Perhaps the banner on the clock tower, the university’s slogan, tuum est (it is yours), might give you the impression that this campus is ours. The problem is, it isn’t.

The last few weeks have seen interesting developments for the future of this campus. The underground bus loop has been scrapped. We’ve also had our last opportunity to have our say about the University Campus Plan. However, if the recent events somehow lead you to believe that we’ve somehow acquired the upper hand in Electoral A, you’re still mistaken, as this will always be their campus.

Now, your education is yours, yes, after you pay for it, but this place we call campus is not. To all of those who are writing down my e-mail address, about to send an angry letter (I dare you, you phlegmatic bunch), I ask you to take a step back and look at UBC as a whole.  

First, who exactly are we, the students? We’re individuals who decided to spend four or so years at this geographical point on a peninsula, far removed from the city, hoping to learn something about the world, hoping to receive a piece of paper (and hoping that it will get us a respectable job). So, where do we go after this excursion? We leave, and with it we enter adulthood, completing the metamorphosis that begun when you entered pre-school in 1989. The reality is that university from our perspective lacks permanency.

A question to the third-, fourth- and fifth-years: How many of you still hang out or associate with the people you thought were cool and hip from your first year? How many of you were the campus animals getting involved, running and attending beer gardens, or campus parties, but now just live off campus with an increasingly insular group of friends? And be honest, how many of you soon-to-be graduates want to associate with that insular group after university? Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t see myself hanging out with the gang, or even staying in this city after I finish. Regardless of whatever reason you come up with, this campus is temporary. People move on, and nobody wants to be known as the campus Van Wilder.

So whose campus is it? It’s the people that The Ubyssey complains about twice a week. This campus belongs to the workers, Stephen Toope, Campus Planning, Gordon Campbell’s bachelor pad, and of course the University Neighbourhood Association. Let’s be honest with ourselves: The groups mentioned have to live, work and walk up and down Main Mall, cursing at Plan Ops in the rain, just like the rest of is. But they’ll be doing it indefinitely.

Meanwhile, you leave for that graduate school in Amsterdam, the place you’ve become infatuated with since your third year. A few of us go on to teach English in Asia or work for an NGO in Africa. While others, who are just content with graduating, move back to Grand Forks.   

Ultimately, the campus is their vision; we’re just their peer review. The question is now, for the next decade, how to unite as one voice to use our temporary mandate for the most desirable outcome. During this decade, we’ve seen two very distinct ways of answering this question.

Some, after having campaigned under the guise of populist slogans, have become the administration’s parrot on all issues concerning UBC.

While others, who employ a more successful tactic, have resisted the university. The parrots may have ultimately won the battle in controlling you, the student population in council, but the resistors won the war. The underground bus loop is a distant memory, the knoll is intact for future generations, and the University Boulevard project never materialized.

Meanwhile, the parrots only produced hysterical grandstanding on their VFM blogs. How’s that war on fun going, again?

To those who believe that this campus is equally shared and not dictated from above, this message is for you: Its time for you to stand up, take action, get out there and break some glass. Tuum est.

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