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chronicle The University of British Columbia Alumni Magazine Volume 54 • Number 2 • Summer 2000 r- 0'?Min tf'fi/. r. '.V- j _i 4 ' M. ■-.y* -in" ■#•• ■c* r... -'fl . ' 1 <tl 1 _v t J * * *. 'Vfl tt **• •ft* ' • *J S'f.T 'f'f % \ i %•» "■As < Vi. : . -) J * ',-' ■■&.■> - #?'*?,,5*P* Here's your new Library Card! UBC library cards formally cost $100 per year fi$r alumni. Yours is included at no extra charge when you purchase an alumni A*** Your fi*** also gives you great discounts on UBC services (Internet connection, Fitness, MOA, etc.) and savings from businesses you use every day! Call for more information. For more information call 822-3313, 1-800-883-3088 or e-mail alumninfo@alumni.ubc.ca Got. your IllcEli ICS You've got your marks. Now, as a graduate, you could earn a $1,000 rebate from the purchase or lease of a new Ford or Lincoln product! Or get a $500 rebate on any Ford Quality Certified pre-owned vehicle. For qualification details visit our website at www.ford.ca/grad or call 1-800-561-FORD, or drop by your local dealer. m Editor Chris Petty, MFA'86 Assistant Editor Shari Ackerman Advertising Gord Smart/The Keegan Group Board of Directors President Linda Thorstad, BSc'77, MSc'84 Senior VP Gregory Clark, BCom'86, LLB'89 Past President Haig Farris, BA'60, LLD'97 Treasurer Thomas Hasker, BA'86 Members at Large '99-'01 Edward John, LLB'79 Peter Ladner, BA'70 Don Wells, BA'89 Members at Large '00-'02 John Grunau, BA'67 Jane Hungerford, BEd'67 Darlene Marzari, MSW'68 Executive Director Agnes Papke, BSc(Agr)'66 Editorial Committee Don Wells, BA'89, Chair Ron Burke, BA'82 Sue Watts, MF'75, PhD'81 The UBC Alumni Chronicle is published three times a year by the UBC Alumni Association and distributed free of charge to 130,000 alumni. Opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of the Alumni Association or the university. Letters to the editor are welcome. Address correspondence to: Chris Petty UBC Alumni Association, 6251 Cecil Green Park Road, Vancouver. BC, Canada, V6T 1Z1 or send e-mail to cpetiy® alumni.ubc.ca. Letters will be published at the editor's discretion and may be edited for space. For advertising rates and information, contact Gord Smart at 604-733-6896. chronicle The University of British Columbia Alumni Association • Summer, 2000 12 14 18 22 34 Features A Conversation with the Dean John Cairns, MD'68, talks about the state of the Faculty of Medicine Against All Odds: UBC's Faculty of Medicine After 50 Years An excerpt from a new book by Wendy Cairns, BA'65 Medical Model A focus on medical research at UBC by Hilary Thomson Boat Full of Inspiration Rehab, professor Susan Harris and her battle with cancer by Shari Ackerman Campus Profile: VP Students Brian Sullivan A look at UBC's new focus on the student experience Contact Numbers at UBC 19 Chronicle Editor 822-8914 822-3313 m Alumni Association toll free 80 0-883-3088 822-4636 H 4 24 30 UBC Info Line Alma Mater Society 822-9098 822-2665 v^v Research News Alumni News Class Acts Bookstore Campus Tours 822-8687 m A selection of news bits from UBC Branch, Young Alumni, What ever happened to that guy who Continuing Studies Development Office 822-1444 822-8900 B Reports covering everything from Division news, along with used to eat those Llmburger Library 822-6375 ■■ a Downtown Eastside clinic to Election 2000 results and sandwiches during English 101 lectures? Registrar Belkin Gallerv 822-3014 822-2759 D DNA sequencing. upcoming events. Maybe a Sub chef?? Find out here. Chan Centre 822-2697 822-2678 _822-5087 __Wm\__\ Freddy Wood Theatre Museum of Anthropology Printed in Canada by Mitchell Press ISSN 0824-1279 Canadian Publications Mail Product Sales Agreement No. 1463357 Visit our website: www.alumni.ubc.ca chroniclenews Clinic Has 'Positive Impact' on the Downtown Eastside Addictions, poverty, mental illness and HIV/AIDS are among the problems that the Downtown South Community Health Centre deals with on a regular basis. The centre serves 3,000 clients a year. "The problems and way of life aren't as entrenched here as they are on the Downtown Eastside," says Rob Kolen, who manages the free clinic located at the south end of Vancouver's Seymour Street. "These people have huge medical needs," says Dr. Fraser Norrie, a clinical instructor in UBC's Family Practice Dept. who works part-time at the clinic. Norrie is one of five family practice physicians working at the centre along with nurse clinicians, community counsellors, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses and alcohol and drug counsellors. Two doctors, two nurses and two community counsellors do shift work. The centre is a training site for family practice residents who complete a one- month rotation in their first year. Undergraduate medical students from UBC who are interested in treating underserved populations also train at the centre. Many of the clients are intravenous drug users and the centre's needle exchange program distributes about 12,000 needles per month. There are about 2.5 Third year McMaster University student Jeremy Penner at the Downtown South Community Health Centre. million needles exchanged annually in all of Vancouver's exchange programs. The exchange program can serve as a gateway to treatment, says Kolen. "Most of our clients have multi-drug addictions which are very difficult to treat," he says. "Our clients have a better chance of recovery here than in a tradi- UBC Establishes Canadian Literary Award UBC's Dept. of Theatre, Film and Creative Writing has established a Creative Writing Residency Prize in Stageplay. It is worth $25,000, and is the most generous of its kind in Canada. "Not only will it increase the profile of playwriting as an art form in Canada ... it will bring playwrights of national and international stature to UBC and the Lower Mainland," says Assoc. Prof. Bryan Wade, director of the prize. The award includes a one-month residency at the university. The winning play- 4 Chronicle wright will mentor Creative Writing students, work with Theatre students and faculty on the development of the play for performance, and deliver the Stageplay Residency Lecture. The winning play will be published by PRISM international, Creative Writing's literary magazine, and a public performance will be presented. "The prize will build on connections developed in our department between writing, publication and performance," says Wade. • tional medical setting, however. We can literally walk them over to see someone who can help. They don't get bounced around the system." The 360-square-metre clinic holds examining rooms, lab space and group meeting rooms. Not only does it offer medical and counselling attention six days a week, there is a youth program each weekday evening, a project focusing on the health issues of gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals, and a drop-in program three nights a week for young male street workers. "There's an ambience here that is healing," says Family Practice Asst. Prof. Stefan Grzybowski. "People who come here often have trouble with behaviour and boundaries but they act appropriately here — that's something special." The Centre is supported by St. Paul's Hospital, the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board, the Ministry of Health and other municipal and provincial agencies. • Biophysicist Comes Home to DNA After almost a decade south of the border, biophysicist Andre Marziali is glad to be back on his old stomping grounds. The 33-year-old assistant professor in UBC's Physics and Astronomy Dept. returned to his alma mater last fall from Stanford University, where he led a team of engineers and physicists in the development of an integrated modular system for DNA sequencing. For Marziali BAScfEng Phys)'89, the move of his young family back to the Lower Mainland was an easy decision. "My wife and I are both from Vancouver and we really wanted to get back here," says Marziali. "Plus, there was a great career opportunity at UBC to teach and pursue my own research." With 25 per cent of the province's university professors expected to retire within the next four years, the fact that Marziali has bucked the perceived trend of young university teachers and researchers fleeing to the United States is good news. "The combination of the retirement bulge over the next decade with the brain drain to the US and Eastern Canada from this province—caused primarily by the erosion of salaries in BC universities—will make the problem of recruitment and retention of outstanding scholars the major challenge for UBC," says Derek Atkins, associate vice-president, Academic Planning. "It is heartening then that despite this, the quality of UBC faculty and research is enabling us to attract quality people such as Marziali." Marziali's modular system for large- scale DNA sequencing allows researchers to dramatically speed up the laborious task of identifying numerous samples of DNA strands. Using devices that automatically perform many of the steps needed, Marziali is able to analyze up to 10,000 samples a day. He is also working on adding another Physics Asst. Prof. Andre Marziali's research is being used to speed up the analysis of DNA sequences. component to the system, the hermocycler, to be used in research at the BC Cancer Agency's Genome Sequence Centre headed by UBC Nobel laureate Michael Smith. It costs up to 50 cents to sequence each DNA base. Marziali would like to see that reduced to a penny, which would lower the cost of genome research. Therefore, more work can be done to further explore and understand human gene function. "Michael Smith was instrumental in getting me back up here," he says. "Besides the fact that I love to teach, a large reason why I'm here is to support the work of the BC Cancer Agency's Genome Sequence Centre." Marziali is awaiting word on a $1.2 million grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute to help support his research. • $15 Million in New Research Funds Nine UBC projects have received more than $15 million in capi tal funding thanks to a combination of federal monies, matching provincial funds and support from a donation made by Stewart Blusson BSc'60. "This support facilitates both basic lesearch and the development of new technologies," says David Dolphin, lormer acting vice-president, Research. UBC projects recently received more than $6 million in funding from the BC Knowledge Development Fund (BCKDF) to match support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). The remaining 20 per cent of funding is from the Blusson gift, hospital foundations and corporate sources. A large portion of Blusson's 1998 gift of $50 million was specifically allocated to attract CFI funding. Biochemistry Prof. Grant Mauk is the principal applicant in a project valued at almost $8.75 million. It will be used to buy equipment for eight technology hubs on campus. CFI contributed to the cost of equipment for five hubs. The provincial government matched those funds and also contributed to the cost of the other three facilities. The Core Centre for Growth and Development at the Children's & Women's Health Centre of British Columbia received funding as well as projects for the protection of fish habitat, industrial mineral innovation and forestry and agriculture sustainability, and funded health sciences projects. UBC's Biomedical Research Centre received funding to upgrade equipment that will be used to explore new treatments for cancer, asthma and auto-immune disorders. UBC research attracts more than $140 million in research funding annually and 77 companies have started in BC as a result of UBC research. • Chronicle chronicle news Students Play Dual Roles to Train Themselves Rave reviews are greeting students in a new directed studies course in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Twelve fourth-year students form a cast of costumed characters that appear regularly in the Pharmacy Professional Practice 300 lab. Making their entrances on crutches and wheelchairs, the students regale would-be pharmacists with fictional symptoms and drug-related problems. The students are performing the role of standardized patient, a method of developing and testing students' ability to counsel patients. Standardized patients are usually played by paid actors, but the faculty recruited students for the roles to help introduce peer teaching. This innovative method is found in few faculties of pharmaceutical sciences in North America. Learning more about how to manage disease states was what motivated fourth-year student Amita Kumar to get involved. "Developing the case studies required a lot of research and integrating that information with my own knowledge from previous courses to create a fictitious patient was a challenge," she says, "The most important aspect of the project was that I was able to experience what it is like to be a patient rather than the pharmacist." Students were required to act and UBC Athlete Celebrates 100 Years The oldest living former UBC varsity athlete turned 100 this year. Jessie (Buckerfield) McDougall celebrated on March 12, with her family and friends at West Vancouver's Hollyburn House. Jessie was very athletically inclined. She was captain of the King Edward high field hockey team in high school, a pursuit she admittedly preferred to the books. In 1919 she enrolled in first year Arts at UBC, where she played for the 1919/20 Blue & Gold field hockey team, coached by Mrs. P.A. Boving. It was a high-profile sport on campus as UBC won four and lost one that year. Jessie's last game was played on March 20, 1920, a 1-0 victory over Victoria. She was also a member of the UBC Women's Athletic Executive. Jessie then moved to the Provincial Normal School in Vancouver where she received her teachers training degree in 1923. In 1924, Jessie married Mickey McDougall, BA'21. Mickey later became the "legendary" principal of North Vancouver high school, and the McDougall scholarship and Mickey 6 Chronicle McDougall Gym were established in his honour. Jessie coached the North Van high school women's field hockey team to the 1926 provincial championship. "I didn't like the books as much as hockey ... I would rather have been playing hockey," reminisces Jessie of more than 80 years ago. "I have such good memories of those days." —Fred Hume, UBC Historian create the entire patient case, including a detailed description of the disease state, symptoms, personality, family history and social activities. They also evaluate their performance and the effectiveness of the peer teaching approach. Each student played one of 12 characters for two hours a week for 12 weeks—all organized by lab co-ordinator Hilary Watson. "The program offers dual learning," says Watson, a lecturer in the division of Pharmacy Practice. "It cements the knowledge of the directed studies students while teaching new skills to the students in the lab." • Canada's Best This year's honorary degree recipients are movers and shakers from a variety of professions. They include former prime minister Kim CampbeU, BA'69, LLB'83 acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan and Nobel Prize-winner Robert Mtmdell M'53. Other recipients are Alice Baumgart BSN'58, leader in nursing and health care; Prof. Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy Myer Bloom; Henry Friesen BEd'6l, head of the Medical Research Council of Canada; neurological researchers Edith and Patrick McGeer BA'48, MD'58; Walter Hardwick BA'54, MA'58, Prof. Emeritus and former deputy minister of Education; international educational leader Robert Ho; former UBC dean of Medicine William Webber MD'58; pioneering geologist John Wheeler BASc'47; Maureen Mitchell Donald, the first deaf person hired as a teacher of the deaf in Canada; and conservationecologist Evelyn Chrystalla Melou. Degrees were awarded during Congregation May 24-31. Message from the President UBC Faculty of Medicine: 50 Years of Innovation UBC in 1950 was vastly different from ' the place we're familiar with today. Populated with a few sturdy buildings such as Main Library and the Science building, a dozen or more 'temporary' structures from the '30s and a raft of old army huts, it strained under the weight of thousands of returning army vets and a whole new generation of eager learners. This was the campus that UBC's first medical students saw. The struggle to establish a medical school at UBC began with UBC's first president, Frank Wesbrook. But it wasn't until mid century that the combined political, academic and diplomatic skills of Claude Dolman and G.E Strong could create the UBC faculty of Medicine. They searched out and hired a fresh team of enthusiastic young men and women from around North America and, with limited space and equipment, began accepting students in the fall of 1950. Since then, UBC has grown into one of the best universities on the continent, and our faculty of Medicine has grown along with it. Our strengths in health research are well known, our clinical expertise draws both patients and practitioners from around the world, and our success as teachers is proved by the fact that our graduates (from physicians and nurses, to rehabilitation experts in every field) are in high demand world-wide. Articles in this issue of The Chronicle give you a sense of the history and research capabilities of the faculty, and of the men and women who make it all happen. The 20th century brought incredible advances to humanity in virtually every area of endeavour, and health is no exception. We need only compare the typical lifespan of a person born in 1900 to that of a person born today; or compare infant mortality rates between 1900 and 2000. At the turn of the last century, we barely understood the role of bacteria in general health, and were just beginning to delve into the mysteries of viruses. Today we're entering a new frontier of genetics-based health care. It has already revolutionized the way we look at disease and will, over the next hundred years, change completely the way we manage good health. Our faculty of Medicine is on the cutting edge of that frontier, with some of the best researchers in North America working on campus. In recent years, the faculty has endowed new academic chairs, established an innovative community outreach program and developed new hospital-based research institutes and centres. Also, after extensive consultation and review, we have introduced a new curriculum that exploits information technology and the opportunities for learning and research presented by that new technology. UBC is a key player in the newly formed Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), which will coordinate federally sponsored health research projects. The CIHR will link centres of excellence into a highly integrated system where researchers and clinicians around the country will work together Martha Piper, President on common health issues, sharing information and results. It will be an exciting and productive time for health research in Canada and at UBC. Our faculty of Medicine has made significant contributions to the health of Canadians during its 50 year history. That it has become a leader in modern research, teaching and health care delivery is a testament to the dedication of our staff, students, faculty and practitioners and an indicator of the strength of our university. • 'Thank you... ...for loving UBC as much as I do, and having the faith in current students to invest in our future. The scholarships and bursaries you help provide mean -Angela Halicki, Student 3rd Year, Bachelor of Arts Angela's thanks - and those of many other students - go out to the 23,232 alumni and friends who made a gift to UBC last year. Your donation makes a difference in the lives of our students. For information on the difference gifts have made, or ways to continue your support, please contact us at: Phone: (604)822-8900 or toll-free: 1-877-717-GIVE, Fax: (604)822-8151 E-mail: ubc.fund@ubc.ca Chronicle chronicle news People • Metals and Materials Engineering Prof. Indira Samarasekera > PhD'80, has been appointed VP, Research, as of May 1. She has also been appointed UBC co-ordinator for the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). She is director of the Centre for Metallurgical Process Engineering. • Bruce Fleming BSc'73, MD'78 has been named associate dean, Student Affairs, in the Faculty of Medicine. He was named outstanding teacher by the residents in Emergency Medicine in 1996 and by the fourth-year medical class in 1999. • Calum MacAulay PhD'89, a clinical associate professor of Pathology and associate member in the Physics Dept., is the winner of the council's Young Innovator Award. MacAulay is a biophysicist involved in applied technologies for the early detection of cancer. • Paul Sorensen BSc'80, MD'84, PhD'90, Associate Professor, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Pediatrics, is the first recipient of the Asa and Kashmir Johal and Family Chair in Pediatric Oncology. • The Physical Medicine Research Foundation has awarded more than $250,000 for research projects for im proving the understanding of whiplash- associated disorders. $47,815 went to Donna Mclntyre BSRP'80, MPE'86, PhD'94, Darlene Redenbach BSRP'82, MSc'86, PhD'92, and Roy Purssell BSc'77, MD'79 of Rehab Sciences, Division of Physical Medicine and Rehab and Division of Emergency Medicine, UBC. $6,028 to Gunter P. Siegmund BASc'86 of Maclnnis Engineering Associates and the Biomechanics Lab and Human Kinetics, UBC. • Robert Brunham MD'72 has been appointed director of the University of British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (UBC-CDC) and professor in the Dept. of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine. Brunham is also named the medical director of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control Society. • Richard Lipsey f BA'51 received an honorary degree from the university last Nov. 25. Lipsey is a professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University. • Medical Genetics Prof. Michael Hayden has been awarded the 1999 Guthrie Family Humanitarian Award for his clinical and research work in Huntington's Disease. He is the first Canadian to receive the award. • Earth and Ocean Sciences Prof. Tom Pedersen has been appointed to a three- year term as chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of Past Global Changes (PAGES), an international scientific body in Bern, Switzerland. • Economics Prof. Erwin Diewert has been nominated to a prestigious panel charged with solving an important measurement problem for economic policy-making in the US. He will serve on the National Statistics Cost-of- Living Indexes committee at the National Academy of Sciences. • Donald Brooks, ~f professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Chemistry, has been appointed UBC co-ordinator for the Canada Foundation for Innovation program. • Heather McCaw has been appointed acting director, Development. She most recently served as associate director, Development Office. • Jo-ann Archibald, f director ofthe First Nations House of Learning, is a recipient of the 2000 National Aboriginal Achievement Awards—the highest award given by Canada's aboriginal comunity. Chronicle Huntington's Testing No Secret It's highly unusual for a large crowd to attend and applaud a PhD defence, but more than 50 people were present when Sue Cox defended her doctoral research. Many had first-hand experience with the topic of her 500-page thesis, It's Not a Secret But...: Predictive Testing and Patterns of Communication about Genetic Information in Families at Risk for Huntington's Disease. Cox's interest in this topic began nearly 20 years ago when a friend explained that he was at risk for Huntington's disease. "I had no idea that his story would leave such an indelible impression or that I would later struggle to articulate something about the social and familial implications that he came to understand all too well," she says. Described as a genetic time bomb, Huntington's disease typically occurs after age 35 and each child of a parent with the disease has a 50 per cent chance of developing it. In 1993, predictive testing with near 100 per cent certainty became available for the first time. Cox conducted 102 interviews throughout BC with 16 people who were having the test and 33 of their family members to see how families communicate about hereditary risk. "The phrase "It's not a secret but' is intended to convey the profound sense of ambivalence that many at-risk individuals feel about disclosing their test results to others," Cox says. Her research was part of a larger study headed up by UBC medical anthropologist Prof. William McKellin. "Much of genetics research is undertaken in the lab, working at the molecular level with the hope of developing tests that will eventually lead to clinical interventions," McKellin says. "Sue moved beyond the molecular genetics lab and clinic to understand the subtle and profound ways that genetic testing affects everyday family and social lives." Cox is a post-doctoral fellow with the Centre for Applied Ethics and collaborates with renowned researcher, Medical Genetics Prof. Michael Hayden, director of the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics. She is an active volunteer in societies that support Huntington's patients. • ano. 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With no campus pub, the old Hotel Vancouver, which stood where Eaton's is now, was the popular hangout for university students. Tuition fees were in the low hundreds. A graduate of Engineering in the tumultuous '60s, John Ritchie's BASc'69, MASc'71 most vivid memory is not of the upheaval caused by the Vietnam War, but the punch cards that held all his computer programs. "It was a real disaster when you were running down the hall and tripped, dumping your punch cards on the floor and losing the whole sequence of your program," he says. During this time the campus was in the process of expanding with a student population of more than 20,000. Buildings such as Totem Park and the Student Union Building began to spring up. But Peter Ladner BA '70 says although there have been a lot of changes in the decades after graduation, there are many similarities between his generation and the students today. He recalls the emotional tumult of his first few days at UBC. "When I first arrived at university it was quite difficult," he says. "I was a little cog in a huge machine. All this gray concrete, shuffling from class to class, wondering what I was doing here." • Chronicle chronicle news Wood Dust = Lung Cancer? A link between wood dust and cancer? Epidemiologist Paul Demers thinks so. Demers, who specializes in occupational respiratory disease, is assistant professor in the Faculty of Graduate Studies' Occupational Hygiene Program. He is a principal investigator in a four-year study of 26,000 BC millworkers at 14 sawmills who have been exposed to wood dust from 1950-85. "An agency of the World Health Organization classified wood dust as a carcinogen in 1995," says Demers, whose research earned him the designation Medical Research Council of Canada (MRC) /British Columbia Lung Association Scientist this year. "Now we're trying to determine which woods are the culprits and at what exposure level." The 1995 classification focused on the dust of hardwoods like oak and mahogany as a cause of sino-nasal cancer. There is one case of sino-nasal cancer for every 100 cases of lung cancer in North America, says Demers, although in Europe the incidence is higher in part due to exposure to wood dust. Airborne dust from softwoods such as hemlock and fir and mixed woods are also being investigated as a cause, as well as asthma and chronic obstructive lung disease. Researchers liaise with the woodworkers' unions and mill management to examine data from employment records and match the information to Statistics Canada data on cancer and deaths due to respiratory illnesses. Sawmill jobs include dumping and sorting logs and lumber in the yard, sawing, moving and inspecting lumber inside the mill and clean up of the work area. Vacuuming or sweeping dampened dust are preferable to blowing dust out of the work area using compressed air, says Demers. He and a research team study procedures at mills from New Westminster to Mackenzie. "There have been very significant changes in practices over the time period of the study," says Demers. "Although some mills still have 100-year-old equipment, there's a lot less manual labour and more work is done from a sealed-off computer booth." Recommendations made in 1997 contributed to a Workers' Compensation Board decision to cut levels of wood dust exposure in half to the current level of 2.5 milligrams per cubic metre of air. At this level dust particles are visible hanging in the air. • VOC Celebrates 5 Years Fifty-five VOC oldtimers gathered at Cypress Bowl downhill ski area for their annual hike, Sept. 8, 1999. Hikers went to Yew Lake or up Black Mt. to Cabin Lake. A 5-year reunion luncheon will be held Sept. 6, 2000 at Cecil Green Park. The annual hike is on Sept. 7, 2000 at Cypress Bowl. If you haven't received any information, call Ingrid Blomfield, 926-1156, Iola Knight, 922-7358, or Margaret Merler, 922-8973. 