gas coffee shop along Highway 20, west of Williams Lake in British Columbia's Chilcotin region. Ward's deeply tanned face is as weathered as an old log, the result of decades spent on horseback herding cattle, keeping a watch out for wolves and thieves. "Back in '82 or '83 we lost 21 of our herd to cattle rustlers," he reminisces surrounded by the shop's collection of stuffed wild animals, including a shabby, snarling mountain lion. Ward is at the store, which was founded in 1891 as a trading post, gathering his nerve for a trip to the dentist - his first since the 1970s. "Had a bad experience," he explains. A dentist had responded to Ward's complaint of an achy tooth by poking the offending molar with a periodontal probe. Ward, whose mouth wasn't frozen yet, nearly ricocheted out of the dental chair. He never visited a dentist again. And this, says Ward, displaying two desolate rows of teeth - three upper and four lower, as grey and askew as neglected tombstones - is the sorry result. Ward's date with dental destiny would take place later that day at the Anaham reserve, a short drive west along Highway 20, where students from UBC's Faculty of Dentistry are running a three-day clinic. This is the fourth year that UBC dental and hygiene students have made the July trip to provide free dental care to Anaham residents. The volunteer initiative is a partnership between UBC and the Richmond, BC- based non-profit group Dental Mission Project, which provides the equipment and supplies needed to set up mobile clinics in far-flung communities like Anaham as well as in the developing world. The fact that the clinic is free - in addition to a health-centre nurse's insistance that Ward deal with the infection caused by his rotting teeth - has helped him muster up the courage to face a dentist for the first time in nearly half a century. "I'm on a pension, so I can't afford a dentist," says Ward, who is Aboriginal only on his mother's side and thus not eligible for Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health dental benefits. Neglect as severe as Ward's isn't unusual among the 83 patients that the 16 UBC dental students and four UBC dental hygienists see during their stay at the reserve, home to the Tl'etinqox-t'in, one of six separate bands that make up the Chilcotin First Nation. The three-day undertaking, which takes place every summer, may seem like a stopgap measure in a community whose members - children to adults - not only suffer a myriad of dental problems but are woefully uninformed about Some residential schools used veterinarians rather than dentists to care for pupils' teeth, generating a life-long fear of dentistry oral hygiene. The clinic, however, with its eager students supervised by UBC dentistry faculty, is part of a sea change that is helping the Chilcotin people to not only establish a foundation of community health but also to extricate themselves from the psychological and physical horrors of the residential school system. In a small but significant way, the clinic is helping rectify some of the tragic history between European settlers and Canada's Aboriginal peoples. "For us, because of the residential school system, dental work is very intimidating, especially for our elders," says Anaham chief Joe Alphonse, dressed in cowboy hat, jeans and meticulously pressed shirt. He notes the importance of the temporary clinic being set up on the reserve: "Coming into our home to do this work - it's part of our healing." Alphonse is also tribal chairman for all six bands that make up the 5,000-strong Tsilhqot'in (Chilcotin) nation, which means "People of The River." In addition to the Tl'etinqox-t'in (Anaham) band, there are the Yunest'in (Stone), Xeni Gwet'in (Nemiah), Tl'esqoxt'in (Toosey), Tsi Del Del (Redstone) and ?Esdilagh (Alexandria) bands. UBC dean of Dentistry Charles Shuler, who isn't present this July but has attended Anaham clinics in the past, says that some residential schools used veterinarians rather than dentists to care for pupils' teeth, generating a life-long fear of dentistry. "I was stunned when I first heard this," says Shuler. "The elders said, 'they treated us like animals.'" The result is that many former residential school residents avoid dentists for a lifetime and end up losing their teeth. Until recently, the Anaham reserve had a day school that was run by Catholic nuns, and these students returned home at the end of the day. However, many other Chilcotin children were sent to St. Joseph's Indian Residential School, also known as Cariboo Indian Residential School, on the outskirts of William's Lake. In comparison, the UBC dental students have developed a reputation for patience and kindness, helping to nurture a dentist-positive outlook with youngsters like nine-year-old Safire ShaNeil Lovett Cooper. Safire has just been dropped off by her mom at the Tl'etinqoxt'in Health Services building for a checkup. She's nervous and has to be coaxed into climbing onto the dental chair. Dental students Amar Dev and Emily Thong, as well as Dr. Kelvin Leung, who graduated from UBC dental school this past June, take their time examining Safire's teeth. They find eight cavities on her permanent molars and diagnose the white spots speckling her front teeth as pre-cavity lesions. The discovery is, perhaps, not surprising. Safire recounts what she had for breakfast: Cocoa Puffs, and admits that her favourite things to drink are juice and bottled ice tea. Thong takes the time to explain to Safire the danger of "sugar bugs:" sweet things contain sugar that in turn creates acid, which eats away the teeth. Safire, who later says that she stayed calm during the examination by "thinking about horses," leaves happy, gripping a new toothbrush in her favourite colour of purple. Dental student Nick Aytoglu takes x-rays of Jack Ward at the\ Tl'etinqoxt'in Health Services building on the Anaham reserve. oral history The long-term treatment plan needed to deal with Safire's raft of cavities is beyond the UBC clinic's capabilities. This is where Dr. Christine Constabel comes in. Constabel is on contract with the Tsilhqot'in National Government to provide dental care three days a month to Anaham band members and one day a month to members of nearby Nemiah reserve. A retired associate at Cariboo Dental Clinic in William's Lake and a part- time dentistry faculty member at UBC, Constabel says that the annual student dental mission helps improve her efforts to boost oral health awareness in the community, as many people attend the clinic who normally wouldn't bother going for a checkup. "It's a bit of a happening event; sometimes I compare it to a circus coming to town," says Constabel, who sports a short blond bob and wire rim glasses. "I have a reputation to be quite friendly and not so scary, yet the students are a bigger draw - gentle and kind." The trust generated by the students is invaluable, she says, helping her build rapport with the community. As it turns out, Jack Ward's courage doesn't fail him on the drive to Anaham's Tl'etinqox-t'in Health Services building, and he trudges into the clinic room and sits down in a dental chair. He will be examined by Nick Aytoglu, a fourth-year student, and third-year student Kimberly Paterson. Ward's fear and trepidation are evident from the outset: "If I'm in pain," he blusters to Aytoglu, "I'm going to grab your testicles!" "They are there for you to grab anytime," Aytoglu counters good-humouredly. Aytoglu and Paterson can tell that there is no saving Ward's teeth, which include five molars, some ground down to the roots, in addition to the seven decaying front ones. Aytoglu, however, errs on the side of diplomacy, giving Ward the final decision on the fate of his frail chompers. It turns out that Ward wants them pulled so he can get dentures. After thoroughly freezing both sides of Ward's mouth, Paterson and Aytoglu set to work. Aytoglu refers to Ward throughout the procedure as "boss" - an acknowledgement that the patient is in charge. Aytoglu and Paterson extract four teeth and ask Ward to return the following day to extract the remaining eight. Afterwards, they help initiate arrangements for Ward to see a denturist, who will fit him for dentures once the extractions have healed in six weeks' time. Aytoglu advises Ward - a heavy smoker since age 13 - to cut back on the cigarettes to support recovery. Upon leaving Tl'etinqox-t'in Health Services, however, Ward stops to light up. The UBC dental students have developed a reputation for patience and kindness, helping nurture a dentist-positive outlook with youngsters like nine-year-old Safire. In "The Children's Oral Health Initiative," recently published in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, lead author and UBC pediatric dentistry assistant professor Dr. Kavita Mathu-Muju wrote that First Nation and Inuit children have higher rates of tooth decay and untreated dental caries than other Canadian children. Among Aboriginal children aged three to five, 85 per cent had decay. The average number of decayed, missing or filled primary teeth was 8.22 per child. Nearly half (49 per cent) of the decayed teeth were untreated. Dr. Bill Brymer, who retired this past June as a clinical assistant professor at UBC's Faculty of Dentistry, is one of the dentists supervising the students. On the second morning, he gives them a lecture on pain management. Pain is a pivotal issue with First Nations peoples, especially those who endured a stint in a residential school, he explains. When they protested any kind of uncomfortable treatment there, they were "clipped over the head and told to shut up and bear it." This conditioning at the hands of residential school abusers makes them too fearful to speak up if they feel pain because their mouths aren't properly frozen. "So triple-check your freezing," is Brymer's advice. "This is what will make you successful in dentistry - your patients know you won't hurt them." A reputable practice isn't based upon having the latest high-tech equipment, nor upon impressive medical lingo, he adds. "Avoid the jargon, or a young patient will get really scared. And smile." It is a valuable lesson for the budding dentists, who upon graduation often face student debts of $200,000 or more and might fall into the business model trap of "drill, fill and bill." Brymer says that treating people like those in Anaham, or the residents of Vancouver's poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside, where UBC dental students also hold free clinics, is a way to give back. "Students who give back tend to be way happier and have a more centred life," he says. The students provide more than $20,000 in free dental services to the people of Anaham and members of the surrounding communities. In return, they experience a cultural immersion that is a striking contrast to their urban, university milieu. In the evenings, they learn to play the traditional Aboriginal game Lahal, a ferociously competitive guessing game played with sticks that pits two teams against one another. They raft down the Chilcotin River past the American White Pelican nesting site. Others opt to go fishing for spring salmon in the Chilcotin's turgid, green-brown waters. The students try bannock, a traditional bread that is a staple in many Aboriginal diets, as well as smoked, dried venison and the red fruit of the soapberry. Anaham council member Cecil Grinder also has the students partake in the legend of the broken circle. He says the experience, which is acted out by participants, shows how the residential school system removed children from their parents and elders, leading to the loss not only of language but also of meaning in the lives of Aboriginal families and communities, and causing people to turn to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. "We got to work on much more challenging things than we see at school," says Nick Aytoglu. "It was an amazing experience." Third-year student Viktoria Kirsten agrees. "The people here are super friendly and have so much to share," she says. "They are teaching us so much more than we give them." D 'nt Ono s other, Takashi, In 7967, during his time as a n ; at UBC rrrn Santa and Wendy with daughters -Juliana (R) and Sarah Santa Ono with his wife, Wendy Yip. How a shy young man transformed from "nerdy" student with a musical bent to university president with "rock star" status. By Richard Littlemore "I look back on the introvert I knew in high school, and I wonder: how do you make that transition?" The speaker is Edwin Gosnell, a man much-celebrated for the influence he had during a 30-year career as a high school biology teacher in Towson, Maryland, just across the county line from Baltimore. And the erstwhile introvert of whom he speaks is his former student, Professor Santa Jeremy Ono, now the gregarious and ebullient 15th president of the University of British Columbia. Gosnell came across the "typical, nerdy" young Ono at Towson High School in the late 1970s. "Santa ran the AV (audio/visual) crew, and