10 Chronicle Family Link Proven in MS Professor of Medical Genetics Dessa Sadovnick grew up with MS. But she wasn't affected with the disease. Rather, her mother raised money for Multiple Sclerosis of Canada. Dessa witnessed first hand the devastating effect of the illness on individuals and families. As a result, Dessa started working as a research associate with Neurology Prof. Donald Paty, director of multiple sclerosis research programs, in 1980. She joined the faculty in 1989. After seeing so many families affected with the disease, Sadovnick was convinced of a genetic link. That conviction resulted in the largest and most comprehensive database on family histories of MS in the world. In the early 1980s, looking for a genetic component in MS was "an off the wall idea" according to Sadovnick. If there was a family link, it was attributed to diet or viral illness. Sadovnick began a collaboration with neurologist George Ebers at the University of Western Ontario and in 1993 they launched a Canada-wide study to establish whether or not MS is linked to genetics. Sadovnick and her team at UBC's clinic gathered histories from patients registered at MS clinics across the country. More than 18,000 patients were screened and incorporated into the collaborative study. More than 3,500 histories came from UBC MS clinic patients. Using this, the genetic link in MS was conclusively proven in 1996. Sadovnick and fellow researchers are continuing to build the database. It helps doctors identify high-risk individuals and start monitoring the disease even before symptoms begin. There are an estimated 50,000 cases of MS in Canada. The disease usually strikes between ages 20 and 40, affects twice as many women as men, and mainly affects Caucasians Medical Genetics Prof. Dessa Sadovnick and people of northern Europe ancentries. MS patients suffer loss of balance, muscle weakness, impaired speech, numbness, loss of vision and extreme fatigue. "This is a disease that has implications for the whole family," says Sadovnick. "It's satisfying to me as a researcher that my work allows me to deal directly with patients .... I know these people — it's a real advantage over investigation based solely on lab work." • Send Us Your Extra Wine. No, Really! The best wine producing areas in the world - France, Germany, California, Australia, South Africa - all count on academic research to refine and enhance production. Canada, one of the youngest wine producing regions in the world, has benefitted from this research as well. Now, the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences and the province of BC join these centres with the launch of the B.C. Wine Research Centre. Led by Dr. Hennie van Vuuren, the Eagles Chair in Food Biotechnology, this centre is beginning to draw local and international attention. Dr. van Vuuren and his team will conduct research in enology and biotechnology to promote the technological development of BC's wine industry. But we need wine to start the research. That's right. In order for Wine Research Centre students and researchers to study wine we seek donations from your own cellars for study in the centre's labs. You will receive a charitable tax receipt for the fair market value of your donation and have the knowledge that you're helping produce better wine right here. We need commercial wine (sorry, no home made wines) of excellent quality. You can drop off wine to the Food, Nutrition and Health Building, and we will add your contribution to the cellars for study. For further information contact Dr. van Vuuren at 822-0418 or David Love, Faculty Development Officer, 822-8910. • Chronicle 11 A Conversation with John Cairns, MD Dean of Medicine UBC's been around since 1917. Why was there no medical school until 1950? It was very difficult to get a medical school started in BC. Most medical schools in the east were established in the late 1800s and any need we had in the west was filled by those grads and doctors from abroad. Governments at the time thought it wasteful to spend money on a medical school out here when we could easily attract physicians from elsewhere. The move to start a medical school here really got going in the 30s and 40s, but there was still a lot of resistance. Does our school supply all the physicians we need in BC? No. Because the school was new and the facilities quite limited, we didn't have very large classes for the first years. It wasn't until the 1970s that the school really expanded, but even today, of the 8,000 or so doctors we have in BC, only about a quarter of them are trained at UBC. And every year we need about 300 new physicians in BC to replace those who retire or leave. We graduate 120 each year, and only about 80 of them stay here. So we're still depending on other jurisdictions to train 75% of our doctors. How does our medical school compare to others in the country? We're the third largest school in the country, and we have an excellent reputation. As a result, we've attracted some of the top surgeons, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and other specialists to Vancouver as practitioners, researchers, teachers and leaders. So the presence of the school has had a major impact on the practice of medicine in BC. That's an important role. One of the ways to measure the quality of our students and the quality of our education is to compare the marks of entering students and of graduating students across the country. Our medical students traditionally score higher than those at any other school on their entrance exams. The medical school attracts 42% of the research dollars that come to UBC and we've attained international prominence in a number of research areas. We're leaders in human genetics, cancer research, protein engineering, neurosciences, respiratory diseases, HIV/AIDS and a number of other areas, largely because we've been able to attract top people. University funding has been shaky over the past decade. What's been the impact on the school of medicine? Like many medical schools across the country, ours has been seriously underfunded over the past decade or so. In spite of that we have sustained the quality of our educational programs and have undertaken innovative new approaches. We retain our reputation for research excellence, but we have not excelled to the level to which we are capable. We have definitely not been able to satisfy BC's needs for health professionals to the extent we ought to. A recent external funding analysis of the faculty voiced concerns about our funding in relation to other provinces and commented on the integral relationships between faculties of medicine and provincial ministries of health that are more evident in other provinces. Implicit policies that have promoted the training of health professionals in other provinces and countries are superficially cost effective but have made BC vulnerable to change occurring beyond its borders and direct influence. Fortunately, our Ministry of Health has begun to realize the importance of our medical school to a high quality health care system, and sees its value as an engine of the economy through research. I think they are beginning to understand the value of educating appropriate proportions of our physicians and other health professionals here. 12 Chronicle Dean Cairns with Brian Bressler and Helen Ting, two new MDs, at the spring convocation. CP pic What can the medical school do to improve health care for people in BC. We've been talking to government about ways to make sure the quality of the medical education here remains high, and how to expand our capacity. If the school doubled in size we'd be training physicians at the same rate as other Canadian schools, and would go a long way to dealing with our shortages here. That would mean a funding increase of about $40 million a year. But part of the discussion is also about how we deliver a medical education. I'd like to see more money spent developing educational facilities in hospitals and universities around the province. That way, students could get their basic science education here in Vancouver, then spend the last years working and learning in other locations. This serves two functions: it increases the funding to facilities outside the Lower Mainland, and it would be more likely that persons trained in a particular area would stay and practice in that area. We have that kind of relationship now with UNBC and the hospital in Prince George. Twelve members of our family practice program do their training up there. Such expansion means a bigger school here at UBC, but also development of facilities in major centres around the province. Another important part in medical education is the role of our Clinical Faculty, some 2,000 doctors who help train our students here and at sites around the province. These are practicing doctors who aren't employees of the university, though some may receive a stipend or sessional payment. Their work is voluntary and it's an essential part of the education our students receive. They provide a wellspring of commitment to the profession and the university, and we value them very much. So much of what our students learn comes from men and women who practice medicine on a daily basis, and it's one of the great strengths of our program. Students in our schools of Rehabilitation Sciences and Audiology and Speech Sciences also benefit from these Clinical Faculty. Our relationship with the BC Ministry of Health has improved dramatically over the past few years. We've established a new Health Human Resources Planning Group with government to focus on the educational needs of nurses and physicians and linking those needs to health care needs in BC. Educational capacity needs to be brought into the loop when government considers overall health care. This is the norm in most other provinces, but it's a new concept here. Our school has a long history of affiliation to hospitals around the province, and of being engaged in their health care needs. The ministry is now recognizing that and understands the benefits. What's the biggest problem facing health care delivery in BC? We in BC have to take more responsibility for supplying our own health care professionals. The physician shortage across the country is only going to get worse and if we can't fill more of our own needs, the shortage will be even greater here. And we can't count on the graduates from other places to come here anymore. We fill almost as many positions here with graduates from Ontario medical schools as we do from our own. But Ontario has already started to put in place incentives to keep its health care professionals in the province, to address its own shortage. We can't count on that pool anymore. We're having the same problems in the school of Rehabilitation Sciences. We're seeing real shortages of occupational and physiotherapists and we're not filling the educational gap fast enough. We also educate a large number of medical scientists here, and while our research profile is still very high, these scientists are in demand elsewhere. How do things look for the next 50 years? The quality of our school is unquestioned. Students with the highest marks in the country come to our school, and the research we do here is some of the best in the world. I'm excited about the new Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which will concentrate more attention and more money on our work. We've already benefited from the Canada Foundation for Innovation funding. The Canadian Research Chairs are building the future of research at Canadian universities. I'm also happy that the provincial health ministry is beginning to listen to our pleas for increased spending on medical education to sustain its quality. I am confident that our province will assume the responsibility to educate more of its own health care professionals. The first 50 years of this school have been impressive in terms of teaching and research. We've done amazing things for so young a school. But the next 50 will contribute even more. We're entering an exciting phase in our development. John Cairns, MD'68, FRCPC was named Dean of Medicine in 1996. He achieved the highest standing in his graduating class at UBC. He trained as a cardiologist at McGill, and joined the medical school at McMaster in 1975, where he served for 21 years, earning the position of Chair of Medicine. He and wife Wendy have three daughters, and have a particular penchant for white water rafting. Chronicle 13 Against All Odds: UBC's Faculty of Medicine After Half a Century by Wendy Cairns BA'65 's first president, Frank Wesbrook, himself a physician, dreamed of setting up a medical school at the new university. But it was not until the energies of medical personalities such as G.F. Strong and academic leaders such as Claude Dolman merged with the compelling demands of returning WWII veterans that the enterprise was seriously undertaken. It was by no means smooth sailing; the conflicting exigencies of the local practitioners and the university intelligentsia resulted in considerable friction. The location of the school and the availability of hospital beds became an issue of raging debate. Key government figures weighed in. Eventually compromises were reached and the medical school engaged its first faculty members in 1949 and accepted its first class of students in 1950. The primitive facilities and conditions that greeted the early students and their professors became the stuff of legend. First Dean Myron Weaver and the early department heads struggled valiantly to find equipment and space to introduce the basic medical sciences, and clinical instructors gave generously of their time under less than desirable circumstances to teach the students their skills. Interviews with some of the original faculty members and first students paint a vivid picture of the facilities, program, social life, personalities and events of the early days. The following excerpt is taken from Against All Odds: UBC's Faculty of Medicine After Haifa Century, by Wendy Cairns, BA'65, to be published later this year. This section highlights the formation of the department of Anatomy. 1 the new school took shape it was important to appoint heads of the basic sciences departments, since these were the areas where the students would begin their pre-clinical training in the initial two years of the program. With an average age of 35, these were the youngest department heads in any medical school in Canada. According to those who wished to put the best light on the new developments, this resulted in a new and innovative integration of studies, because no one was concerned about tradition. A common observation of all the early faculty recruits was that a sense of excitement and esprit-de-corps permeated the faculty and enlivened their working hours. When the new heads began the mammoth job of setting up the medical faculty, they thought that the issue of location had been resolved in favour of a united school based on the campus. They knew, though, that because it would take some time to generate the necessary capital funds, the medical school would be temporarily divided between the universi- 14 Chronicle ty site and Vancouver General Hospital. However, the change of government from a coalition Liberal government to W.A.C. Bennett's Social Credit regime in 1952 meant that previously promised funding for the campus hospital was no longer forthcoming. A general pattern was established in recruiting new faculty: in each department the head would scout the field, work up a list of possible appointments, assemble their curricula vitae and then discuss the list with the dean. Weaver liked to be consulted and was very good at it, paying real attention to details and spotting potential flaws, offering useful suggestions or exposing weak planning. Anatomy Dr. Jonathan Meakins, a fabled former dean of McGill medical school, was upset to learn that one of his most promising proteges in Montreal, Dr. Sydney Friedman, had not been interviewed for a department head position at UBC. He promptly wrote to Dean Weaver about the talented young anatomist. Friedman had received his MD and later his PhD at McGill and was second in command in his department, eager to move on to a greater challenge, but wanting particularly to stay in Canada. The recruitment of Friedman, 33, along with his wife, Connie, was to have a major and lasting impact on the new medical school, whose department of Anatomy eventually became one of the outstanding centres of its kind in North America. Friedman had misgivings about coming to the fledgling medical school. He had read Claude Dolman's report which proposed