you know what those kids are like," Gosnell says. But try as he might to keep a low profile, Santa stood out. First of all, Gosnell says, "If you booked a 16-millimetre camera and Santa was in charge, you knew it would be in your room on time; he was really good at every single thing he did." Santa was also tireless and restlessly ambitious. He couldn't fit all the science courses he wanted into his regular schedule, so he prevailed upon the school's best biology teacher for tutoring in anatomy between classes. Says Gosnell: "I went to the principal of the day and got out of hall duty to make time in my schedule." And the teaching "was just a pleasure." Seeing the passion and potential of his new student, Gosnell also started taking Santa to biology lectures at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In an under-resourced and overcrowded school, the teacher also spent his own money on research equipment and stayed late after school to supervise so Santa could begin his own promising research career. The two men stayed in touch through the years, and Ono, by then president of the University of Cincinnati, was largely responsible for Gosnell receivingthe President's Award for Excellence in 2015. And when Gosnell travelled to Cincinnati to pick up the honour, he says he was amazed by Ono's profile and popularity: "Even the cab driver said, 'That Santa guy - he's a rock star.'" Santa Ono was born in Vancouver on November 23, 1962, the second son of a UBC mathematics professor named Takashi Ono and a language teacher, Sachiko (Morita) Ono. But before his second birthday, the family was off to the US, where Takashi taught at the University of Pennsylvania for two years, and then settled in Baltimore, teaching at Johns Hopkins University until his retirement in 2011. Theirs was a strict and diligent house, full of books and music. Takashi plays piano, and Santa's older brother, Momoro, also a pianist, is now a professor of music at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. His younger brother, Ken, is a professor of mathematics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Santa Ono plays cello, an experience that has been life-changing in more ways than one. After graduating from Towson High (and sneaking out of the house in his father's too-small suit to attend the forbidden high school prom), Ono did a bachelor's in biology at the University of Chicago. He then went on to pursue a PhD in experimental medicine at McGill University in Montreal, where he once worked in a lab with two other musically inclined students, a flautist and a pianist. They started playing as a trio, but the pianist, a Montrealer named Gwendolyn (Wendy) Yip, seemed the more committed of the two. As Ono's father-in-law (the late Gar Lam Yip, professor at McGill University) said at Ono and Yip's weddingthree years later, "The trio became a duo." An immunologist who trained at McGill, Yip passed up an opportunity to study medicine at the University of Toronto to follow Ono to Boston, where he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. Instead, Yip attended the Boston University School of Law and went on to practice patent law, which she later taught at the London School of Economics. More recently, she has devoted herself to volunteer work in the community, homemakingand the raising of their two children, Juliana, 18 (flautist and artist), and Sarah, 12 (pianist and athlete). The news release dropped late on a hot afternoon in August: the president was resigning, early in his tenure and for unspecified "personal reasons." There were rumors, unconfirmed, of a problematic relationship between the President's Office and the Board of Trustees. This scenario played out at the University of Cincinnati (UC) in 2012 and was followed by an ugly public controversy surroundingthe reported spending habits and the $i.3-million severance package of outgoing president Gregory Williams. But UC had an ace in the hole: a popular provost and vice president of Academics, named Santa Ono, who stepped into the president's role on an interim basis but was soon appointed formally as Williams's successor. In addition to an impressive career as a researcher, particularly in immunoregulation, ocular surface inflammation and the immune basis of age-related macular degeneration, Ono had long since emerged as a skilled administrator - at the Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard; at University College London, where he was associate dean of students; at Emory University, where he was senior vice provost for Undergraduate Education and Academic Affairs; and finally as provost at UC. Perhaps most remarkable, for someone who Ed Gosnell remembered as being intensely introverted, Ono also established himself as the most open and accessible president in UC history. UC Board of Trustees member Ron Brown says, "Santa could connect with anyone at any level." In addition to developing a high-functioning and mutually respectful relationship at the board level, Brown says, "The students loved him." There might be two explanations for that I affection. One, certainly, is Ono's savvy use of I social media. He had more than 77,000 followers I on his UC Twitter account and was famously responsive, amplifying student concerns by ^ 'Even the cab driver said, 'That Santa guy - he's a rock star.' ■&.§ o ,0 the selfless ceo retweeting messages that he received directly and sorted personally. For example, UC librarian and dean of libraries Xuemao Wang says that he wasn't the least surprised to get a retweet from President Ono with a student request to have a microwave installed in a library study hall. It was clear on occasions such as this that Ono was bringing the issue to the dean's attention, not ordering a particular action. This was good, since the fire marshal forbade the addition of a microwave in the library. But Ono's next retweet highlighted a student request that at least one library study space be open 24/7. Wang says Ono worked directly with the library and the provost to find budget to make that happen. The net effect, Wang says, was that students recognized that their voices were being heard and taken seriously. The second reason for President Ono's popularity among students might be his tendency to reach out personally to support students in need. One such student was Jacob Turner, a sophomore at UC when he first heard from Ono. Turner had caught Ono's attention with an angry online outburst about the creationist religious community around Covington, Kentucky, currently ~ I high school mentor cu uusne;;. Photo courtesy of the University of Cincinnati. 1 says the cut in pay was certainly onsideration, but the personal and r .'ofessional draw of UBC was overwhelming. "Money is not my primary motivation," he says Gupta's salary was less than $450,000 CAD. President Ono was receiving $631,000 USD at Cincinnati, not counting bonuses, and had previously rejected a retention bonus of a further $1 million. Ono says the cut in pay was certainly a consideration, but the personal and professional draw of UBC was overwhelming. "Money is not my primary motivation," he says. "I am paid more than enough, and I wanted to set an example. It's not a matter of how much you yourself have, it's a matter of what you can do to make the lives of others better - especially those who are most needy." This, clearly, is what the website Upworthy had noticed when it included Ono among nine exemplary CEOs who had distinguished themselves for selfless leadership in 2015. The honorees ranged from people like Virgin CEO Richard Branson, who instituted a one-year parental leave at 100 per cent pay, to Ono, who had donated his $200,000 USD bonus to programs supporting first-generation college, LGBTQ and low-income UC students, as well as local high schools and community groups. Of all the questions that you might ask Santa Ono, the one he seems least willing to answer is: what are his plans and preferences for UBC? Having launched a visioning exercise in the beginning of September, he says he would like to leave the floor open to others, adding "When the CEO speaks early on, it stifles the conversation." This is not to say he doesn't have priorities: research, teaching and pedagogy, the effectiveness of UBC's health-related faculties, and "what UBC can do for Vancouver, for British Columbia, for Canada, and for the world." As for a big direction, "I keep saying, from excellence to eminence," Ono says, adding that not enough people know how good UBC really is. "That's something I'd really like to change." D home to the organization Answers in Genesis (AiG), which is dedicated to convincing Americans that the world is only 6,000 years old. Turner had grown up in the same congregation as AiG founder Ken Ham, and Turner's mother had worked in the Creation Museum in nearby Petersburg, Kentucky. Yet, on reaching UC, Turner discovered and quickly fell in love with science and, by second year, he was lashing out online as a gesture, he says, "for other kids trapped in sheltered circles of education." Turner says now, "Somehow, Santa found that blog post and he invited me to his office. Santa's a Christian and he shared with me a side of Christianity that I hadn't seen - not the horrible, hateful side of Christianity." It was a difficult time, including a bumpy period in Turner's relationship with his parents (who have since left the AiG congregation), but Ono was there for him, as "a science and personal mentor." "We talked about wildly ambitious things, and he told me I was going to do good things in science." Given that Turner - "a first-generation college student" - is now in his third year of an immunology PhD at Harvard, Ono appears to have been correct. [KX] In the tense period following the departure of UBC's 13th president, Arvind Gupta, there was widespread concern about UBC searching for a replacement in a time of unease. For example, people worried whether UBC could offer a salary that great candidates might regard as "competitive." UBC alumni are capable of amazing things. This November, at the alumni UBC Achievement Awards, we honoured eight inspiring members of the UBC community who, through their extraordinary endeavours, have created positive change. Find out more at alumni.ubc.ca/events/awards PRESENTED BY Boyden global executive search CM., BA'66, LLD'02 ALUMNI AWARD OF DISTINCTION A giant of Canada's communications and media industry whose strategic advice and generous support have been vital to many UBC endeavours, includingthe extraordinarily successful start an evolution campaign. . Tara Cu BA'70 GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP AWARD A long-time environmental and human rights activist who has worked with indigenous peoples in Canada and abroad on novel and highly effective campaigns to protect ancestral lands under threat from loggingand damming. BA'82, MA'86, PhD'90 FACULTY COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD A health promotion researcher who focuses on vulnerable populations and works to reduce disparities in health care using a community- based, participatory approach for identifying and sharing best practices. Dr. Herbert Rosengarten HONORARY ALUMNUS AWARD A popular professor emeritus with 50 years of service who has i nf I uenced almost every aspect of UBC's operations, chronicled the university's ascent, and established highly-valued connections between the university and the Ifroader community it serves. Dr. Donald, BSc'68,MD'7o & Elizabeth, BSc'70(Rehabilitation) MacRitchie VOLUNTEER LEADERSHIP AWARD Active members of the Prince George community who advocate for improved health care in BC - particularly in remote northern communities - and Drovide inraluable support for students in the Faculty of Medicine's Northern Medical Program. Dr. Jessica Otte MD'09 YOUNG ALUMNUS AWARD A young physician and patient advocate who champions a "less is more" approach to prescribing treatment, and seeks to effect systemic diange in health care provision using a patient-centred, eviderrce-based approach. Christopher Roach FUTURE ALUMNUS AWARD An outstanding PhD candidate in genome sciences and technology and a highly engaged campus leader who is dedicated to serving his community and creating a first-raft student experience at UBC. alumni ubc 2017 ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS CALL FOR NOMINATIONS NEXT YEAR'S AWARD RECIPIENTS WON'T RAISE THEIR OWN HANDS. THAT'S WHY WE NEED YOU! Do you know a graduate, student, faculty or friend of UBC who deserves to be recognized as a leader, advocate, artist or visionary? This is your chance to bring them into the limelight. To nominate online, visit alumni.ubc.ca/nominate. nomination deadline: Friday, January 27,2017 '^Prince William chats with Heat women's volleyball player Aiden Lea after an inter-squad game . * V.in the gymnasium. THE Cambridses hlufiCH Kelowna <r. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited UBC Okanagan on September 27 as part of their 2016 tour of Canada. There was a public ceremony in the Central Courtyard to dedicate a new Aboriginal art installation commemorating UBC's centennial and the 10th anniversary of the Okanagan campus. The duke and duchess then headed to the gymnasium, joinin. approximately 1,500 UBC students to watch an inter-squad game with the UBC Okanagan Heat women's volleyball team. For more than 20 years, Tetsuro Shigematsu, MFA'll, has been telling stories across an array of media. He is a writer, actor, performance artist, broadcaster, stand-up comic, scholar, filmmaker, and theatre artist. A former writer for This Hour Has 22 Minutes, in 2004 he became the first person of colour to host a daily national radio program in Canada, where he co-wrote and co-produced nearly a thousand hours of network programming. Shigematsu's award-winning body of work in film, television, radio, new media, and theatre continues to be taught in Canadian and American universities as examples of creative possibility. He is currently pursuing his PhD as a Vanier Scholar at UBC. When I was accepted into UBC's MFA Creative Writing program back in 2011,1 was returning to school mid-career as a mature student, which is a euphemistic way of saying my career wasn't exactly on fire. I had tried my luck in Hollywood and failed. Life had given me a good beating, and I needed a cave to crawl into so I could gather my energy, buy some time and figure out my next move. That cave turned out to be Acadia Park, UBC graduate student housing on the edge of the rainforests of Pacific Spirit Park. Six years prior in 2005,1 had moonwalked out of a national hosting gig on the CBC. "Hi, I'm Tetsuro Shigematsu. You're listening to The Roundup here on CBC Radio One!" Does that ring a bell? No? Well lemme tell you, every weekday my voice was heard from coast to coast by over a million weekly listeners. These days I make theatre. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Given my background as a broadcaster, such a downward career trajectory strikes some people as counterintuitive, or maybe just sad. Usually people are trying to go in the opposite direction. Whether they admit it or not, every young kid at the Fringe secretly dreams of being on TV one day. After all, it's only natural to seek bigger and bigger audiences. But as someone who has been there, and done that, I'll take genuine human engagement over abstract numbers any day. Quarterly audience reports can't reach out and embrace you tightly after a show. As someone who gives the impression of having seen it all and done it all in Canadian arts and entertainment, I am sometimes asked for career advice. This question always makes me so proud. To think, that I could be so convincing at projecting this illusion of success. If people really knew the reality of my existence - how my retirement plan consists of visiting my daughter for brunch one day, and then refusing to leave - I think the lineup for my advice would surely dwindle. But I think what people REALLY want to know is how they too can write for a program like This Hour Has 22 Minutes or host a network program on CBC because, after all, things like that look pretty impressive in my bio, no? I always say, "Do something so great the world will sit up and take notice." For me, that something was a little show called Rising Son, which I wrote and performed in Montreal during the early 1990s. It was a perfect little show that no one ever saw except for friends and family, plus one other person who recorded an audio clip that got played on the radio, and then BOOM! I was thrust into the world of Canadian broadcasting. Inheriting The Roundup radio program from the Mozart of Canadian broadcasting, the Great Bill Richardson, was an incredible honour, but as someone who went to art school, I found the day-to-day low level of creativity that the position demanded, like crafting witty promos, was slowly killing me. Don't get me wrong. Meeting fascinating people who sat across from me over the console was brilliant, but as they waltzed off to their next adventure - another concert, another movie, another space mission - I'd often feel like shouting, "Take me with you!" Until one day, I finally summoned the nerve to leave on my own. After grabbing my trusty CBC reporter's mic and tossing it in my hobo bindle, I left the building. Back then my siblings questioned the wisdom of their ne'er-do-well baby brother walking away from a permanent staff job with full dental benefits, but I had this really great idea. Maybe it wasn't very original. Okay, itwas actually the LEAST original idea in the whole wide world: I was going to try and make it in Hollywood. Did I make it? No. Not even close. LA is a weird place. It's either hot, or really hot. This lack of seasons makes it hard to mark the passage of time, but I think I lost half a decade there with nothing to show for it. I auditioned a lot but to no avail. Just before I left, I finally landed my first and last Hollywood TV role: killing Vikings and talking smack on Spike/ MTV's reality show called The Deadliest Warrior. Maybe you've seen it? Actually, if you're reading this magazine, that would be a statistical impossibility. Your level of education makes it illegal for you to subscribe to this cable package. And if you happen to spy this show over your nephew's shoulder, more than five minutes of exposure to this type of industrial-grade, protracted-adolescent programming will cause your overeducated head to explode clean off your shoulders. After driving my U-Haul truck of broken dreams back to Canada, I began my creative writing MFA at UBC. As a former broadcaster, my sense of audience entitlement was too inflated to spend several years slaving over a collection of poetry or an unpublished novel no one would read, so instead I opted to do a series of YouTube videos for my thesis, which ended up racking up more than a quarter million views. Being a mature student was more fun than I could have ever imagined and I wanted to keep going. Because the MFA is a terminal degree, I switched to another department at UBC. Once I was accepted to do my PhD in education, I thought here's my one chance to be a scientist, maybe do some real social science. I wanted to buckle down, wear a white lab coat, hold a clipboard and authoritatively order unsuspecting test subjects to faux-electrocute confederate Millennial for choosing pumpkin spice lattes over pumpkin spice lattes, (I may have slept in the day they taught Designing Experiments Using the Scientific Method). Instead, my sagacious PhD committee advised me to choose a thesis project that would better play to my strengths. When my friend Donna Yamamoto (UBC alumna, psychology), artistic director of Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre, offered me the opportunity to write and perform my own work, I knew that it could be part of my thesis. My previous one-man show, Rising Son, was about my acrimonious relationship with my Japanese father from the perspective of I "Here's something you might not know about microphones. When Lused correctly they can "ouble as a flashlight into the shadowy corners ^someone's past." Shigematsu is former host ofCBC's The Roundup. V„ r a 20-something Canadian wrestling with identity politics Not a cliche at all! Now I wanted to revisit that material with the more nuanced perspective refracted through the multiple laminations of all my various experiences in film, radio, TV, and stand-up comedy. My father was a public radio broadcaster. I had been a public radio broadcaster. He worked for the BBC. I worked ^^^^^^^^^^_ for the CBC. Between us we had millions of listeners. But we never spoke with each other. In my whole life, I never had a single conversation with my dad beyond, "pass the soya sauce." And I was fine with that, but now that I was a father, I knew that one day my kids would begin asking questions about who they are, where they came from. And if they ever started asking questions about their grandpa, I didn't want to say, "I don't know." So when he began to die about a couple of years ago, I took it upon myself to start recording his stories. It was now or never. Here's something you might not know about microphones. When used correctly they can double as a flashlight into the shadowy corners of someone's past. When I pointed my old CBC mic at my dad, I discovered vast worlds contained within him - from the ashes of World War II and Hiroshima, to swinging London in the 1960s. I learned how he had tea with the Queen of England and that he watched Marilyn Monroe sing Happy Birthday to J FK. My dad died two weeks before our show opened. So he never did get to see it, which was actually kind of a relief, because Empire of the Son isn't exactly a son's glowing tribute to his dad. It's an unflattering portrait of a complicated man, but it's also an enthralling ride through the 20th century. One of the things that makes our production of Empire of the Son special is our use of a live cinema camera. This is how Vancouver theatre critic Jo Ledingham described it in her review: "The best part is how inventively it is told... most innovative is his use of real-time videocam projections: a tiny paper boat in a dish of water projected as he films it; two fingers playing with a miniature skateboard underscored with a less-than-respectful ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^_ conversation with his father; two fingers like a pair of skaters gliding across an imaginary frozen pond on Grouse Mountain. A syringe of a cloudy liquid squirted into a bowl of clear water erupts like a huge mushroom cloud on the screen. Like a Japanese painting, it's all about the minimal strokes of the brush; our imagination fills in the rest." Before a single review had been written, Empire of the Son made history. To the best of our knowledge, for the world premiere of a Canadian play to completely sell out its entire run before opening, or even previewing, has never happened before. Not only that, the extension also immediately sold out. The critics have been unanimous in their praise, with the Vancouver Sun naming it the "best show of 2015," and the Georgia Straight's Colin Thomas calling it "the most important show of the year." Empire went on to garner six Jessie nominations, including Outstanding Original Script, Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role, Outstanding Production, plus the Critics' Choice Innovation Award. The show is being remounted at the Cultch in East Vancouver this November, before it tours across Canada, debuting at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. I recently got a text message from my publicist Teresa Trovato letting me know that, as part of the promotional efforts, I'm booked to be a guest on Q on CBC Radio. So now I'm in the guest chair, and even though I don't have dental insurance, and I'll likely be renting for the rest of my life, so far I'm liking 1 the view from here. You can follow Tetsuro Shigematsu @tweetsuro, shiggy.com, or on facebook.com/tetsuro. D 'My father was a public radio broadcaster, ihad been a public radio broadcaster. He worked for the BBC. I worked for the CBC. Between us we had millions of listeners. But we never spoke with each other. In my whole life, I never had a single conversation with my dad beyond, 'pass the soya sauce.'" Upcoming tour dates for Empire of the Son: OTTAWA - National Arts Centre, November 22 - December 3, 2016 MONTREAL - Centaur Theatre, January 10 -14, 2017 TORONTO - Factory Theatre, January 18 - 29, 2017 Hi ' NEWFOUNDLAND - Artistic Fraud, 2018 CALGARY - High Performance Rodeo, 2018 «_ iiSiriU imm PRIVATE, ROMANTIC, STYLISHpDfiH 'nforgettable venues - for intimate gatherings or grand celebrations mim) LteJML&JlL>&J. ) What have you been up to lately? Share your latest adventures, unique stories, milestones, and journeys with fellow alumni in Class Acts. Don't be shy. You're a member of alumni UBC - you've got bragging rights. Have photographic evidence? Email high resolution scans (preferably 300 dpi) to trek.magazine@ubc.ca. Submissions should not exceed 200 words. Frank Adams, BCom'49, played soccer for UBC in 1942-1943 and was awarded a Big Block sweater. Over the years the sweater was lost. It occurred to his son, Rob, that Adams might enjoy having a Big Block sweater again, so he contacted the current UBC soccer coach, Mike Mosher. Very quickly a new sweater was provided. Adams enjoyed one year at UBC (1942 -1943) before going to war. After a couple of minor but spectacular crashes during pilot training in Canada, he went to Europe for a short time, and then the war was over. He returned to UBC and graduated with a degree in commerce. Adams turned 92 this summer and is still going strong and playing golf several times a week. On December 7,1943, Frank Adams and other pilots were practicing take-offs and landings in twin-engine Anson aircraft Adams and another pilot lost sight of each other and landed at the same time, with Adams' plane settling on top of the other. Neither