a centralized model, and agreed with its principles. He worried that the "counter-report" from the clinical forces might prevail. Having worked in a school which had been the leader in Canada for academic medicine, Friedman was thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that there is only one kind of first-class medical school and it was not a split school. Separate locations for clinical and basic science meant little contact between the two branches, and if they were to be joined at the hospital location, the result ing institution would develop a clinical service orientation rather than an academic medicine orientation. On the other hand, he saw a number of points in favour of the move to Vancouver. Very few headships were due to become available in other centres in Canada, whereas this one was open to an ambitious young academic. An enormous sense of vitality and burgeoning activity characterized the embryonic medical school. The Friedmans had been friendly with many of the 20 or so UBC students who had taken their medical training with them at McGill, and had warmed to the idea of living in the natural beauty they had heard so much about. A summer vacation on the coast in 1947 had given them a look at the west, and they liked what they saw. At their first glimpse of the UBC campus, however, they were startled. There was little to see but a few scattered, buildings, including some army Quonset huts, and the Wesbrook building, still under construction, which would house the department of Bacteriology and Preventive Medicine. University members were afraid that this was being built to placate Dolman, and that it would eat up all the money that was to have started the medical school. There was some resentment at this use of what the newly forming faculty felt was "their" money, especially since the new building was not to be used by the faculty at all. The Anatomy department was to take up half of one of the rustic huts, approximately 2500 square feet in total, a paltry amount in comparison to most medical schools. In addition to dissecting space, a basic requirement for any anatomy laboratory is a suitable place to house cadavers under strictly controlled conditions, acceptable to the public and families of donors. When the available facilities were prepared for teaching the students, Dr. Friedman recalls that conditions were anything but easy, especially as adequate space for the morgue simply did not exist. Dr. Alex Wood, who was head of the department of Animal Nutrition, and a major force in aiding the establishment of the medical school, came to the rescue by arranging for a room in Agriculture's dairy barn to be set aside for the adequate storage of cadavers. This served until about a year later when Friedman was able to have a small morgue added to the end of the original hut. He likened it to "the interior of a small ship, where you make use of every square inch." Wood was also instrumental in finding an excellent technician to assist Friedman with his work. Gordon Cross- on had been a pathology technician in Suffield during the war, running one of Wood's labs there. He started in the Anatomy department in July, 1950, and Chronicle 15 proved to be a great asset in helping to organize the lab with its dissecting room, and accommodation for staff in the remaining space. A separate hut was found and placed nearby in which, with help from Buildings and Grounds personnel, they put two lecture rooms. With only a couple of days to spare before the arrival of the students in September, 1950, Friedman and Crosson had managed to organize the physical structure, from the procurement of a minimal number of cadavers right down to chalk and pointers for the lectures. Thanks to the intervention of Dr. William Gibson, chair of the department of Neurological Research, who had contacts in a long-established histology laboratory in the U.K., sixty sets of all the tissues of the body arrived from Oxford via an eleventh hour shipment through the Panama Canal one Jack McCreary, dean of Medicine in the 1960s, and an early builder of the faculty. week before the students entered class. Prior to his arrival in BC, Friedman had investigated the provincial regulations and found that the act allowing anatomists to dissect cadavers was inadequate, that any physician who could procure a cadaver was permitted to do so. As a condition of his agreeing to come to work at UBC, Friedman declared that a proper anatomy act should be put in place, giving the university Anatomy department head total control of cadaver procurement and dissection. This was done according to his specifications. It provided for a chain of command that would allow an unclaimed body or a donated body to come in to the department of Anatomy, and prohibited cadaver dis section anywhere else in the province without approval from the central author- • * ity. This was necessary for a simple rea- 4%-wC son: if human remains were ill-treated or I, j/ffXS?: if access to the public was permitted, mis _ understanding of the process could create ' *f^p serious problems, and could even lead to £,' the demise of the entire program. It was and remains important that one authority have control of the location of the material, who has access to it, and under what circumstances it is maintained. At this point in the province's history, the expansion of social welfare meant that the number of indigents and unclaimed bodies was diminishing. UBC became one of the first medical schools in North America to start a voluntary donation program, encouraging people through newspaper ads to leave their bodies for scientific purposes. Now such a program is used in almost every medical school, with cadavers supplied on a totally voluntary basis. BC's Human Tissue Act, also written largely by Friedman and his colleagues, has superseded the Anatomy Act, and encompasses similarly stringent requirements. A local mortician had been found to embalm and then store the bodies to be used for the original anatomy course. They were conserved in oil in a cement room in the animal Dr. Sydney Friedman, first head of UBC's department of Anatomy. integrating four aspects of the subject: histology, gross anatomy, radiology, and neuro-anatomy. In more traditional schools, these branches were quite strictly compartmentalized, so that a student might be studying lung tissue in histology, for instance, several months before seeing what a full lung looked like in the cadaver. Friedman and his colleagues worked to coordinate the curriculum to preclude this hap- barns. Due to the delicacy of the situation, the hearse which transported them onto the campus always arrived late at night, and Friedman surmises that his midnight meetings with the mortician in the eerie light of the animal barn must have made an unearthly sight. Later transportation to the anatomy facilities was a difficult and wretched job, and it was a relief when, the following year, a morgue was built adjacent to the hut and a conventional system of storage was put in place. The teaching of anatomy at UBC introduced some innovations, relating the course to clinically relevant points, and At their first glimpse of the UBC campus they were startled. There was little to see but a few scattered, buildings, including some army Quonset huts. pening at UBC. There was also an attempt to study living anatomy with a lesser degree of emphasis on cadavers. Technical innovation became a feature of the anatomy course. It was among the first programs in North America to incorporate the use of television for gross anatomy, even as the dissecting rooms continued to be housed in antiquated huts. The black and white pictures, of nebulous resolution, were nonetheless helpful for delineating bones, and the immediacy of the display allowed the students to ask questions and hear the response as everyone witnessed a 16 Chronicle common visual picture. All Friedman's courses highlighted anatomical illustration, and his two- handed blackboard sketches became legendary. He had attended art school during his high school years, and his approach to learning, especially of anatomy, was always visual. He remembered things better if he saw them rather than heard or read them, and he felt that anatomy was above all a visual science, not abstract or theoretical. He wanted his students to achieve a three-dimensional sense of what they were viewing. Students would look forward to sessions in which he would approach the blackboard as he spoke, pick up a piece of chalk in each hand, and proceed to delineate in front of them the symmetry of the human body and its internal features while continuing to lecture fluently on his subject. At an afternoon garden party at the President's home, Friedman was introduced to an artist who was to play an important role in his career. Nan Cheney had come with her radiologist husband from Montreal to Vancouver and now, recently widowed, was in financial straits. In Baltimore she had been a former pupil of Hans Brodl, a famous medical artist, and was now well known in the Vancouver art community. One of her close friends was Emily Carr. (The book "Dear Nan" by Doreen Walker examines their friendship and correspondence.) Friedman hired her to do drawings of dissections, and she was provided with space in one of the three huts which comprised the early quarters of the medical school. Cheney's works eventually illuminated a number of anatomical texts, including Friedman's, and selected pictures by her remain in the department. The department of Anatomy under Friedman's command went on to become one of the preeminent programs for anatomists on the continent, due largely to the clear-sighted vision of its earliest leader, and his equally dedicated colleague and life partner, Connie. Together they laid the foundations for a department which has produced some of the faculty's leading lights. • Golden Jubilee 2000 Thursday, November 2, 2000 • Golf Tournament, Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club, and/or tour of Museum of Anthropology and other UBC sites. Friday, November 3, 2000 • Vancouver ConventionCentre: CME Theme-based scientific program with plenary, concurrent and poster sessions and commercial exhibits. • "Reception by Decades": Alumni and friends reception in the Pan Pacific Atrium. Saturday, November 2, 2000 • Day two of the CME program. Faculty of Medicine Facts UBC's medical school is the third largest of Canada's 16 schools of medicine. It is the only medical school in BC. The Faculty of Medicine also includes the only School of Rehabilitation Sciences in the province and the only School of Audiology and Speech Sciences in Western Canada. Faculty researchers were awarded more than $13 million in Canada Foundation for Innovation funding in 1998/99. Fourth-year graduates of the school ranked second among Canada's medical schools in the Canadian Medical Council's final exams in 1998/99. In 1998/99 more than 6,500 students enrolled in various classes and programs offered by the faculty. The faculty received more than $4 million in donations toward student awards, research projects and various educational projects in 1998/99. Faculty researchers attract more than $60 million in research funding annually. The medical school's outreach includes continuing health professional education and linking faculty experts with health-care practitioners in BC communities. Faculty members are the recipients of many awards for excellence in teaching as well as numerous national and international research awards. Chronicle 17 Thf Mfdtcat MonFT by Hilary Thomson 50 Years of Medical Research at UBC For such a small, relatively late- blooming school, UBC's Faculty of Medicine has had more than its share of stars, coups and accolades. It brings in some research money, too. i edical researchers at UBC in 1950 could be found on the lookout for spare test tubes and bunsen burners as they started their labs from scratch, often in cramped, badly-lit and borrowed spaces. In the fifty years that followed, their investigations have contributed V. / » Ik* significantly to science, to learning and to health both here and around the world. Let's recall a WWII army hut that passed for a campus research lab in 1960. There, Dr. Harold Copp synthesized a hormone called calcitonin. It regulates the blood level of calcium and is used around the world for the treatment of osteoporosis and other bone diseases. The discovery earned Copp a charter membership in the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. And 30 years later the same zeal for innovation can still be seen at UBC. Investigators have been recognized with awards from the Medical Research Council of Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the National Cancer Institute of Canada. The faculty attracts $60 million annually in research funding, placing it among the top four Canadian medical schools. Here's a sampling of what the inquiring minds in the Faculty of Medicine want to know. We start with that wonder of wiring called the brain. Discovering how messages are passed through the tangle of neurons that make up the nervous system is the work of neuroscience. The task is daunting beyond belief. The central nervous system - made up of the brain and spinal cord - and the peripheral nervous system create a series of branching connections that look like the myriad cracks in the desert floor after years of drought. Each person's nerve fibres would stretch 47 miles if laid end to end. Besides daunting, the task is urgent. Diseases of the brain such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and schizophrenia affect more than four million Canadians and cost around $30 billion annually in care. It's a looming epidemic and explains why neuroscience is a key area of research at UBC. Dr. Max Cynader directs the Brain Research Centre. It is an interdisciplinary facility that calls on the expertise of scientists in areas ranging from zoology to electrical engineering. Its mission is to consolidate the efforts of 75 different research laboratories located on campus, at the Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre and the Children's & Women's Health Centre of B.C. Because the brain is a growing organ, it can change shape and capacity. That's known as brain plasticity. Cynader and his team are investigating how to mould or manipulate the brain by regenerating neurons so the brain can regrow vital connections. The results could help combat learning and vision disorders, stroke and spinal cord injury. And if redesigning a living brain seems like something out of science fiction, think again. This research is by no means far-fetched. It means business and has generated spin-off companies such as IGT Pharma and NeuroVir that look at how ideas can translate into therapies. 18 Chronicle / ^| herapies for the neurodegen erative diseases that Dr. Donald Calne describes as a scourge of modern society are the goal of UBC's Neurodegenerative Disorders Centre. Calne, the centre's director, estimates that by 2040 disorders such as Huntington's disease, the muscle contracture syndrome dystonia and Lou Gehrig's disease may overtake cancer as the second most common killer. But not if he can help it. Calne is leader of one of the strongest movement disorder research groups in the world. He specializes in Parkinson's Disease which affects about 100,000 Canadians. First described by Leonardo da Vinci, Parkinson's is a progressive degenerative disorder related to low levels of dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain. When dopamine-producing cells die, messages running through the nervous system get garbled or lost and patients are unable to control movement. Finding the cause of a disease encased in a bony box has been nearly impossible until Calne and his team started their research. To look into the living brain, they use positron emission tomography (PET) scanning. The PET scan shows images of chemical activity of the brain, allowing scientists to measure the rate of loss of nerve cells. It becomes even more complicated when you consider that the PET scanner is fuelled by atoms. A two-kilometre pneumatic tube runs from the Movement Disorders Clinic at UBC Hospital to TRIUMF, the sub-atomic physics lab on campus. Named to the Order of Canada for his contributions, Calne chaired last year's International Parkinson's Congress held in Vancouver. Other neurological disease research looks at Multiple Sclerosis (MS), which literally translated means "many scars." One of the most common diseases of the central nervous system, it is the fascination of Dr. Donald Paty, research head at the world's largest MS clinic, located at UBC Hospital. In MS, lesions or scars in the sheath surrounding the nerve disrupt messages from the brain. The result is loss of coordination, paralysis and impaired speech. Like Calne, Paty uses high-tech equipment to see what's going on inside the brain. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shows the physical structure of the brain and the extent of the lesions. What Paty and his team learned was that scarring came and went and years could pass before a lesion became permanent. This discovery, when paired with clinical symptoms, led scientists to understand that the disease is connected to the immune system and can be treated. But Paty's contribution extends beyond this breakthrough. He was instrumental in setting up a chain of MS clinics across the country that uses a standardized approach to collecting data from patients. Dr. Dessa Sadovnick, an alumna and research associate of Paty's, gathered histories from more than 18,000 patients across Canada and in 1996 helped to prove the genetic link in MS. Michael Smith, director of Vancouver's Genome Sequence Centre. He won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in reprogramming segments of DNA, the substance in genes that provides instructions for growth and development. Pat Higinbotham photo. Chronicle 19 lc ut what about the disease that has touched almost every family? kCancer research news is in the papers everyday, yet the disease is one of the top killers and it's predicted that the number of new cases will double by 2010. Are we losing the fight? Not with contenders like Dr. Victor Ling in our corner. The only person in the world to have won the two highest honours in cancer research, Ling is the vice-president of Research at the BC Cancer Agency and the faculty's assistant dean. His groundbreaking work concerns the mechanism that causes cancer cells to become resistant to chemotherapy drugs. He discovered a protein that sits on cancer cells and acts like a pump to flush away the drugs sent in to kill the cancer. Ling and his team are now trying to figure out how to turn off the pump. Joining Ling in the cancer research fight is researcher and alumnus Dr. Martin Gleave. He and fellow scientists at the Prostate Centre at Vancouver General Hospital aim to create the best prostate research centre in the world. Gleave is a key member of a 50-person team that includes centre director Dr. Larry Goldenberg, Dr. Paul Rennie and other leading scientists. A recent gift of $20 million from Vancouver businessman Jimmy Pattison gave a big boost to investigate various therapies, including hormone treatment, for this cancer that affects 20,000 Canadian men annually. And this team is not puttering about in the lab. The group has already applied for patents on their discoveries and is forming a biotech company to develop their ideas and bring them to market. / |he cure may already be on the shelves for Alzheimer's patients, say researchers Edith and Pat McGeer. A UBC alumnus and outspoken former B.C. politician, Pat has been described as an ideas machine. His wife and research partner Edith, who is an organic chemist, was already working in the university's neurological research department when Pat joined her after he graduated from medical school. Working at UBC's Kinsmen Laboratory for Neurological Research, the McGeers have studied almost 700 autopsied brains that reside in the lab's brain bank. They were the first to contend that non-steroidal antiinflammatories, such as ibuprofen, can protect against the disease that affects 250,000 Canadians and an estimated 14 million people worldwide. The McGeers' recent work suggests that Alzheimer's can be treated with a drug called dapsone, currently used for its anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory effects in treating leprosy. Pat and Edith McGeer were recognized with the Order of Canada for the achievements of their 40-year research partnership and received an honorary degree from the university this year. Recognition for research at UBC also includes the most prestigious honour of all, the Nobel Prize. Nobel laureate Dr. Michael Smith has been described as part wizard, part pragmatist, part scientist and part dreamer. But he says he's just a chemist. Some chemist. Smith won the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in repro- Max Cynader, left, is director of the Brain Research Centre. His team is investigating ways to manipulate the brain to regenerate neurons. Top, this page, Edith and Pat McQeer have unlocked many of the secrets of Alzheimer's and 20 Chronicle X gramming tiny segments of DNA, the substance in genes that provides instructions for growth and development. The alchemy allowed him to deliberately alter genetic codes and thus began a new era in genetics. The founding director of UBC's Biotechnolgy Laboratory in 1987, Smith became the first director of Vancouver's Genome Sequence Centre a decade later. The first such centre in Canada to be directly linked to a cancer treatment and research organization (BC Cancer Agency), it will provide new insights into genetic events associated with cancer and contribute to new diagnostics and therapies. Decoding the mouse genome is one of the centre's activities and would mark a major milestone in the Human Genome Project, which seeks to map all human genetic material. nother contributor to this project is Dr. Michael / \ Hayden, director of the Centre for Molecular / \ Medicine and Therapeutics (CMMT). An interna tionally known professor of Medical Genetics, ■Hayden has spent the past 15 years researching the molecular and cellular events underlying Huntington's disease and premature coronary artery disease. Last summer Hayden made world news with his discovery of the role of an altered gene in regulating levels of high- density lipids known as good cholesterol. Big news for millions born with a genetic predisposition to heart trouble. Within five years, Hayden hopes to move from research to clinical trials of drugs to treat people at risk of heart disease. And he's got the connections to do it. When setting up CMMT, he pulled in the single largest research grant in UBC's history - $15 million from multinational drug company Merck Frosst Canada Inc. Inherited illnesses like Huntington's are the legacies no- one wants. That's why geneticist Dr. Judith Hall, head of the UBC's Dept. of Pediatrics, has dedicated her career to reducing the incidence of congenital defects. A crusader for children, her research has shown that many birth defects are preventable through prenatal diet and that folic acid added to grains during refining could dramatically reduce spinal defects. Hall is a stellar researcher who has described numerous new syndromes, including a new cause of dwarfism. She has been named one of the 1,000 best doctors in North America and is a recipient of the Order of Canada. Another UBC advocate for children's health is Dr. Susan Harris of the faculty's School of Rehabilitation Sciences. One of the top researchers in physical therapy in the world, Harris is concerned with motor development in infants and the early diagnosis of cerebral palsy. She developed an assessment tool suggest that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may hold the answer to a cure. Top, this page, Judith Hal) is head of Pediatrics at UBC. Her research into birth defects has shown that many of these are preventable. based on her 15 years of clinical research that is now part of standard practice. ■:y ^| he contributions of UBC research is a list that could go on and on. It would include respiratory disease research conducted by Dr. James Hogg; HIV/AIDS research of alumnus Dr. Martin Schecter and Dr. Julio Montaner; cardiology studies by Dr. Charles Kerr, investigations into infectious diseases like E.coli by Dr. Brett Finlay and Dr. John Steeves' spinal cord research. It's a long list. An impressive list. Fifty years has brought UBC a long way from those first discoveries in post-war army huts. The curiosity and commitment of its researchers have offered new learning that has contributed to Canada's continuing role in medical innovation. But no-one is resting on their laurels. Ask any UBC medical researcher and they'll tell you that the milestones of the last 50 years are markers on a journey that is just beginning. • Hilary Thomson is a Communications Coordinator at UBC's Public Affairs department. She covers the medical beat for the campus newspaper, UBC Reports. Chronicle 21 "Boat ^fAifofOnsfoimBon Twenty-four Vancouver women who survived breast cancer formed their own dragon boat team to prove there is not only life after breast cancer, but a full and active one. <8m 'Shari ficfarman w hen Susan Harris walks through the door, I'm immediately struck by how healthy she looks. She gives a warm smile and offers her hand in a determined shake. For someone who has come face to face with death, she radiates life. Yet the thing that has threatened her life has become her focus. She has been diagnosed with breast cancer twice in four years. A professor in UBC's School of Rehabilitation Sciences since 1990, Susan grew up in Rochester, upstate New York. She received her BS in physical therapy from Russell Sage College in Troy, NY and her MEd and PhD in special education from the University of Washington. She spent 15 years researching child development. Then in 1994, her life changed completely. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a partial mastectomy. Always active, but restricted by the lack of knowledge on post-treatment re habilitation measures, Susan looked for answers, only to find nothing but sketchy accounts of the effects of exercise and breast cancer. So she contacted fellow UBC colleague Don McKenzie, in the Allan McGavin Sports Medicine Clinic, who was conducting the first study of the detrimental effects of chemotherapy on women. There she found her direction. She learned that exercise after breast cancer surgery had been discouraged because it was believed to be a factor in developing lymphedema, a permanent swelling of the arm and chest area. Lymphedema can occur anytime from six months to ten years after breast cancer surgery where the lymph nodes have been removed. It causes pain and loss of range of motion in the affected arm and disrupts and overloads the already compromised system. It is unpredictable, irreversible, and prone to cause infections. It hits 15- 20 per cent of women who have had breast cancer surgery. rhere are more than two million breast cancer survivors in North America. They receive very little information about exercising after finishing a course of treatment. Because of a lack of research about the post treatment phase, physicians tend to err on the side of caution when advising patients, says Dr. Urve Kuusk, general surgeon with the BC Cancer Agency. Women are often told they can't lift more than ten pounds and should not do any repetitive motions. For many years, physicians all over the world believed that repetitive upper body movements such as canoeing or even raking, dramatically increased a women's risk of developing chronic lymphedema. Susan questioned this. "I have always challenged the myths, all my life. I like to make sure people have evidence to back up their theories. I have even been a co-investigator and collaborator with my own oncologists," she laughs. Three years ago, Susan studied the arm circumferences of 20 women who engaged in the vigorous, upper-body sport of dragon boat racing. The results concluded that women who have had treatment for breast cancer can do repetitive upper body exercises without incurring lymphedema. Most of the women wore compression sleeves during the exercises and racing. In 1997, she conducted a small, randomized controlled trial, funded by the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Its purpose was to examine the effects of progressive resistive and stretching exercises on range of motion, strength and arm circumference in women who recently had breast cancer surgery and treatment. "No one can agree what the arm's circumference should be, what it is supposed to be. There was no significant difference when weight lifting or with any upper body repetitive exercises," says Susan. Women who have had breast cancer are advised not to take hormone replacement therapy. Therefore, they are at increased risk for developing osteoporosis and heart disease (Harris, 1996/97). Post- 22 Chronicle treatment exercise can benefit them through high-impact aerobic exercise or weight lifting, which helps build bone density and cardiovascular health. f\r\ 1996, to emphasize their belief " I that post-treatment exercise is >J beneficial to affected women, Susan and Don formed a Dragon Boat team, called Abreast in a Boat. The idea was inspired by a group of US women with breast cancer who climbed Mt. Ancon- cagua in South America. Upon hearing this, Susan and Don went on the next climb. They weren't able to receive funding for it, so they decided to try dragon boating. Fortunately, Don already had experience with the sport. Susan recruited Susan Harris challenged the belief that post- treatment exercise causes lymphedema—and a third of the women, and 24 of them met in February of 1996. Their only intent was to make it to the Dragon Boat Festival that July in Seattle. They ended up doing a lot more than that. After training carefully for two months before they hit the water, they not only entered and finished races, but beat boats of both men and women. "We bonded, became addicted, and couldn't let go of it," exclaims Susan. They got to the festival and paddled the next month in Victoria. They were the first-ever Dragon Boat team made up entirely of breast cancer survivors. The one-time project had become a big part of Susan's life. Ranging from ages 31-60, all with a history of breast cancer, these women are living proof that exercise after treatment does not cause lymphedema. Not one woman has shown any effects or signs of