pilot was injured. Adams also survived a crash two months earlier, when he stalled a single engine Cornell at 30 feet and plummeted to the ground. Adams was fine, but the plane was wrecked. Author and filmmaker Silver Donald Cameron BA'6o (PhD), published his 18th book in the summer of 2016. Warrior Lawyers, which is a companion work to his feature film, GreenRights, also finished in 2016, includes 15 interviews from top environmental lawyers from around the world. Cameron is a lifelong environmentalist, working now to secure "green rights," or the right to clean air, water and food, for every Canadian citizen. Currently, Canada is one of 13 countries in the United Nations that does not recognize INTRODUCING THE WALTER GAGE BOOK PROJECT Walter Gage touched the lives of many students as a math professor, dean of Inter-Faculty and Student Affairs, and later as president of UBC. A number of UBC alumni have joined together to develop a book project to recognize the personal impact of Dean Gage on students, faculty members, and staff at UBC. With your help we would like to collect stories, letters, and images to capture the essence of Walter Gage. The collection will lead to the publishing of a book. To participate, go to the dediated online website: waltergagebook. engineering.ubc.ca. If you would liketo learn more, please email alumni@apsc.ubc.ca this right. For information on his book, film and environmental initiatives, go to www.greenrights.com After being diagnosed with a rare form of Acute Myeloid Leukemia, John Hemmingsen, BASc'63, had a bone marrow transplant. That was more than two years ago. He has just completed a book detailing his experiences throughout the treatment. The book is dedicated to the cure. Find out more at: www.giftedlife.org Sandra Smith, BA'64, MA'6j, has written a book - Canada's Water, Yours to Protect A Primer on Planning Together - celebrating the effect of local collaboration driven by passion for place, and encouraging Canadians to come together to plan for the future of their water. Louis Druehl, PhD'65, SFU professor emeritus, received a 2015 British Columbia Community Achievement Award for his contributions to the village of Bamfield. He dedicated his academic life to the study of kelp, for which he had the honour of having a kelp genus named after him: Druehliafistulosa, the dragoon kelp. He has concentrated on writing in his retirement years: the Canadian best seller Pacific Seaweeds (2000, Harbour) and most recently Cedar, Salmon and Weed (2015, Granville Island), a tale of 1970s Bamfield, with its biologists, hippies, fishermen, natives, and end-of-the-roaders, minimal sex and violence, some piracy, dealing, marine science and loitering. Druehl lives in Bamfield, where he produces the local newspaper, the New Bamfielder, and runs a sea vegetable business with his wife, Rae Hopkins. Colin Levings, BSc(Zoology)'6s, MSc(Zoology)'6j, (PhD in Oceanography, Dalhousie), has published a new book with UBC Press. Ecology ofSalmonids in Estuaries around the World: Adaptations, Habitats and Conservation covers salmon, trout, and char species and has as an extensive reference list and a primer for citizen scientists. Author royalties are being donated to the Pacific Salmon Foundation. Levings is an emeritus scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in West Vancouver and is also an adjunct faculty member at UBC. Levings and his wife, Kay, live in Lions Bay, BC, and also spend time in Pender Harbour, where he teaches their five grandsons to row and fish. A newly hybridized iris has been named Prankster in recognition of an audacious 1963 UBC Engineering prank. A recent article in the fall 2015 issue of Trek magazine recalled the hoax as the most creative and technically ambitious stunt of several decades at the university (page 39). Engineering students knocked together some "abstract" sculptures and anonymously placed them around campus. The sculptures' sudden appearance attracted curiosity, and both supporters and detractors, but they were left in place. Then, a few weeks later, the engineers went round with sledgehammers and smashed the sculptures to pieces. They got the hoped-for criticism and derision, letting it build until turning the tables and owning up that the statues were their own creations and not works of art. Penny Santosham (nee White), BEd'66, the iris hybridizer, was a UBC education student at the time of the hoax. Prankster, an unusual pin stripped clone, is her seventh registered Okanagan iris. Diana Cruchley, BE'67, has two recent publications: Canadian Scientists and Inventors Rule, a picture book ABC of Canadian inventions/discoveries, and The Power of Extreme Writing, an ASCD publication for educators on a novel approach to journaling. This July a Festschrift Conference was held at The Burn near the village of Edzell in Angus, Scotland, in honour of Professor Emeritus John M. MacKenzie, PhD'69. MacKenzie held the chair of Imperial History at Lancaster University, UK, where he worked for 34 years (1968-2002). He is one of Britain's foremost scholars of imperial history and the British Empire and holds honorary professorships at the universities of St. Andrews and Aberdeen and a Professorial Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh. Jan Drabek, DipEd'66, recently returned from Prague, where he christened his Czech translation of the Krajina biography called The Two Lives of Vladimir Krajina. In 1939 the botanist Vladimir Krajina joined the Czech Resistance and quickly became one of its leaders. Incredible escapes from the Gestapo followed, while some 20,000 radio messages were sent by his group to London, among them those about the pending invasion of the Balkans and of the Soviet Union. As the strongest anti-Communist Party's general secretary he escaped from the country on skis after the Communist takeover. Personally thanked for his wartime effort by Winston Churchill, Krajina came to UBC where, as a professor of botany he battled the forest barons and their practice of clear-cutting and slash burning. He then turned his attention to saving pristine areas of the province, earning the title of father of the Ecological Reserve Program, since replicated I throughout Canada. Asa Companion of the Order of Canada, he returned triumphantly to Prague in 1990 to receive the Order of the White Lion, the highest Czechoslovak award, from President Vaclav Havel. Krajina died peacefully in Vancouver in 1993 as one of those happy individuals who had achieved practically everything they had set out to do in life. The book is Vladimir Krajina (published by Ronsdale Press in 2012, Touzimskay a Moravec in Prague in 2016). Frank Townsley, BSc'70, has self-published his first book. Born and raised on the North Shore, his reason for writing it was to share British Columbia's treasures with both residents and tourists alike, hopefully encouraging them to explore it further. British Columbia - Graced by Nature's Palette will take you on a wondrous and extensive journey through the province in all its seasons, divulging not only its varied landscapes, but displaying some of the abundantly rich nuances of plant and animal life, many existing nowhere else in Canada. The Nature Trust of British Columbia welcomed two UBC alumni to its Advisory Board in June: Ross J. Beaty, BSc'74, LLB'79, and Doug Christopher, BCom'80. Christopher is the president of Montrose Development and G & B Estates. He is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys fishing, horseback riding and hiking. Beaty is a geologist and resource company entrepreneur with over 41 years of experience in the international minerals and renewable energy industries. He is a patron of the Beaty Biodiversity Centre at UBC. Caroline Woodward's eighth book is her first memoir. Woodward, BA'74, left her interesting but hectic publishing career behind to join her husband, a lighthouse keeper, in order to resume her life as a writer. She also became a relief lightkeeper, working many months at over a dozen different lighthouses on the BC coast. Light Years: Memoir of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper is her account of the reality and the romance of both the lighthouse life and the perfect destination for writers who prefer solitary and splendid wilderness in which to create. • Rob Marris, BA'76, MA'79, is a lawyer who was the MP for Wolverhampton South West, UK, from 2001 to 2010. From 2011 to 2013 he worked at the National Union of Teachers. In May 2015 he won back the seat, and is again the MP for Wolverhampton South West. Philip Suckling, PhD'77, retired from Texas State University in 2015 after a 38-year academic career, including 22 years as a department chair. He held faculty positions in the departments of geography at Brandon (Manitoba) University (1977-79), the University of Georgia (1979-91), the University of Northern Iowa as department chair (1991-2005), and Texas State University (2005-15, with 2005-13 as department chair). • Brett Hayward, BSc'78, who works as a veterinarian on Vancouver Island, recently published his book Existence: Science, Spirituality and the Spaces Between, available at Amazon and Chapters. class acts Marnie Fleming, MA'8o, won a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. She worked at the Vancouver Art Gallery before moving to London (London Regional Art Gallery) and then the Oakville Galleries, where she has been for 24 years. The citation reads: A complex, dynamic and ever-evolving sense of place has been the organizing principle - if not the driving force - behind Marnie Fleming's impressively diverse and ambitious practice as a curator. James Giles, BA'So, MA'83, has written several books, the latest of which is Sexual Attraction: The Psychology of Allure, which explores the universal yet highly individualized experience of being sexually attracted to another person. After leaving UBC, Giles travelled to India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the UK, where he earned a PhD in philosophy from the University of Edinburgh. His travels continued in Asia and Europe, while his career took off as a researcher, writer and university lecturer. His areas of focus include metaphysics, the nature of perception, personal identity, Buddhist and Taoist thought, ancient Greek philosophy, human relationships, and evolutionary theory. Giles is currently a professor of psychology at Roskilde University in Denmark. Visit his website at www.james-giles.com The 2015 Governor General's History Award for Scholarly Research (Sir John A. Macdonald Prize) will be awarded to Jean Barman, EdD'82, for her book French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous Women in the Making of the Pacific Northwest, published by UBC Press in 2014. Paola Durando, eA'83, Ml.S'85, and Suzanne Maranda, MLS'82, are team members in the Queen's University AHEAD (Access to Health and Education for All Disabled Children and Youth) project in Bangladesh. Working with the local Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP), the project's goal is to educate and train over 1,000 health professionals, students in health studies, and 12,000 community members, including children, in five regions in Bangladesh. Durando and Maranda have been collaborating with the CRP librarian to build library capacity, which is enabled by an e-library with ready access to scholarly resources. Library users receive instruction in resource terms of use and database search skills, all with the intent to foster a research and evidence-based culture of learning. ■ Marjorie Simmins, BA'84, (MA), is a journalist and author whose new non-fiction book, Year of the Horse, published by Pottersfield Press, is now available in bookstores and online from Amazon and Nimbus Publishing. A story of horses, healing and improbable dreams, Year of the Horse is set on the East and West Coasts of Canada. After a cross-country book tour, Simmins held a West Coast launch at Southlands Riding Club in Vancouver on November 24, 2016. IQQf Mark Donaldson, BSc(Pharm)'9o, has been awarded the 2016 Thaddeus V Weclew Award from the Academy of General Dentistry, which is given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the art and science of dentistry. As a long-time educator, Donaldson's ultimate goal is to help dentists understand pharmacology and become better prescribers. • Christopher Douglas, BA'90, has authored If God Meant to Interfere: American Literature and the Rise of the Christian Right The rise of the Christian Right took many writers and literary critics by surprise, thinking that religions waned as societies became modern. In his book, Douglas shows that American writers struggled to understand and respond to this new social and political force. Ludwig Dyck, BA'90, has authored the book, The Roman Barbarian Wars: The Era of Roman Conquest. Even when outnumbered and faced by better-equipped and trained Roman legions, the "barbarian" NOW IN HD. ALL IN ONE APP. STORY SHARING IN ONE CLICK MULTIMEDIA STORYTELLING SAVE A TREE? Would you like to stop receiving a print copy of Trek? Now you can download the Trek iPad app, or just read it online. Visit trekmagazine.ca/subscription to choose your preferences. - Download on the ■ I • / Appstore | trekmagazme.ca/app alumniuBC peoples of Europe could inflict devastating defeats upon Rome. The Romans themselves admired the size and strength of the barbarians, which, combined with a life of hardship and intertribal warfare, made them dangerous opponents. Arthur Wolak, BA'90, DipArtHist'94, MA, MBA, PhD, and his wife, Dr. Anna Wolak, are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Julia Rose Wolak, a sister for Jacob and Joshua, born on February 5, 2016, at BC Women's Hospital in Vancouver. Wolak's book, The Development of Managerial Culture, was published last year by Palgrave Macmillan and his newest book, Religion and Contemporary Management, will be published by Anthem Press in the fall of 2016. Anna Wolak is a family physician in Vancouver and is an active faculty member in UBC's medical school. She is chair of the Planning Committee of the Annual Postgraduate Review in Family Medicine, which is among the oldest and largest family medicine conferences in Western Canada. Seelochan Beharry, BEd'93, has a book out, The Prehistories of Baseball, with McFarland Books (North Carolina, USA), a private academic publishing house. It supports the idea that baseball came from Britain and Europe - its foundations, philosophies, and cultural trappings showing British and European origins. The book has been listed on the Society for American Baseball Research's bookshelf and cited in an article on the origins of baseball. Shelina Esmail, BA'93, has been named as partner at PFM Executive Search. Esmail joined PFM in 1998 as director of Research, transitioning after four years to the role of consultant. In 2011, she was named associate partner. Before joining PFM, she worked for five years in commercial real estate. Esmail is passionate about developing talent and tomorrow's leaders and has volunteered with Junior Achievement BC and as a mentor to UBC economics students. Most recently she was elected to the board of alumni UBC. She is a wife, mother of two active boys, and a resident of Vancouver's north shore. In November, Annabel Lyon, MFA'96, was presented with the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award. The award is presented to a mid-career writer in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian literature. Lyon, who has been publishing books for 15 years, including her bestselling novel The Golden Mean, received $25,000 along with the honour. • Katherine Prairie, MSc'96, has launched her debut thriller, Thirst. Prairie is a geologist and IT specialist who stepped away from the international petroleum industry to follow her passion for writing. Elee Kraljii Gardiner, MA'97, has published the poetry collection serpentine loop. Gardinerfounded and directs Thursdays Writing Collective, a program of free, drop-in creative writing classes in Vancouver's downtown Eastside. Joanne C. McNeal, PhD'97, sang at Carnegie Hall on March 7, 2016, with the Edmonton Metropolitan Chorus. Along with two other small choirs from across Canada, The EdMetroChorus is singing a haunting work by Alberta Composer Allan Bevan, Now Goth Sonne Under Wode, as part of an international series. McNeal says it was a thrill to sing at Carnegie Hall as the finale to a life-long career singing across Canada's western provinces. Story Money Impact Funding Media for Social Change by Tracey Friesen, BA'98, is a practical guide for media-makers, funders and activists who share the mutual goal of creating a social impact with their work. Structured around stories from the front lines, Story Money Impact reveals best practices in the areas of documentary, digital content, and independent journalism. Formerly an executive producer at the National Film Board of Canada, Friesen is now director of programming for Roundhouse Radio 98.3 Vancouver. inn IFidler, BASc'oo, Ed Fidler, BASc'oo, has been promoted to director at First Reserve, a global private equity and infrastructure investment firm exclusively focused on energy. Since joining the Firm in 2011, Fidler has been a key member of the energy infrastructure teams for Renovalia Reserve, PetroFirst Infrastructure Limited and La Bufa Wind. He has also led the firm's process for managing currency and other hedging programs across its Energy Infrastructure Funds. Prior to joining First Reserve, Fidler spent several years working on behalf of Macquarie's European Infrastructure Funds. • Amit Taneja, BA'oo, has been hired by the College of the Holy Cross as the associate dean for diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer. Taneja has recently written on the topic of LGBT student services in Canadian higher education in his book Serving Diverse Students in Canadian Higher Education: Models and Practices for Success (McGill-Queen's University Press). He has been an invited speaker and consultant for many universities throughout the US and Canada for his expert knowledge of diversity and inclusion in higher education. • In July AmyTsai-Shen, BCom'01, joined the commercial real estate law firm Crosbie Gliner Schiffman Southard & Swanson LLP (CGS3). In addition to her extensive background in obtaining land use entitlements, Tsai-Shen is a certified public accountant. Zack Silverman, BA'02, MBA'06, LLB'06 and his best friend, Aaron Harowitz, have co-created the beverage mix Walter Craft Caesar Mix. After pursuing separate careers in law and design for several years, the friends reconnected and made a decision to follow a long-held entrepreneurial passion. They wanted to provide Canadians with a healthier choice when it comes to mix; theirs contains "all-natural" ingredients and is an Ocean Wise recommended product. Manju Aroral, MBA'06, started her career as a veterinarian in private practice and now, many years later, owns the first "Fear Free" pet hospital in the province, located in New Westminster (www.queensparkpethospital.ca). She credits her MBA experience for adding business acumen and flair to everything she does, and thanks her classmates for adding to the richness of her learning. She encourages old and new friends to reach out to her at meowbark@telus.net (must love pets!) Gregg Staniforth, BSF'06, has been named a True Professional of Arboriculture™ by the International Society of Arboriculture. The True Professional recognition program honors arborists and tree care professionals for their positive impact on the industry in and around their communities. Staniforth has committed nearly two decades to the management and preservation of urban trees and is now working towards a Master of Science in Arboriculture and Urban Forestry at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Elise Nardin is a Swiss resident and former exchange student at UBC (06-07). She met a group of other exchange students while here - from Germany, Lithuania, Belgium, France, and Quebec - and before long, they were accompanying each other on ski trips and road trips, and spending many evenings at each other's apartments. The bonds between them grew strong. These former exchange student meet regularly for what they call "T-bird reunions." They were all pursuing different majors but were united by their common experience as exchange students. After leaving UBC, the group met up for the first time in 2007 - squeezing 15 people into a 35-square-metre Parisian apartment for a weekend - and have held reunions every other year since then. They call them their "T-Birds reunions." Some of them have ended up in the same or related fields of work, and have even collaborated on professional projects. The group met in Brussels this year to celebrate 10 years of knowing each other. Maureen F. Fitzgerald, PhD'06, is a gender diversity advisor and former lawyer. She has written three books describing the countless barriers and biases that women face - at work, at home and in society. Written in plain language, they provide easy-to read succinct summaries of the systemic barriers that hold women back and provide strategies to overcome them: Lean Out - How to Dismantle the Corporate Barriers that Hold Women Back; Motherhood is Madness - How to Break the Chains that Prevent Mothers From Being Truly Happy; Occupy Women - A Manifesto for Positive Change in a World Run by Men. Kevin Quinlan, BA'06, has been named a 2015/2016 Action Canada Fellow. In 2013 Quinlan was the first Canadian to join the Next City Vanguard, a forum of 40 young leaders working to improve cities. In addition to his UBC degree, Kevin has a master's in Urban Studies from SFU and is a mentor with SFU RADIUS. Kevin is currently the deputy chief of staff to the mayor of Vancouver. Shirin Eskandani, BMus'06, is thrilled and honored to be making her Metropolitan Opera Stage debut next season (2016-2017) as Mercedes in Carmen. She's still pinching herself. liana Labow, BSc'08, has founded Fresh Roots - a non-profit with the mandate "good food for all." Using community gardens to grow vegetables, the organization works with schoolchildren and other community members to encourage healthy eating, sustainable farming, and community building. Aaron Sanderson, BA'09, has been named a Fellow of the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, the highest level of achievement in the field. Sanderson has worked in philanthropic programs for both the BC Children's Hospital Foundation in Vancouver and the SickKids Foundation in Toronto, and he is currently development director for Toronto-based War Child Canada. The Man in the Shadows is a film by Adam Tomlinson's, LLB'03, that premiered in competition at the prestigious independent film festival, Dances with Films. The film is a horror, based on shadow people and sleep paralysis. Maria Klawe, LLD'10, has been named one of the 67 Influential Educators Who Are Changing the Way We Learn. The list, curated by Noodle Education, is comprised of teachers, administrators, policymakers, researchers and activists whose innovations reach learners across the globe and are transforming the way people think. Kendall Titchener, C2CAREERS V^W university grads & businesses meet Transform your student mindset into a professional one MIKE: "Every grad needs this training! I'm grateful for this bootcamp, which truly accelerated my transition from being a student to being a professional." Learn how to cold call, email, and network for success CAM: "C2C provided me with a launching pad for my career and gave me valuable skills to use in the workplace going forward. The work we did taught me how to develop professional relationships." Learn how to tell your story well ANTHONY: "One of the most important things I learned in C2C was how to communicate about myself effectively and send emails in a way that will get prospective employers to respond." APPLY FOR A WORKSHOP 6Pv BOOTCAMP AT C2CAREERS.CA Social responsibility fulfilled Let's work together to retain bright university grads in BC and get them to work more quickly and efficiently. SIGN \)Pab C2CAREERS.CA Brand recognition Our extensive research revealed most university grads are unaware of the many BC companies who hire them. We'll ensure your company gets known! Cost reduced in startup phase For a limited time, sponsoring C2C's programs for university grads costs $20 a month. You could make a significant difference to grads launching their careers and access a pipeline of highly educated Millennial talent. - \ BA'io, has a business venture, Pixelated Pinto, a web-based career resource for millennials. It's a resource for anyone looking to plug into the startup scene - either through a job, events, classes, or launching their first startup or tech business. Dan Werb, MSc'10, PhD'73, a globally recognized expert on the impact of drug policies on health, has been appointed director and scientific board chair of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy. He was also recently named a recipient of the Avenir Award, a prestigious US$1.5 million research grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse reserved for highly impactful and innovative research studies at the nexus of substance abuse and HIV/AIDS. His innovative project is dubbed PRIMER, "Preventing Injecting by Modifying Existing Responses." Over five years, PRIMER will test ways of preventing injection drug use by using programs like methadone maintenance therapy and supervised injection sites to reduce the likelihood that people who currently inject drugs expose and initiate others into this behaviour. In the summer of 2015, Zoe Shipley, BA'n, studied model community-based efforts to preserve Bornean species along the Kinabatangan River in Sabah (East Malaysia) on the island of Borneo. Shipley, a SUN AmeriCorps member and Community Involvement Specialist at Clear Creek Middle School in Tualatin, Oregon, took the graduate course in pursuit of her master's degree from Miami University's Global Field