the illness. In fact, several reported improved range of motion in their shoulders and many believe it has enhanced their quality of life. They even received the David Lam award for Community Inspiration. But they're not working just for themselves. Last Christmas, the dragon boat women found out through the Cancer Agency about a woman who had breast cancer and needed help. They made her their charity. They raised $1500, of which $600 went to her and $900 to the Life Quilt Project to support breast cancer. Susan heads a PR committee, raising awareness of the issue. Their impact was overwhelming; virtually overnight they became role models for women with breast cancer. "When we went to New Zealand in 1998 we had incredible press, everyone knew about us," she says with a smile. "We brought cancer out of the closet for a lot of people there—it was taboo to talk about, so people were very close- mouthed about it." In all, they won. have influenced 500 women; as of last year there were 10 breast cancer teams in Canada, and 25 teams around the world. "The success of our dragonboat adventure sends a clear and loud message to the millions of women currently living with breast cancer that you can participate in fun-filled strenuous athletic activity, providing you undergo progressive exercise training prior to competition," says Susan. Susan has also spoken to and challenged therapists, physicians, oncologists and nurses in the US, Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands on their rehabilitation methods. She recommends that physical therapists treating women with breast cancer should ensure that these women are engaging in regular aerobic exercise at least four hours per week, even in the midst of treatment. >"|t is evident that the Abreast in a " I Boat women are very a close-knit ^/ and supportive group. A warm smile spreads across Susan's face when she mentions them. This is not surprising. One of the purposes of Abreast in a Boat is to connect and support isolated people. It worked for Susan. She was diagnosed with a new cancer in the opposite breast in 1998 and had a bilateral mastectomy. She turned to her team and not only were the women there for her, but their families were as well. They continued to support her during a whole year of treatment and beyond. Susan radiates confidence; she is someone who has suffered great loss, but who has also gained much. She recalls her time with the team in Seattle and Victoria. "We were on top of the world; we felt invincible," she explains. Then some of the women began to get sick. "It really hit home how present the disease was. No matter how strong we felt, it was still there, reminding us how devastating it can be." Susan's eyes well up when she remembers the many women they have lost over the years. The light returns to her face, however, as she anticipates the next race. Training will begin soon: three days a week devoted to aerobic exercise and three days to weight-lifting. Addicted? I think so. • Shari Ackerman is assistant editor ofthe Chronicle. Chronicle 23 a umm news President's Message Branches: Reaching Out for You 1L S difficult to imagine that anyone would choose to leave Vancouver. A vital, world-class city, Vancouver boasts the best of nearly everything, from cultural facilities to ski hills to cuisine. Does it rain a bit too much? Perhaps. Do other parts of the world have more job opportunities at this point in time? Maybe. Do some of our alumni come from other parts of the world and return home after graduation? Of course. For many reasons, a good percentage of our alumni live in places other than here, including Kamloops, Toronto, New York, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and all points in between. Linda Thorstad' President Which is why we have developed a strong and expanding Branch Program. UBC has a strong international focus. Many of our academic and research programs have strong links to universities abroad. UBC has developed institutes of study that examine social, political, cultural and economic issues in Asia, Europe and the Americas. As well, many of our students, faculty and staff have origins in many different countries. Alumni branches have been organized across Canada and around the world. These branches serve as entry points for grads either returning or moving to centres outside Vancouver. It has been my privilege to travel, with president Martha Piper, to a number of alumni branches this past year. I am overwhelmed by the energy and enthusiasm of our alumni, many of whom have established businesses, taken top-level jobs and become important members of their communities. Meeting with them reminds me that we really do have an incredible university, and that a degree from UBC is known and respected far beyond our own borders. Your UBC degree is a valuable commodity, and there are people waiting who will make you feel at home. Wherever you go in the world, TUUM EST. Look out, you fishes! Fourteen members of the Mech Eng Class of '69 gathered for their annual fishing trip at Boat Harbour on Vancouver Island. L-R: Al Little, Al Tippett, Don Roberts, Manfred Frank, Bill Prinz, Kee San Chow, Don Workman, Dave Baker, Dexter Ouland, Al McLeod, Jens Henrickson, Julian Matson, Jim MacDonald, DeWayne Chaisson. • Law '66 Golden Great Wall Szechuan Restaurant, June 23, contact bcampbell@odlumbrown.com • Trinidad £t Tobago '50 University Centre, June 24 • Law "75 University Golf Club, June 3 • Medicine '75 Empress Hotel, July 2 • Chemistry '88 Tuscan Villa, West Vancouver, July 14. E-mail annieandleo@sprint.ca for more info. • Forestry "75 Kelowna Coast Hotel, July 22-23. Contact paffleck@ilma.com for info. • Pharmacy '75 Symphony of Fire Dinner Cruise, Aug. 2 • Forestry '70 Grand Okanagan Hotel, Kelowna, Aug. 4-6. Call Wayne Coombs (250)748-5030 • Varsity Outdoors Club CGP, Sept. 6 • Medicine '70 Manteo Resort, Kelowna, BC, Sept. 15/16 • PE'50 Qualicum Beach, Sept. 18-20 • Nursing '60 Tigh Na Mara Resort, Parksville, Sept. 20-22. Contact Ruth (Levirs) Boston at 224-7698, fax 222-8245 • Pharmacy '90 CGP, Sept. 24, contact Peter Kubota at 278-8408 Alumni Day Reunions • Elec Eng '50 Sept. 29 • Civil Eng '50 CGP, Sept. 29 • Applied Science '50 Sept. 29-0ct. 1 • Metallurgy '50 Sept. 29-0ct. 1 • Ag Sci '49, '50 it '51 CGP lunch, Oct. 1 • Home Ec '65 dinner, Sept. 30 • Commerce '50 David Lam Forum, Oct. 1 • Home Ec '50 Green College, Oct. 1 • Applied Sci '60 CGP, Oct. 2 Next Reunion Weekend: Oct. 5, 6 Et 7, 2001. Start planning yours today! • Applied Sci '70 CGP, Oct. 4 • Mech Eng '55 CGP, Oct. 14 • Law '90 Vancouver Law Courts Restaurant, Oct. 14 • Commerce '65 CGP, Oct. 20, 6:30 pm. Call Catherine Newlands at 822-6068. • Medicine 50 Years Nov. 2-4 • Class of "40 Fall graduation, CGP, Nov. 24 • Chem Eng '66 May 19/21, 2001 24 Chronicle Nursing The UBC School of Nursing 80th Anniversary year has concluded. Dr. Alice Baumgart received a Honorary Degree at the convocation ceremonies in May. Alumni are invited to a reception in conjunction with the Canadian Nursing Association's AGM, June 21, 4-6pm, at the Roof (Hotel Vancouver). Contact Cathy Ebbehoj at ebbehoj@nursing.ubc.ca for info. Agricultural Sciences I Join the Division for a weekend bus trip mid-Sept, to the Okanagan for a wine tour and get-together with Okanagan alumni! If you are interested, contact Dave Ormrod: dave_ormrod@telus.net, Jim Sinclair:ycs/nc@ox/on./7et, or Cathleen Nichols: crnichol@interchange.ubc.ca, Faculty of Ag Sci, #241, 2357 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4. All alumni, colleagues and friends are invited to meet Dean Moura Quayle and some AgSci students on Alumni Day at UBC, Oct. 1! UBC Alumni Association ACM September 19, 2000 6251 Cecil Green Park Road, Main Floor 6:30 for 7:00 Everyone Welcome aft The Young Alumni Club is made up of recent * • * ' •" " grads who want to stay in touch with each other and the university. The club has now been revitalized and we are looking for new members to fill positions available now. If you would like to get involved to network and reconnect with others, contact 822-3313 or e-mail merling@alumni.ubc.ca. Check out our website for more info: www.alumni.ubc.ca Branch Out! Would you like to get involved in alumni activities in your area? Alumni branch programs offer opportunities for | networking, professional development, meeting travelling faculty, and purely social activities. Alumni leaders are particularly needed in LA, Calgary, Kelowna, Kamloops, Beijing and Shanghai. Upcoming Events • Hong Kong: Monthly business luncheon. Check times at www.ubcalumni.com.hk • Toronto: Monthly brunches. Contact Ed Ng for more info: nge3@tdbank.ca. New grad party, July 12; Tennis Masters Alumni event, Aug. 3; Martha Piper reception, Nov. 21. • San Francisco/Silicon Valley: Monthly Digital Moose Lounge Events, co-sponsored by Canadian Consulate. Contact Beth Collins, (415) 332-7800. Canada Day BBQ, Los Gatos; UBC-hosted San Jose Sharks game in November. • Kamloops: Martha Piper reception, Sept. 18. • Kelowna: Martha Piper reception, Sept. 19 • Victoria: Martha Piper reception, Sept. TBA • Calgary: Martha Piper reception, Oct. 24 For more information, contact Janis Connolly at janisc@alumni. ubc.ca Student Send-Offs If you can spare five hours in your hometown this August, we'd love to have you meet new students and share your experiences. We need alumni for: Toronto, Calgary, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Call Janis Connolly at 822-8917 or e-mail janisc@alumni. ubc.ca. Taipei Event Volunteers Past Events •Ottawa: More than 150 alumni and government people attended a UBC reception on March 29. Martha Piper was joined by noted UBC historian Allan Smith, who rounded out an excellent program MC'd by former UBC AMS vice-president Ruta Fluxgold BA'98. Below, Martha Piper chats with John Dyck BSc(Pharm)'S1, left, and Frank Abbott, Dean, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. •Hong Kong: The size of the space belied the significance ofthe event when Martha Piper and UBC alumni and friends opened the new Hong Kong Alumni office Apr. 10. More than 100 alumni mingled afterwards with the UBC contingent at the HK Alumni Association AGM. •Taipei: On April 13, the UBC group met with 60 vibrant alumni and friends in Taipei. Sandra Yuan BCom'95 told the crowd how the skills she acquired as a UBC student prepared her for her job as senior consultant at an Asian recruiting firm. Pictured at bottom left are some ofthe volunteers. •Washington, DC: UBC hosted the first All Canada University Association dinner ofthe millennium on April 28th. About 225 alumni from over 20 universities across the country made a show. Martha Piper delivered a thought-provoking speech that compared US and Canadian post-secondary systems. Jane Battle BHE '60 and Linda Mint BHE '70, acted as MCs for the entertaining evening. Chronicle 25 Election 2000 board of directors ya President Linda Thorstad, BSc(Hon)'77, MSc'84 Members-at-Large 1999-2001 Members-at-Large 2000-2002 Senior Vice President Gregory Clark, BCom'86, LLB'89 Treasurer R. Thomas Hasker, BA'86 Tom is a financial advisor at Merrill Lynch. Edward John, LLB'79 Peter Ladner, BA'70 Don Wells, BA'89 John Grunau, BA'67 Jane K. Hungerford, BEd'67 Darlene Marzari, MSW'68 Alumni Recognition Award Winners 6t Sports Hall of Fame Inductees Alumni Recognition Award Winners Sports Hall of Fame Inductees Award of Distinction Nicola Cavendish, BA'76 George Puil BA'52, BEd'53 Faculty Citation Award Donald McKenzie, MPE'72, MD'77 Blythe Eagles Volunteer Service Award Lyall Knott, BCom'71, LLB'72 Outstanding Young Alumnus Award Paul W. Rosenau, MA'87, BLA'87 Bruce Verchere, BSc'83, MSc'87, PhD'91 Lifetime Achievement Award May Brown, MPE'61, LLD'87 David Suzuki Outstanding Student Award Jesse Alexander Sims Geordie Aitken Alumni Award for Research Donald Brooks, BSc'64, MSc'67 Honorary Alumnus Award Harold Kalke Builders Donn Spence, BPE'56 Barbara (Bim) Schrodt BPE'51 Athletes Marilyn Peterson Kinghorn BPE'61 Reg Clarkson BA'56, BSW63, MSW'64 Team 1948-50 Hockey Team 6th Annual Aiumni Recognition and Sports Hall of Fame Dinner November 2,2000 Westin Bayshore 26 Chronicle Acadia Camp The very name evokes memories of warm nights spent studying in charming surroundings, with meditation-quality peace and quiet. You don't remember it that way? A bit crowded, noisy and damp, you say? Well, maybe. But it was fun, wasn't it? Here are two views of Acadia Camp as it was in the 50s. We are trying to locate camp members for an Acadia Camp Reunion on Alumni Day, Oct. 1. Bring your memories, your memorabilia and a warm pair of mittens! Please contact Jane Merling at 822-8918, or merling@alumni.ubc.ca. A Fort Camp Residents Hut 22 1960-61 Reunion is also in the works. Contact Jane Merling at 822-8918 or (800)883-3088 for more info. Gabrlola Island Vacation Rentals A Gulf Island Gelaway vacation on spectacular uaonoia island, a short ferry trip from Nanaimo. Cabins starting at $400 a week, waterfront homes, $800/up. Visit our website at www.island.net/~givr/givr.html or call 250 247 8577. Elly Hallam Gabriola Island Vacation Rentals Mentor Lunch Tastes Good The Agricultural Sciences Mentor Lunch held March at Cecil Green Park was an great success. More than 70 students and 30 mentors got together to talk about the world of work. One fourth-year home economics student, Martina Seo, even managed to get a job out of it! This is an excellent way to give back to UBC. Why not start creating new memories? If you are interested in becoming part of this program and helping these students out, contact Jane Merling, Program Coordinator, at 822- 8918 or e-mail merling@alwnni.ubc.ca. Alumni Day, October 1, 2000 Reunions, tours, lectures, displays, special events. See UBC for the first time again! Cheek our web site for info: www.alumni.ubc.ca Your best conference venue is right at home. Let the UBC Conference Centre work behind the scenes on your next convention. We'll register delegates, plan meetings, manage abstracts, and attend to every nuance of your event. Show your colleagues how UBC's scenic settings and first-rate facilities create a uniquely satisfying convention experience. And the perfect venue for sharing your views. Call the UBC Conference Centre today. UBC CONFERENCE CENTRE The University of British Columbia 5961 Student Union Boulevard, Vancouver, B.C., V6T 2C9 Tel: 1604) 822-1060 Fax: (604) 822-1069 Web site: www.conterences.ubc ca Chronicle 27 books received UBC's Writers Two Bowls of Milk by Stephanie Bolster, BFA'91,MFA'94. McClelland & Stewart Inc., $14.99. Stephanie Bolster's second collection of poems move with delicacy and power, whether focusing on a flock of snow geese on a flooded plain, on the paintings of Jean Paul Lemieux, or on two wasps in a Pepsi can on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These intimate acts of language create a space infused with stillness and an edgy expectation. An Anthology of Steam Railroad Poetry An Anthology of Steam Railroad Poetry, Vol. 2, edited by Michael Gee BEd'72. Steam Railroad Publications, $15.95. This book contains poems written by former railroaders across Canada. It reflects the working man's life and his perceptions of it. It also contains photos of steam engines which are showcases for the historical organizations they represent. The poems represent an unique class of poetry never before collected and published as a complete work. THE VANCOUVER PA I) I) I FR The Vancouver Paddler, by Glen Stedham BSc'69, LLB'71. Glen Stedham Publishing, $19.95. This is a comprehensive 240-page guide to canoeing and kayaking in the Vancouver region and includes rivers, lakes and oceans. Trip descriptions include detailed driving directions as well as photographs. Both roads and waterways are shown on clear and easy to read maps. Trips are rated from novice ones suitable for parents with children to challenging excursions. A History of Domestic Space, by Peter Ward. UBC Press, $39.95. Homes are our most personal, private places, at the heart of how we conceive of life outside the public sphere. Peter Ward explores how domestic space has shaped and been shaped by family and social relationships over the past three centuries. Generously illustrated with architectural sketches, paintings, and both historical and contemporary photographs. A Dowry of Owls, by Larry McKeever BASc'30. Foreword by HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Lester & Orpen Dennys. Larry and Kay McKeever are the co- founders and driving force behind the Owl Rehabilitation Research Foundation, now a major center for the breeding and release of endangered species and the study of owl behaviour. They receive anywhere from six to fifteen baby Great Horned Owls every spring, and almost all can eventually be returned to the wild. What could be more rewarding? Slnglng- Masten of My Soul by Carol Wootton MA'70. Towner and Trafford. This is an anthology of radio and TV presentations, essays, fiction and memoirs spanning nearly forty years in the creative life of the Victoria writer, teacher and musician. Many of these pieces were broadcast over the CBC and published in various magazines and anthologies in Canada. What Men Know About Women, by Ron Smith BA'69. Oolichan Books, $17.95. Ron Smith explores the unspoken complications men and women experience in their most intimate relationships. Whether surreal or realistic, these stories are always spare and elegant. They are about the circumstances of everyday life, told with compassion. Raucous, by W.H. New BEd'61, MA'63. Oolichan Books, $14.95. A new collection of poems that draws on the language of geology and nursery rhyme to describe an arc of desire, disillusion and hope. Once again, W.H. New explores the boundaries between the physical and emotional worlds, between experimental and known poetic forms. 28 Chronicle on the UI I LI I V. H arts upcoming exhibitions & events: UBC Museum of Anthropology • A celebration of the Epic Ramayama Three evenings of Indian and Indonesian music and dance. June 20: Songs on Ramayana Legends: Classical Northern Indian music of the Agra Gharana and classical Indian dance in Bharatanatym style. June 21: Indonesian wayang kulit (shadow puppet thatre) and Indonesian dance performance. June 22: Classical Indian dance in the Bharatanatym style (Southern India). • ihree Case Studies. Three cases, each featuring a different aspect of Northwest Coast art. I urn-of-the-century paddles, Northwest materials, and two contemporary pieces by well-known artist Dempsey Bob (Tahltan). Through August 31. • The Art of Norval Morrisseau A travelling exhibition organized by the Glenbow Museum, Calgary. Twenty-eight masterworks by this Ojibway artist. Through October 6,2000, Gallery 5. • New Northwest Coast Gallery Opening. Spectacular contemporary weavings, basketry, metalworkand carvings introduce visitors to a changing new world of artistic expression on the Northwest Coast. • Raven's Reprise: Contemporary Works by First Nations Artists. This exhibit presents 14 site-specific works in diverse media (sculpture, mixed-media, photography, painting and textiles) by five contemporary Northwest Coast artists: Mary Anne Barkhouse Connie Sterritt, John Powell, Larry McNeill, and Marianne SNicolson. Through January 31, 2001, Belkin Art Gallery • Quartet for the Year 4698 or 5760: Improvisation for 4 projectors by Laiwan With Lori Freedxnan on Bass Clarinet, June 23-30. Using the idea of milienial year, Vancouver artist Laiwan is collaborating with Winnipeg composer/musician Lori Freedman to construct a multi-media, film projection environment based on music and calendar structures. Performance: Thur. Jun 22, 8pm. • Paintings from the Collection: Recent Acquisitions, Jul. 14-Sept 3. I his year's annual summer collection exhibition will present research on the situation for painting in Vancouver and Canada through individual works and detailed exhibition labels that situate works in critical contexts. • Wilfred and Sheila Watson Collection (Recent Acquisition), Jul. 14-Oct8. This exhibition marks the bequest of noted Canadian writers, Wilfred and Sheila Watson. Most of the works are by their good friend Jack Shadbolt, but includes works by Wyndam Lewis, Henry Moore, Emily Carr and Alberta artist Norman Yates. • UBC Masters of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition, Sept. 15-24. Annual exhibition featuring the work ot recent giaduates from UBC's Masters ol 1 me Arts Program. *AU dates and titles sub|ect to change Chan Centre for the Performing Arts June UBC and the Chan Centre welcome all the secondary school graduates of the Class of 2000 in the month of June. 17 Vancouver Chinese Choir Association Performance July 28-Aug. 13 Festival Vancouver: July 30 Heartbeat-Drums of the Global Village, 8pm. July 31 Barbara Bonney, Soprano, 8pm. Aug. 2Schater String Quartets, 11am- 4pm 2 Zakir Hussain and Bustan Abraham. A unique festival double-bill featuring exotic- Indian, Israeli and Arabic music. 8pm. 3 Strings Attached, 8pm. 4 Exaudi Chamber Choir, 8pm. 5 Tribute to Oscar Peterson, 8pm. 6 Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, 8pm. 8 National Youth Orchestra of Canada, 8pm. 9 Rachmaninoff Vespers, 8pm. 10 Tedung Agung Ubud/Balinese Gamelan, 8pm. 12 Hallelujah Handel! 11am- 1:30pm. Sept. 5 Imagine UBC, the first day orientation for new students. 16 Kimono Fashion Show, organized by the Japan Travel (.orporation. 23 Clam Chowder for the Soul. Inspirational lecture series. Times and dates subject to change. Call 822-1815. Haikxriuiiitl: jrom the Museum »/ Anthropology's Three ('.use Studies exhibit. Rill Mcl.cmum photo. Chronicle 29 class acts 40s 60s W. Ian Anderson BA'48 and his wife June celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on Sept. 3, 1999, in Solana Beach, CA. 50s Janet Mary (Whitmore) Bingham BA'50 received the Cabrielle Leger Award in September, 1997, for her contribution to heritage conservation ... BC's Auditor General George Morfitt BCom'58 retired after 12 years in the business. He's also served as chair of UBC's Board of Governors and the Alumni Association. in December 1999, Barry Weaver MA'71 and Francis Yee PhD'92 organized a reception for the more than 100 UBC geography alumni living in Victoria and area. L-R: Dr. Charles Forward BA'49, MA'52; Eleanor (Cock) Hoeg BA'50; Mary Lou Crerar BA'50; Dr. Graeme Wynn (back); Ches Brown BA'50; Charles Howatson BSc'39, MA'47; loan South BA'48; George Wood BA'43, MA'50; Don South BA'48; Lew Robinson, Prof. Emeritus. Missing: Peter Cumberbirch BA'48. Peter Batchelor BArch(Hon)'60 professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the School of Design, North Carolina State University, has been made a Fellow in the American Institute of Certified Planners... The Flag Shop owner Doreen Montgomery Braverman BEd'64 was elected to the Board of Directors of VanCity Credit Union for the 2000-01 term ... Barry Burns BLS'67 retired in March as a planning coordinator in the Acquisitions and Bibliographic Services branch of the National Library of Canada. He has been in the profession for more than 33 years... W. John Dawson BCom'64 was elected the first chair of the Board of Directors for the new CA School of Business, which provides education and training for prospective chartered accountants... Barry M. Cough BEd'62, biographer of Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Professor of History, Wilfred Laurier University, has been elected Fellow of King's College London for distinguished service to Commonwealth affairs... Arv Hardin BSc(Hon)'63, PhD'70 was appointed manager, Strategic Business Planning, for the Polyolefins SBU of Saudi Basic Industries Corp. He was a research advisor/ management consultant at the Sabic R & T complex in Riyadh for six years... Berni (Bucholz) Hardin BA'66 has been living in Saudi Arabia since 1993. She has worked with a US agency screening Iraqi refugees, the Steven Covey Organization, the Canadian Women of Riyadh, and edited a newsletter for the CWOR for several years... After working for the Greater Victoria School District #61 for 30 years, Trevor N. Jones BMus'65 retired in June 1999 as a strings itinerant teacher. He and his wife Jacquie continue to be active in music, art and tennis... former president of the 1966/67 Engineering Undergraduate Society Eric Newell BASc'67 is CEO and Chairman of the Board of Syncrude Canada Ltd. He became an officer of the Order of Canada in February. Eric was also awarded the Canada Medal last year and was one of the top twenty Chemical Engineers in Canada in the last century ... Nan (Farevaag) Unklesbay BHE'66 was named Fellow of the Institute of Food Science & Technology, for substantial contribution to food science and technology. She has been pioneering the use of "e- beam" technology to destroy the deadly bacteria E. coli ... Rory W. Wellings BASc'67, MBA'73 is now senior planning manager with the Kuwait Oil Company, responsible for corporate planning and training. Previously, Rory was an international business instructor with Capilano College, and a consultant to major international energy companies... Donna C. Willard- Jones BA'65 was elected to membership in the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. She is a solo practitioner in Anchorage, Alaska ... J.A. Warner Woodley BCom'61 sold his national career transition business, Mainstream Access Corp. to Right Management Consultants. He continues with Right as senior vice-president, Canada. 70s Cathy Ebbehoj BSN'75, MSW'99 won an Award of Excellence in Nursing Administration at the annual nursing awards... Carol (Horton) Harrison BSW'77 has completed her MSc degree in Community Health from the University of Northern BC in Prince George, BC. She's been a public health nurse in Terrace since 1984 ... Sandy (Koss) McCormick BEd'73 has been elected a Vancouver city councillor after serving two terms as a trustee on the Vancouver School Board ... Shannon Purves-Smith BMus'71, BA'96, has completed a Master's degree in Rhetoric French at Carleton University in Ottawa ... After 20 years in private practice, Stephen N. Rand BSc'75, BArch'78 has been appointed manager, Airport Design, to the Calgary Airport Authority, to assist in the implementation of major terminal expansion plans... Dave Stevens BEd'79 received the Award of Excellence for Art Education, Graduation Level from the BC Art <*WJJ?.(M!E;t«44IM£ 30 Chronicle Teachers' Association ... Anibal R. Valente BASc(Civil Eng.)'79 has been promoted to vice- president and district manager of the PCL family of companies, for his leadership and the district's continued success. 90s 80s Alexandra (Kovacs) Ada BMus'88 was staff officer bands and director of Music National Band of the Naval Reserve Headquarters in Quebec City from 1990-98. She married Stephen Ada in 1995 and is now events director for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce ... Renee Bjarnson BSc(Pharm)'83 just returned from doing volunteer work for three months at an animal rescue center in the Ecuadorian jungle ... Tony Fogarassy BSc'83, MSc'89, LLB'92 and Blair Lockhart LLB'90 welcomed 8 lb, 15 oz Alexander Anthony Nile Fogarassy to the world on Aug. 8, 1999 ... Dan Johnson MSc'80, PhD'83 is president of the Entomological Society of Canada. He was promoted to senior scientist at Lethbridge Research Centre and is adjunct professor in Biogeography at the University of Lethbridge ... Joel Murray BA'81, MA'99 has taught ESL to adults in Vancouver for almost twenty years and recently completed her Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language ... Julie Ovenell-Carter's BA(Hon)'81 second children's book, The Butterflies' Promise (Annick Press, 1999) was just nominated for a BC Book Prize ... Angela Savage PhD'80, lecturer in Chemistry at NUI, Galay, Ireland, has recently adopted a baby girl, Li Lu, born Sept. 4, 1998 in Hubei Province, China ... John van Deursen BMus'85 was appointed to music director of the newly-formed Hsinchu Philharmonic Orchestra in Taipei. Paula Bach BA'97 has accepted a job at Unisys Corporation in Minneapolis, MN ... Stephanie Bolster BFA'91, MFA'94 accepted a tenure-track appointment as assistant professor in the Dept. of English at Concordia University in Montreal... Adrienne Wood Boone BSc'94, PhD(Biochem)'00 has moved to the University of Waterloo to do a postdoctorate and join Chris Boone BSc, PhD'99 (Physics) who is currently working on a Canadian Space Agency satellite program there ... Andrea Brawner 6A'90, BEd'91 is reception coordinator with The Rogers Group Financial Advisors and tutors secondary students in French and English through the Teacher's Tutoring Service ... Cheryl (Ainslie) Cameron BSc'94 and husband Mark are thrilled to announce the arrival of their precious daughter, Sarah Margaret, born Sept. 10, 1999 ... Andrew Carter BA'93 married Caroline Morgan MA'93 in June, 1997, and Matthew was born last December. Caroline is working on her PhD in Linguistics and is teaching French at SFU, while Andrew is a contractor for one of the local cable companies... Linda (Cuddeford) Davidson BSc'94, MD'98 completed her training in family practice at UBC this summer and is working in Vancouver. Her husband Warren Davidson BSc'94, MD'98 is in his final year of core internal medicine and plans to subspecialize in respirology ... After spending five years in Montreal completing an Orthopaedics residency at McGill University, Ian D. Dickey BSc'91, MD'96 has been accepted for a two-year Musculoskel etal and Adult Reconstruction Fellowship at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN ... Patrick Harrison MFA'98 completed shooting his digital feature Longshot with the help of many fellow UBC'ers. He then launched an independent website with films, articles and artwork: www.idig.net/~flick/home.htm ... On April 8, 2000, Saskia Naomi decided it was time to introduce herself to her parents, Makimi llmura MSW'90 and Leon ter Beek PhD'94 and to her sister Linda Satomi. They are all enjoying their new family member... Michael Kozdron BSc'98 received his MA in Mathematics from Duke University last December. He is working towards his PhD there ... Ann (Cheung) Kubota BSc(Pharm)'91 and Peter Kubota BSc(Pharm)'90 welcomed their third child, Kobe, on Feb. 8, 2000 ... Brent Olthuis BCom(Hons)'95 graduated from McGill University Faculty of Law in May. He is working for Davis Polk & Wardwell, a NYC law firm. Next year he will be clerking for Mr. Justice lacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada ... A New Year's baby for Elizabeth (Nathe) Simonyi-Cindele BSN'97 and husband Samuel: Zachary Aaron arrived promptly on Jan. 