Program. Naomi Casiro, MPT'u, has founded NeuroFit BC, which offers specialized exercise classes for people living with Parkinson's, including boxing classes. Casiro was featured on Global News and CKNW radio talking about the benefits of exercise for people with Parkinson's, and why boxing is so effective at treating symptoms. Find out more at: www.neurofitbc.com Mix Hart, MA'n, has launched his debut young adult novel Queen of the Godforsaken with Thistledown Press: Lydia finds herself unable to relate to her peers at school or to her new surroundings in rural Saskatchewan. To top it all off, her parents are constantly fighting and abandoning Lydia and her younger sister, Victoria, for days on end. Soon the sisters have had enough, and they decide to set out alone into the brutal Saskatchewan winter. Christine Wilson, MLA'u, brings nearly 10 years of landscape planning and design experience to her new position with Copley Wolff. Her breadth of work includes a variety of project types ranging from residential, civic, and commercial landscapes to urban and open space plans. In her new role, Wilson oversees projects from the initial planning stages through design and construction. Before joining Copley Wolff, she was a project landscape designer with PLACEWORKS in Berkeley, Ca. In this role, she provided design expertise on a variety of projects (urban greening plans, streetscape and open space plans, park and trail designs) and organized community outreach events to facilitate project implementation. Ashton Louie, B/A'75, has a startup, GradsLikeMe, which is a jobs listing platform for students and recent grads. It was created to help reduce Canadian youth unemployment and Louie would like to grow it into the go-to resource for young job seekers who want to find jobs that meet their qualifications, build online portfolios to showcase their abilities, and connect with forward-thinking employers. • Emma Windsor-Liscombe, B/A'75, has established an independent publishing company in Vancouver, BC, called Rarebit Press. O TRUSTED CONTENT INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS Business in Vancouver is BC's most significant voice of local business news and information. We write, broadcast and post across seven platforms—print, digital, video, radio, podcasts, magazines and special events—as one of Canada's leading integrated media companies. For three decades we've successfully connected organizations like yours with the business audience and community. Get Connected | Call: 604-608-5158 or email: ads@biv.com BUSINESS VANCOUVER ► BIV.COM HOLGEROLOFVICTORSON NYGARD, BA'44 Dr. Holger Nygard, professor emeritus of English at Duke University, died at the age of 94 on May 20, 2015, at his home by the Eno River in Durham, NC. Born in Ostrobothnia of Finnish parents, Holger spent his youth between Finland and Canada. His parents put down roots in New Westminster, where Holger quickly excelled in academics, sports, and music. In his last years Holger spoke fondly of summers spent working at his father's peat farm on Lulu Island. Holger graduated from UBC in 1944 with First Class Honours. He met Margaret Rodger, BA'44, MA'49, his future wife, in a UBC English class. Married in 1944, both attended the University of California at Berkeley, where Holger attained his PhD in 1955. Assistant and associate professor at the University of Kansas and the University of Tennessee respectively, he became full professor at Duke in 1962, where he taught for 29 years. He was director of English Graduate Studies there for 14 years. Holger's book The Ballad of Heer Halewijn was published in 1958 in the US and Finland, and again in 1992 in Finland. Folklorist, linguist, authority on ballads, Medieval studies, Beowulf, and Chaucer, Holger was a scholar of international prominence. He was president of the North Carolina Folklore Society, Ballad Section chairman for the American Folklore Society, and held memberships in the American Dialect Society, the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Studies, and the Scottish Literary Society. Among numerous fellowships and awards that Holger received were the 1959 Chicago Folklore Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966-67, and in 1979 a Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh. Social and environmental concerns he shared with Margaret took them beyond academia to activism. In 1966 Holger, Margaret and a fledgling group founded the Eno River Association. They led the community in opposing the plan to dam the Eno River and proposed the creation of a regional state park. In the early years of this effort Holger and Margaret led the battle to rescue the river from development and bring the Eno River State Park into being. Holger and Margaret leave a legacy of conservation that, 50 years later, has resulted in five public parks and thousands of acres of protected lands along the Eno River. CM NORMAN COLEOPY, BASc'45 On Monday, March 30, 2015, Norman, aged 93 years, formerly of Vancouver, Calgary, Portland and Zurich, Switzerland, died peacefully at Noble's Hospital in Douglas on the Isle of Man, where he had lived since 1990. He was the husband of the late Dorothy, beloved father of Barbara and Heather, father-in-law of Fredi and John, dearest Opa of Alexander and Emily, and loved and respected companion of Jean Last. A funeral service was held at All Saints Church, Douglas, on Thursday, April 9, 2015. His career was built around the pulp and paper industry and technical translation, using his chemical engineering training. Throughout his life, he remained loyal to UBC. The charitable cause *W—-' closest to his heart was genetic and age-related hearing loss. Donations on his behalf may be made to the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. He will be missed by many. ¥ ^^ DAVE HOLMES, BASc'48 Dave Holmes was 88 years old at the time of his passing. He graduated at the top of his class in forest engineering in 1948, winning scholarships that enabled him to attend the Yale School of Forestry for a graduate degree thereafter. He returned to BC after his graduate studies and worked for the H.R. MacMillan Export Co., later MacMillan Bloedel, until the early 1960s. He became a forestry instructor at BCIT in 1964, rising to become chief instructor. He published several editions of a text on roads and transportation and taught many, many forestry technology students who graduated and worked in government and for the BC forest industry and beyond. He maintained contact with professional colleagues throughout his long career, both when working for private industry and when teaching. He retired from BCIT in 1989 and enjoyed a lengthy retirement, enjoying time with family, friends, neighbours and, of course, his beloved garden. He met Iris Murray, BHE'49, when they were both working in Duncan, BC, Dave as a forest engineer and Iris as a home economics teacher in high school. They married in 1952. They had three children: Kenneth, Robert, BA'78, UB'87, Yale LLM'84, QC, and Mary, BCom'84, MBA'89. Dave lost the love of his life when Iris passed away in 2008. He is survived by his sister, Constance Isherwood, QC, LLB'51, his three children, eight grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and many dear cousins, nephews, nieces, and friends. He led a very happy life, full of personal accomplishments and was proud of, and encouraging to, his family and friends in all that they chose to pursue. JOHN CLARENCE RUDOLPH, BASc'48 John Clarence Rudolph passed away peacefully on August 1, 2014. He is survived by his wife, Daphne (nee Stuart, BSc'49), five children, nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. He was born in Calgary on April 9,1924. He served in the Calgary Highlanders during WWII and marched in the victory parade in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He graduated with a degree in geological engineering in 1948 and started in the oil business with Stanolind, the Canadian subsidiary of Standard Oil in 1948. He was the president of Banff Oil and made the decision to drill the first well at the Rainbow field, a discovery that changed the economy of his home province of Alberta. He was a distinguished lecturer for the American Association of Canada for two terms. He raised funding for the first geology building at UBC and as a result had the honour of helping to lay the corner stone of the new building. He was also vice-president of the Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded, now the Canadian Association for Community Living, and a board member of the VRII in Calgary. He was a board member of the Canadian Horse Show Association and enjoyed volunteering with the Canadian Pony Club in Calgary. He raised cattle and horses on his ranch near Calgary. For personal family reasons he moved to Denver in 1969. He worked in petroleum exploration, a vocation he loved, and was still mapping possible well sites into his eighties. LEWIS HOWARD GREEN, BASc'49 Lewis Howard Green was one of the originals in the Geological Survey of Canada in the "Golden Age of Geology." Lewis was born in Vancouver in August 1925, and died peacefully in Vancouver on November 11,2014. His parents, Howard and Marion, both had fathers who settled in BC before the coming of the railway! Lewis attended Lord Byng and went on to McGill. The war intervened, and he spent a year and a few months with the Black Watch regiment. In 1947 Lewis decided to switch to geology at UBC and completed his studies in 1949. Along the way he met Kathleen Montgomery, BCom'49, with whom he spent 64 happy years. The Greens had five children: Janet, BSc'70, Barbara, John, Richard and Donna. The family moved to Whitehorse in the summer of 1962, when Lewis was appointed resident geologist for the Geological Survey of Canada. This opened a whole new world for us all. While in the north, Lewis became very interested in mining history, publishing three books from 1977 to 2001. He was particularly skilled in interviewing old-time miners, whom he admired greatly. Later the family moved to Vancouver, where they spent 44 years at Balsam and 51st. The family, including four grandchildren, and friends admired Lewis' quiet humour and integrity. He was an inspiration to us all! PHILIP (PHIL) ARTHUR JONES, BSc'49 March 1,1924 - January 8,2015 It is with great sadness that we announce Phil's unexpected passing at the Vernon Jubilee Hospital. Phil was predeceased by his parents, Stanley and Lucy (Smith) Jones; his much loved brother, Owen Douglas Jones; sister, Elizabeth (Betty) Pineault; and niece Diana (Lawrence) Isaac. He is fondly remembered by his sister-in-law, Jean (Stirrett) Jones, and many nieces and nephews. He will be missed by Owen's children: Glyn (Susan) Jones, Sylvia (Jonathan) Cutmore, Trevor Jones, and Donna Jones, and by Elizabeth's children: Sharlene (Philip) Cross, Barbra Willis, Brian Pineault and Kathryn (Gary) Medcalf. His interest in genealogy and family history will bond the remaining Smith/Jones in his memory. Phil was born in Prince George and moved to Smithers in 1937. He graduated from UBC in 1949 with a BSc, majoring in horticulture. At the University of Wisconsin he attained an MSc in entomology (1956) and a PhD in entomology with a minor in plant ecology (1963). Phil served in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve, Signals Branch, from 1944-45. His professional career started in 1964 as assistant professor of entomology at South Dakota State University. Moving back to Canada in 1974, Phil worked for Niagara Chemicals. In 1977 he moved to Ottawa to join Environment Canada as a senior scientist, transferring to the Vancouver office in 1992. He then retired to Vernon in November 1993. Phil had a passion for photography and all things outdoors, especially skiing. Support UBC with time and knowledge: Apply to become a Convocation Member of Senate Under the University Act, academic governance of The University of British Columbia is vested in two Senates, comprised of faculty, staff, alumni and student representatives that meet monthly throughout the academic year. As a Convocation Member of Senate, you can have a real and lasting impact on the operations and future direction of The University of British Columbia. All members of the convocation are eligible, except for current faculty members. During your three-year term, you may help to: • Set academic policies • Review and revise admission standards • Establish new departments and schools • And much more! Visit http://senate.ubc.ca for more. UBC THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA w Twelve positions on the Vancouver Senate and two positions on the Okanagan Senate are waiting. Become the next alumni voice, and change the future of your school. Don't wait - nominations are due January 31st 2017. Visit https://facultystaff.students.ubc.ca/triennial1617 for more about the nomination process, or connect for more information through elections.information@ubc.ca / 604-827-0003 He was a life member of the North