1, 2000. Elizabeth works on the Leuk/BMT Unit at VGH and Samuel is currently attending med school at UBC ... After exhausting his excuses, Raymond To BSc'88, /MBA'90 finally got married on Aug. 21, 1999 to the love of his life, Annie Chen. Raymond is currently managing the software recruitment division for Corporate Recruiters Ltd. in Vancouver... Sara (Cobbe) Whalen BSc'93 married J. Kerry Whalen BCom'94 on July 4, 1998. They met at the Pit Pub in the summer of 1992 ... The Players Clllb, an amateur dramatic society, was formed at UBC in 1915 and for 40 years presented plays every spring and fall. The Old Auditorium became home to the club, and members spent many an idle hour in the second floor green room. For many years the spring production was taken on tour to Vancouver Island and southern B.C. The Players Club Alumni met for years for playreadings and socializing, but by the early '60s interest fell off. In September, 1999, a group of alumni attended the dedication of the Dorothy Somerset Grove and decided to hold another playreading. In April, 2000, the group read Sheridan's School for Scandal, the play taken on tour in 1948. Readers and audience posed for posterity. Playreading cast, seated, l-r: Norman Young, Barney O'Sullivan, Walter Marsh, Tom Shorthouse, Pamela (Rutledge) Hawthorn, Lee Taylor, Joanne Walker, Len Lauk, Alan Cory, Lois (Shaw) Rain, Ted Affleck, Joy (Coghill) Thorne, Philip Keatley. Audience, standing, l-r: June (Gava) O'Connor, Jack Thorne, Lily Harper, Bill Lane, Betsy Lane, Sonya Taylor, Barbara (Barnes) Chambers, Mary (Buckerfield) White, Bruce Peyman, Mavis (Plenderleith) Heatherington, Verene (Maurer) Shepard, Adam Rain, Michael Shepard, Clare Baillie, Carol (Aikins) Beichman, Lucy (Berton) Woodward, Nancy (Davidson) Macdonald, Jerry MacDonald, Anne (Forrester) Manson, Walter Shynkaryk, Margaret (Low-Beer) Libbert, Tom Shandel, Marion Poggemiller, Doreen Odling, Cynthia Lauk, Lois (Williamson) Argue, Liz (Grant) Keatley. Chronicle 31 class acts In Memoriam Elizabeth E. Wallach 1914-2000 Elizabeth Wallach B£d'35grew up in Nelson and spent most of her life as an active member ofthe community. Her first teaching assignment after graduation was in the high school in Slocan City. She then taught for five years at Trafalgar Junior High in Nelson. She was the second woman elected to the City of Nelson council. Elizabeth returned to teaching in 1957, until her retirement in 1979. She was appointed to the Selkirk College Council in 1965 and served for 11 years. In 1973, Elizabeth was a member of the Cowan Commission on Post Secondary Education in the Kootenays. She was a charter member of many community groups, including the Canadian Federation of University Women. Elizabeth was an avid outdoors person and world traveller. In Memoriam Norman S. Bab BSc(Pharm)'51, founder of Kits Cameras, Vancouver, Jan. 2000 ... Fletcher John C. (Jack) Gillespie BSF'51 of Burns Lake, BC, Feb. 12, 2000 ... Jack Cillingham SSA'44 of Coquitlam, BC, Oct. 26, 1999 ... Alan Cordon BASc'48 ot Bella Vista, Ark., Dec. 22, 1999 ... William Hall Prof. Emeritus, English, March, 2000 ... respected Penticton pioneer and founding member of the Apex Alpine ski area Robert Hatfield BA'28 of Penticton, BC, Feb. 14, 2000 ... Marjorie Eileen (Frisby) Ivey of Don Mills, ON, Mar. 17, 2000, wife of Donald G. Ivey BA'44, MA'46. She spent her early years supporting Donald through his UBC MA and his PhD from the University of Notre Dame ... Ivor Albert Kool BEd'86, President of Acadia Camp 1956-58, of Nanaimo, BC, Apr. 27, 1999 ... Andrew Macintosh BA'89, MFA'95 of Campbell River, BC, February, 2000 ... James Graham McLaren BSF'50 of Victoria, BC, Jan. 3, 1999 ... Clarence Philip Morin B/V50of Penticton, BC, Nov. Allan Cecil Brooks 1926-2000 After graduation, Allan went on to get his master's in Zoology at the University of Toronto. He began his professional career in East Africa, where was a biologist for the British government for 12 years. When he returned to Canada he taught secondary school, lectured in wildlife biology arid worked as ar> interpreter in the Rocky Mountain National Parks. His knowledge, encouragement and enthusiasm left its mark on many students. Allan was a great supporter of parks. He and wife Betty founded the Pender Island Field Naturalists. He was involved in many environmental groups, including the Federation of BC Naturalists. Allan loved hiking, camping, travelling and exploring. 18, 1999 ... Daniel Pelech BSc(Pharm)'53 of Vernon, BC, March 6, 2000 ... Joseph Pellicano BASc'48 (Elec Eng) ot Wilsonville, OR, Oct. 3, 1999 ... Mervin Benjam Polvi BEd'67, MEd'72 of Burnaby, BC, Feb. 9, 2000 ... James David Pritchard BASc(Mech Eng)'56 of Peterborough, ON, Dec. 3, 1999 ... Phil Salisbury BASc(Horticulture)'39, PhD'70(Forestry), University of Minnesota, of Vancouver, Jan. 10, 2000, at 85 years... George Peter Alexandroff Shirokoff BSc'52, MSc'53 of Kingston, ON, Dec. 24, 1999 ... James T. Smith BCom'58 of Vernon, BC, December, 1999 ... Pauline O.M. Smith BHF'49 of Osoyoos, BC, March 8, 2000 ... John W. Stewart BASc'39 of Vancouver, Jan. 6, 2000 ... Dr. Homer Armstrong Thompson BA'25, MA'27, LLD'49, May 7, 2000. He was a distinguished archeologist, classical scholar and humanist... George Volkoff BA'34, MA'36, DSc'45 passed away Apr. 24, 2000. He was head of the UBC Physics department during his career and dean of the Faculty of Science when he retired in 1979 ... John Angus Webster BA'59 of North Vancouver, Jan. 9, 1999. OK, so what's this?? Tkm Hollick-Kenyon, who was Executive Director of this Association for years, sent in the above ticket, "the smallest artifact in UBC Alumni history." Tim says it was well known to Main Library users in the '50s. What is it and what was it for? Send in the right answer (along with a story about it), and you may well see print! The UBC Thunderbird varsity teams are soaring into the new millennium and they want you to come along for the ride! Buy season tickets and save 20% off the regular price. Your name will be entered into a draw to win airfare for 2 to anywhere in North America! (Subject to conditions) Football (4 games) $20 Basketball (10 games) $55 Hockey (14 games) $75 Volleyball (12 games) $65 Soccer (5 games) $25 To purchase tickets, contact Marc Weber at 822-9115 or daweber@interchange.ubc.ca Get the Thunder Rolling!! 32 Chronicle Campus Profile (continued from page 34) Undergraduate Group, a group of 16 students, 1 faculty and 2 senior student leaders.) The first day of classes is cancelled for IMAGINE. Thousands of people pack into War Memorial Gym for a presidential welcome from Martha Piper in what amounts to a UBC pep rally. Students meet their deans, attend student success workshops and participate in a showcase of student life. MUGs stick together for studying, socializing and working through the maze of first year university. IMAGINE UBC gets new students involved, immediately, in their new world. It's a far cry from the days when a new student simply appeared on campus and disappeared into the moving masses. Last year, the Alumni Association became part of the VP Students portfolio, moving from External Affairs. "Involved students make for involved alumni. It's important to make a connection right after grad," Sullivan says. "We have to make it clear what the benefits are and keep them in touch with what's going on at the campus. We have to get better at tracking our grads, and in providing service to our branches around the world." But the new VP isn't neglecting process improvements. For instance, the acceptance process for students applying for admission is being overhauled. "Exceptional students are sought by many institutions, and they want quick decisions. We're putting a lot of effort into speeding up the system." His office is also streamlining the admission process. Formerly, students had to make separate applications for admission, housing, parking, awards and meal service. Now, some of these have been combined into one application. As well, students coming to UBC from outside the Lower Mainland are guaranteed on-campus housing. "We only have enough housing for about a quarter of our full time undergraduate population. This guarantee of housing for students coming from outside Vancouver is one of the ways we can attract outstanding students and build a stronger spirit on campus, and, ultimately, in our grads." All in all, Brian Sullivan has his work cut out for him. It's a big campus (35,000 students), with a living alumni population nearing 160,000. But he's enjoying the challenges. "One of the other reasons I came to UBC from Guelph," he says, "is that there's a sense of momentum and freshness here. There's an openness to different ways of doing things, a non- hierarchical and decentralized structure that's very appealing. It makes it easier to explore and exploit new ideas more quickly." Being in one of the great cities of the world doesn't hurt, either. His family loves it. What with world-class skiing and hiking, and all the events in town and on campus, the family has found their first year in Vancouver an adventure. And, watching the sailboats scud by on a breezy afternoon, Brian Sullivan is contemplating taking up sailing. His four children and wife, Hilary, have found their feet. Hilary works with the SWIFT project (Supporting Women in Information Technology) at UBC, two of his daughters go to Kits High, another is a semi-pro snowboarder just finishing up a year at Capilano College and the eldest, a son at the University of Guelph, left recently for the University of Science in Penang, Malaysia on an exchange program. The downside? "I wasn't ready for the increase in the price of ice cream. In Ontario, 2 litres of middle of the road, OK late- night stuff goes for $2.49, $2.99. Here you're looking at $4.99, and people tell me that's a good price!" It's just about the only challenge he's willing to concede. • MaKe 2000 Your Year for a Great Trip* Join other grads in exotic places, visit fantastic sites, and bring bacK exciting T-shirts for the whole family! Jou ^Through Spain rust 7-15, 2000 fast Asia Chronicle 33 campus profile New VP Puts the 'Service' in Student Services The image of UBC as a huge, impersonal institution is one many of us carried away with our degrees. While most of us remember fondly the department or faculty where we spent all our time, the university as a whole seemed distant and inaccessible. Some Arts grads have never set foot in The Barn, and many 'Geers think Buchanan Tower is just a place on the other side of campus to hang old Volkswagens. Brian Sullivan, UBC's new Vice President, Students is out to change that perception. "Previous incumbents in my position have been tenured faculty. Much of their focus was on putting systems in place to streamline the flow of students and simplify, as much as possible, the administration of education." 'Student Services' at UBC is evolving in a new direction. "One of the reasons I was attracted to this job in the first place was because I saw that UBC was serious about changing the student environment." It's easy, he says, to pay lip service to change, but UBC has made the ultimate commitment: money. "The VP Students Office is, essentially, a new portfolio, and we've been given a budget to make some important changes. I've been in student services all my professional life, and I see a real shift in focus at UBC, beginning with the change in title from VP Student and Academic Services to VP Students." The work of student service professionals on campus revolves around managing enrollment, helping students start at university, supporting their success while here as undergrads and grad students, and being of service to Vice President Student Services, Brian Sullivan at this year's grad ceremony. CP pic them as graduates. "Students have real issues here: anonymity, financial support, advising, housing, course selection." Sullivan sees these and other issues as challenges, and as opportunities to create new solutions. Dialogue with "Getting an education doesn't just mean completing degree requirements." students, he says, is an essential part of the process. He is already a visible presence on campus, meeting often with AMS and GSS groups. He has also launched surveys for entering students to gather information about their various health, social, cultural and transition needs. "In an important sense, students are clients and customers. They're here for a product we can supply. But that's not all they are, and getting an education doesn't just mean completing degree requirements. Most of our students are young men and women who are learning how to live as adults in this society. Getting an education also means devel oping the skills they need in day-to-day life. Skills of citizenship, teamwork, problem-solving and community participation. We're developing programs that get students involved in campus life." "Many of the students who maintain the strongest alliance with the university after graduation are those who get involved with activities such as tutoring, athletics, clubs, student government and the UBYSSEY," he says. To that end, he puts much effort into working with the AMS and student groups and into the IMAGINE program. Developed by students, staff, and faculty and coordinated by the First Year Coordinator in the VP Students Office, IMAGINE UBC is a university-wide process that introduces first year students to the mysteries of university life. More than 200 campus volunteers, 500 student leaders and 4,000 first year students participate. This year more than 150 faculty will join a MUG offering mentorship for first year students and group leaders. (MUG stands for My Continued page 33 34 Chronicle A special thanks to our sponsors 5th Annual Alumni Recognition and Sports Hall of Fame A/lore than 750 friends of UBC came out to cheer the accomplishments of alumni and athletes and helped fill the coffers of our student scholarship funds. The UBC Alumni Association and the UBC Department of Athletics would like to express special thanks to our corporate sponsors who donated to this worthy cause. Sponsors HSBC Manulife Financial Alcan Future Shop Chevalier Croup of Companies BC Hydro Thor-West Management Group Supporters Clark, Wilson KPMG Vancouver Airport Authority Friends Thorsteinssons Tax Lawyers Allied Holdings Koffman, Kalef Spectrum Marketing Corporation Blake Cassels Graydon Richards Buell Sutton Bank One Partners Gifts in kind Vanbots Construction Limited Hyatt Regency Vancouver Leader Frames Orca Bay Sports Canadian Airlines HSBC<» DD Manulife Financial ^AUCAN THE POWER IS TOURS BG hydro Di THOR-WEST MANAGEMENT GROUP Chevalier Group of Companies Chronicle 35 Having trouble finding people in the crowd? Maybe it's time to try the UBC Online Community Network E-Mail Forwarding Mentoring Class Notes Bulletin Boards Find Lost Classmates Career Services Relocation Advice Alumni Events www.alumni.ubc.ca and click the on-line community button See you onlinci I lUK. I oLc Network
Titled "[The] Graduate Chronicle" from April 1931 - October 1948; "[The] UBC Alumni Chronicle" from December 1948 - December 1982 and September 1989 - September 2000; "[The] Alumni UBC Chronicle" from March 1983 - March 1989; and "Trek" from March 2001 onwards.
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