Okanagan Naturalist Club, of which he was a founding member. In addition, Phil served on the executive of the BC Agrologists. Recent projects included important documentation of the history of the Bulkley Valley. Phil will be greatly missed by his wide network of friends and acquaintances. MICHAEL PROVENZANO, LLB'49 Following a long and healthy life well lived, Mike died in his hometown of Cranbrook, BC, at the age of 93. The third of Lucia and Francesco Provenzano's four children, he was predeceased by his wife, Charlotte; brothers Angelo, BASc'40, and Giuseppe, and sister Julia. He is survived by his sons, Michael, BASc'78, LLB'81, and Philip, BA'84, daughter-in-law Christie, and grandchildren David, Katarina, Sophia and Maya. Raised in Cranbrook, Mike enrolled at the University of Alberta but joined the Canadian Air Force after one year, serving as a flight instructor during WWII. Following the war, he attended UBC law school and married his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Wilks. He graduated in 1949 and returned to Cranbrook to practice law and raise his family. Mike was appointed a judge of the County Court in 1963, became a justice of the Supreme Court of BC when the courts merged in 1990, and retired in 1992. He was quietly pleased that few of his judgements were overturned. Mike loved life, including golf, skiing, summers at his Monroe Lake cabin and especially desserts. He enjoyed skiing and golf until his 80s, but enjoyed desserts into his 90s. He also loved being a part of Cranbrookfamily dinners hosted by his nieces, Marian, Joan and Jerri-Pat and grand-niece Lisa. He lived independently and drove a car until he was 92. His was a long and full life. CALVIN OLIVERBARDAL,SSF51 Cal passed away on April 29, 2015. He was born in Winnipeg on September 16,1923. Cal proudly served as an officer in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in WWII. Graduating from UBC as a forester in 1951, his career was spent in BC's forest industry. His work culminated with a 15-year term teaching forestry and mathematics at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George. He retired to Kelowna and eventually to Victoria. Cal is survived by his wife, Shirley Margaret; children Harry (Joan Watterson) and Beverly (Gerald Vanderwoude); two grandchildren, Harry and Nina Vanderwoude; niece April Brown; and nephew Paul Bardal. MORLEY KOFFMAN, BA'5i, LLB'52 Morley was born in Vancouver on March 11,1930, at Vancouver General Hospital, where he died on June 28, 2015. He went to Lord Tennyson Elementary and Kitsilano High, where he skipped two grades. Morley received his BAfrom UBC after three years and graduated from UBC law school in 1952, where he was the youngest in his graduating class. After law school Morley joined a firm with leading practitioners Harold and David Freeman. When he was 25, Morley became a name partner at the new firm Freeman, Freeman, Silvers and Koffman, and immediately took on the responsibility of managing the firm. Thus began Morley's decades of law firm management, which he handled in addition to his incredibly heavy practice load. Under Morley's leadership, Freeman and Company (as the firm eventually became known) grew to be an elite business firm. Morley was awarded the prestigious title of QC in 1986. Morley's current firm, Koffman Kalef LLP, was created in 1993 by a number of the partners of Freeman and Company. Morley loved practicing law, and worked - even from his hospital bed at many times over the past few years - up until just a few weeks before he died. For over 60 years, he advised prominent clients locally and internationally, including some of the most important entrepreneurs in the history of the City of Vancouver and the Province of BC. He was consistently referred to as a lawyer's lawyer. He was notorious for his prodigious work ethic, arriving to the office most mornings before 6:30 am. He also served as a director of numerous domestic and foreign corporations. He is lovingly remembered by his wife and best friend of 57 years, Myrna Koffman, his children, Lori, Ted and Robert, his sister, Thelma, his children-in-law and eight granddaughters. GEORGE C. SHAW, BASc'5i George Charles Shaw, born April 20,1926, in Winnipeg, died June 18,2014, of complications from kidney stones, at his home in Halifax. His two daughters, Andrea and Cathy, son Matthew, and family, friends, and funny, kind caregivers were at his side. He was predeceased by his wife, Christina, in 1997. George put himself through UBC with odd jobs, including some modelling in newspaper adds, for which he was teased mercilessly. His post-war career at Alcan in Montreal, Halifax and Toronto was followed by an MBA at the CEI in Geneva, joining Alcan colleagues who, with their wives, became life-long friends. His career was spent mainly in engineering and management consulting, undertaking Canadian and international projects. George performed many volunteer and community leadership roles, chairing the Halifax Assistance Fund to inaugurate pre-school breakfast programs, and helping engineers escaping the Czech uprising to find work in Canada. Blessed with a rare blood type, he was called to donate at odd hours, always returning with the story of the person his blood would help. He is missed by his four grandchildren, Christina, Julia, Phoebe and Wyatt, nephew Bill Cooper of Vancouver, niece Dorothy MacCulloch of Bedford, NS, and nephew John Burkart of California. In 2002, George was revived from a sudden cardiac arrest. This, and subsequent surgery, inspired him to fight the frailty of old age on cardio machines and mini-trampolines. At the Dalhousie Dalplex, he was cheered on by the swim teams and daycare crowds alike. "Go, George, go!" chanted the toddlers. He ate 10 servings of vegetables and fruits, including a bowl of Nova Scotian blueberries, every day. George took up painting at 80 and worked joyfully until the end to create and promote his watercolours, which are now in collections across Canada. LESLIE ARMOUR, BA'52 Leslie Armour, serious, scholarly and controversial editor of The Ubyssey, and journalist in Vancouver (The Province) and London, UK, (Reuters and Express News and Features), passed away, aged 83, in Ottawa, on November 1, 2014. Leslie obtained his PhD from the University of London in 1956 under professors C.E.M. Joad and Ruth Saw, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He taught at universities in Canada and the United States, and, at age 65, was named professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, becoming research professor of philosophy at Ottawa's Dominican College. He was a lively and witty lecturer and conversationalist. A dedicated writer and teacher, he based many of his published works (including nine monographs - three with co-authors, including Elizabeth Trott) on the introductory course notes that he provided to students. These notes meant class times could be used for discussion and understanding. His publications were in three main areas: metaphysics, the theory of knowledge, and the philosophy of religion; moral, social and political philosophy; and Canadian philosophy. Although economics was outside his main field, he was appointed editor of the British International Journal of Social Economics (USE) in 2004 and was often in demand as a speaker at international conferences. He reviewed books for the Library Journal, and wrote several hundred papers, reviews, encyclopedia entries, and book chapters. He served on the boards of numerous scholarly associations and journals. A prolific reader, the more than 10,000 books in his library, classical music, and baseball were his life-long passions. Leslie is survived by his wife, Diana; his children, Carol Aronson, Adriane and Julian Armour; seven grandchildren; and his sister, Elspeth Richmond. LLOYD AXENTY, BA'53 Lloyd was born in Lethbridge, AB, on February 19,1930, and died at the Central Okanagan Hospice House on October 11, 2014. He is survived by his loving family: his wife of 60 years, Beryl; daughter Dyan (Steven); sons Darryl (Denise) and Jeffrey (Tina-Marie); grandchildren Amber (Devon) and Austin; sister Millie McLachlan; niece Gayle; and nephews Gary, Ron, Ken and Dave. He was pre-deceased by his oldest son, Gerry. Lloyd worked in the Alberta oil patch for 30-plus years. He was a member of both The Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists and Society of Economic Geologists. He was recruited at UBC in May 1953 by Western Geophysical and spent a couple years in various prairie towns in the field office. In 1956, after the birth of his son, the family moved to Calgary, where he worked and lived until retirement in 1987. Travelling to Europe, Canada and the US before and after he retired was a favourite pastime. Ice skating in Bowness with his family and pick-up hockey games with his sons and friends filled cold winter weekends. After a few years in Langley, the final move to Kelowna in 2001 was to be near to family and grandchildren. His ashes will be buried in Alberta - he loved the big sky and the bright sunny days there. HUGH ALEXANDER DAUBENY, BSc'53, MSc'55 Hugh Alexander Daubeny was born in Nanaimo on December 6,1931, and passed away in Vancouver on January 2, 2015. He will be missed by his wife, Marian; children, Peter, Jennifer (Dave) and Carolyn (Tad); grandchildren, Alex and Eric; and cat, Luna. He is also survived by his berries, most notably the Totem Strawberry and the Tulameen Raspberry, which has become the standard for quality in raspberry production throughout the world. He spent his early life in Victoria, graduated from UBC and earned his PhD from Cornell University. His career in the Research Branch of Agriculture Canada spanned nearly 40 years, first in Agassiz and later in Vancouver and Abbotsford, With our state-of-the-art design, spectacular rooms, and choice of award-winning caterers, we offer flexible options for all types of meetings. Enter to win free meeting space at alumnicentre.ubc. TO Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre alumnicentre.ubc.ca | 604 8221922 | 6163 University Blvd, Vancouver, BC where he developed improved strawberry and raspberry cultivars that have had international success. Hugh was a fellow of the American Society of Horticultural Science, from which he received the Fruit Breeding Award for Genetic Improvement, and a past president of the American Pomological Society, from which he received the Wilder Silver Medal for fruit breeding accomplishments. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from McGill University. His Tulameen Raspberry variety was recognized by the Royal Horticultural Society with an Award of Merit and his Totem Strawberry received the Outstanding Cultivar Award from the Canadian Society for Horticultural Science. Throughout his career he sought to improve the genetic base of the cultivated strawberry and raspberry by utilizing indigenous species of the respective crops. Hugh was a Friend of the Garden [FOG] at the UBC Botanical Garden. He regularly published articles in the magazine Seeds of Diversity and the newsletter of the Native Plant Society of BC. Hugh enjoyed running (including several marathons) and hiking (Himalayan treks) in his younger years, in addition to gardening, books, movies and the theatre throughout his life. KARL LEMBIT ERDMAN, PhD'53 May 27,7926 - August 77,2074 Karl was born to Estonian parents on a farm in Barons, AB. After public school he attended the University of Alberta and continued his graduate education at UBC, earning his PhD. In 1955 he obtained a Rutherford scholarship to the University of Cambridge, UK, and returned to UBC in 1958, becoming a professor of physics. He taught undergraduate courses for many years, simultaneously conducting active research programs in nuclear, particle and applied physics. In the 1970s and 1980s he worked part-time in Switzerland, at ETH in Zurich and at CERN, near Geneva. Karl was a pioneer in the construction and development of TRIUMF (Canada's National Meson Sciences Research Facility) in Vancouver and in 1976 he began a five-year term as associate director. He retired from UBC in 1991 and subsequently became involved with ACS! (formerly EBCO), designing and supervising the construction of small cyclotrons for industry and hospitals, continuing to do this until past his 80th birthday. He also found time to participate as an elected member of the Vancouver Board of School Trustees, served on the Vancouver Metropolitan Board of Health, was on the Board of Governors of Vancouver Community College and was a member of the BC Department of Education. Karl never liked to be the centre of attention and he'd be the last to tell you of his many accomplishments. He would tell you that his two greatest loves were family and Jesus Christ. When Dorothy, his wife of 60 years, died in 2011, he bravely carried on, but the spark went out of his life. During his final months he reflected on dying and said his life had been wonderful, man's time on earth is limited and he was ready to meet his Saviour. He was much loved and will be sorely missed. RUTHMANSON,SA'55 Ruth Manson (nee Greenblatt), BA'55, died in Toronto on October 11, 2015, after a long and courageous struggle with MS. ESZTERSZALKAI, SSF59 Eszter passed away peacefully on June 11, 2015. Eszter is survived by her husband of 52 years, Andrew, her sons, Stephen (Marta) and Dennis (Shannon), and her four grandchildren, Daniella, Gabriella, Joshua and Olivia. Eszter Somogyi was born in Turkeve, Hungary. She was raised on a farm, where she developed her love for all God's creatures. Her tender heart and care towards all animals would continue throughout her life. Eszter's studies at Sopron University were cut short when she and thousands of her countrymen left Hungary during the 1956 Revolution. Eszter came to Canada in 1957, completing her Bachelor of Science in Forestry at UBC in 1959. Eszter proudly became a Canadian citizen in 1962. She married her loving husband, Andy, in 1963, first settling in Williams Lake, then shortly afterwards moving to Quesnel. Eszter spent 30 happy years there raising her sons. She was very proud to be a great spouse and mother. In 1995 Andy retired, and they moved to Richmond. During this period Eszter was able to travel extensively throughout Canada, USA and overseas, creating lasting, happy memories for herself and Andy. Eszter's family will never forget her faith, sacrifice, work ethic, generosity, humility and fighting spirit. She was a 25-year cancer survivor. Eszter felt blessed and was truly grateful for all the love and support she received from her friends and family in Canada and Hungary. We will miss her dearly. Special thanks to Dr. John Havens, Dr. Crowley, and the staff of Fraserview Intermediate Care Lodge in Richmond. In lieu of flowers please donate to the Alzheimer Society of Canada. DARYL DUBPERNELL DICKMAN, SIS'67 Dee (Daryl Dubpernell) was born on February 18,1943, in Watertown, CT, and passed away on July 7, 2011. Dee married Mike Dickman, PhD'68, in 1962, and in 1965 they moved to Canada to attend UBC. They lived on campus in a plywood row house on Mustang Avenue, originally constructed for soldiers returning to Canada after WWII. Dee was used to roughing it and was always the optimist. She graduated at the top of her class in library science and was offered a job as a librarian at UBC's Sedgewick Library. This started Dee on a long and rewarding journey of helping students - something she did for 47 years as a university librarian at UBC, Carleton University and Brock University. In St. Catharines, ON, Dee was an active member of PENS and LACAC, which involved her in local planning and heritage issues respectively. In August 2009, Dee began chemotherapy treatment with Prochlorperazine and Dexamethasone. On July 7, 2011, Dee died of lung cancer. On July 13, Pond Inlet at Brock University was filled with her friends and colleagues, who came to remember her. Her enlarged picture was hung on the wall with the following words: For nearly 35 years, Dee Dickman provided research support to Brock faculty and students in a variety of areas including History, Canadian Studies, Classics, Education and Applied Language Studies. Always keen to learn and mentor, she thoroughly enjoyed working with students. She will be fondly remembered by her colleagues for her enthusiasm, positive disposition and desire to help others. Dee is survived by her two sons, Sven and Tim, and grandchildren Angele and Esteban. DOUGLAS SEYMOUR, BASc'73 Born in 1949, Doug passed away May 13, 2015, at the age of 65. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Eileen, daughter Amanda, son Chris, and granddaughter Zadie. After graduating from UBC, Doug was an early employee of the engineering firm MacDonald Dettwiler (MDA), and served as VP at MDI (which was acquired by Motorola in 1988). He won a Meritorious Achievement Award from the Association of Professional Engineers in 1990 for his contributions to BC Engineering. He will be missed. ANNE EDITH SCOTT, SSR'74 Anne was born on April 17,1952, in Glasgow, Scotland. She died on January 24, 2014, on Galiano Island. She arrived in Montreal as a wee lassie, aged eight, with parents Joe and Edie Scott, and later moved to North Vancouver. She earned her BPT/OT in '74 at the top of her class - a fact she was justifiably proud of. In '74, both medical and physio students studied together. She relished this collaborative academia - it motivated her to work intermittently as a UBC clinical educator and teacher of adult health science certificate classes at community colleges. She also worked as a therapist with BC Children's Hospital, where she was a fiery force whom children and parents adored and nurses and doctors respected for her relentless inquisitions, debates, and provision of expert PT knowledge, skills, and abilities. Anne loved sports and travelling, often combining both during extended periods abroad, in particular Australia, where six months turned into six years as a supervisor in pediatric neurology. On return to Vancouver, she blazed a trail in adult neurology at George Pearson and GF Strong Rehab. She presented papers on aqua therapy benefits at the Pacific Coast Brain Injury Conferences. As an active member for years on the College Board of Directors of Physical Therapists of BC, she made invaluable contributions to her profession in the areas of regulatory, disciplinary, and quality of practice. She challenged best practices at both the frontline therapist level and at the board level, moving both into new dynamic directions. After retirement she set up a private practice on Galiano Island, where she thrived on being "her own boss without any corporate BS!" Anne was known for her refreshing, candid character, practical approach, deadpan, witty sense of humour (where listeners occasionally had to adjust their antennas) and for consistently and fearlessly advocating on behalf of her clients and friends. Anne is survived by her husband, Inspector Keith Hutchinson, BEd'70, MA'73, and family. * I CATHERINE CHARD WISNICKI Our beloved Catherine passed away serenely on October 21, 2014. Born in Winnipeg in 1917 she was raised in Montreal, attending McGill University, where she became the first woman to graduate from McGill's School of Architecture. In 1945 she married Paul Wisnicki, a former aeronautical structural engineer in the Polish Air Force. In 1946 they moved to Vancouver, where she became the second female member of the Architectural Institute of BC and worked as senior designer with the prestigious firm of Sharp, Thomson, Berwick, Pratt. Somehow she also found time to start a family, with the twins Nina and Michael arriving in 1946, followed by Julia in 1949. In 1963 she began a career as a lecturer and assistant professor at UBC's School of Architecture. In 1996 McGill University conferred an honorary Doctor of Science degree upon her. On her retirement, Catherine and Paul moved to Naramata, BC, where they designed and built an innovative passive solar house. Paul jokingly called Naramata his "white elephant," while for Catherine it was "a land for the eye," hence the name Elephant Island. Catherine was predeceased by her husband, Paul, and her great-grandson, Rex. She will be sadly missed by her children, Nina, Michael (Bev) and Julia Griffith (Rhys); grandchildren, Morgan Griffith and Miranda Halladay (Del); and great grandchildren, Finn, Mya and Grady. Donations in Catherine's name can be made to Because I am a Girl at www.becauseiamagirl.ca. O UBC alumni can save 20% on room bookings TO Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre alumnicentre.ubc.ca | 604 8221922 | 6163 University Blvd, Vancouver, BC What is your most prized possession? A pair of really good left-handed scissors from my granny! Describe the place you most like to spend time. The beach. What was the last thing you read? The Glass Castle What or who makes you laugh out loud? Pretty much anyone or anything... after a few glasses of wine. What's the most important lesson you ever learned? What other people think of me does not matter. What's your idea of the perfect day? Spending it with my family, outside somewhere, AND I don't have to make a single meal that I need to convince my kids to eat. What was your nickname at school? Gordo or Flash. If a genie granted you one wish, what would it be? To be able to heal major illnesses in the world. What item have you owned for the longest time? My flip flops. Is that gross? What is your latest purchase? A pihata. No, not for me - for my son's birthday. I would have filled it with potato chips and mini bottles of wine if it was for me. Whom do you most admire (living or dead) and why? Mothers who can enjoy amidst chaos. Needless to say, that is not me. What would you like your epitaph to say? Kristi enjoyed life. She loved and appreciated the people around her. Generous, caring and helpful. If you could invent something, what would it be? A cure for cancer. In which era would you most like to have lived, and why? I would like to have been born just one generation before me, when buying a house was possible! What are you afraid of? Spiders. Name the skill or talent you would most like to have. I would like to be able to sing. I'd settle for being able to sing Happy Birthday in key. Which famous person (living or dead) do you think (or have you been told) you most resemble? Jennifer Aniston, but other than our oversized noses, I don't really see a resemblance. What is your pet peeve? Slow drivers. THE LAST WORD WITH KRISTI GORDON, BSc'02 Kristi Gordon is a senior meteorologist on Global News. She was born and raised in White Rock and Crescent Beach and earned a science degree from UBC in physical geography and atmospheric science. She first became interested in weather patterns during her years as a sailing instructor in high school, but it was thanks to the meteorology courses of professors like Roland Stull (atmospheric science) and Ian McKendry (geography) that she decided to make forecasting the weather the basis of her career. After university, Gordon spent several years working across Canada as both an operational and on-air meteorologist. She started initially in Vancouver but lived in both Toronto and Edmonton, where she worked for almost every other network in the country before joining Global News. Gordon says the hardest thing about her job is tryingto communicate the details of a forecast for the entire province in just two minutes, but she loves the rush of being on live television, especially during major weather events. When you're in the business of predicting the weather, it may be an occupational hazard to get blamed from time to time for washed-out w ' '' abandoned games of golf, but Gordon once attract criticism for something entirely unconnected with the weather. When pregnant with her second child she received complaints from some viewers over h baby bump and choice of clothing. She decided to fend them off by going public with some of the nastier mail on air, receiving a lot of empathy and support in response. "I won't stop wearing fitted clothing from time to time," she wrote, defiantly, on a Global News blog. "I would prefer to encourage change and acceptance ratherthangiveintothebellyachers." Gordon and her husband, Paul Klawer, have two sons: five-year-old Jordan and Braden, one. She likes sunny winter days when there's a lot of snow on the mountains. D "The littlest thing tripped me up in more ways than one." Whatever life brings your way, small or big, take advantage of a range of insurance options at preferential group rates. Getting coverage for life-changing events may seem like a given to some of us. But small things can mean big changes too. Like an unexpected interruption to your income. Alumni insurance plans can have you covered at every stage of life, every step of the way. You'll enjoy affordable rates on Term Life Insurance, Major Accident Protection, Income Protection Disability, Health & Dental Insurance and others. The protection you need. The competitive rates you want. Get a quote today. Call 1-888-913-6333 or visit us at manulife.com/ubc. alumniuBC When you choose Alumni Insurance, Manulife provides financial and marketing support for alumni UBC communications, programs and services. CD Manulife Underwritten by The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. Manulife and the Block Design are trademarks of The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company and are used by it, and by its affiliates under licence. © 2016 The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company (Manulife). All rights reserved. Manulife, PO Box 4213, Stn A, Toronto, ON M5W 5M3. J§p^5 Be first. New BMO alumni UBC MasterCard! Ill EHI5 3HSL 7BTD » DQ/OD ■ J R ROY Get $20 cash back plus 2% cash back for the first six months1! Offer extended -January 2, 2017. Act now before its gone! Apply now at BMO.com/alumniUBC BMO fifi We're here to help.™
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