The top ten most-read Ubyssey features of the year

There was no shortage of long-form reporting you wanted to read this year, UBC. From the university's lacklustre response to the fentanyl crisis to the concerns of hundreds of financially precarious professors, here are this year’s most-read features:

10. Line of credits

Author: Julia Burnham

Unique page views: 1,153

Course registration has been a mess since UBC’s collective memory can remember, but this year was particularly bad. As UBC focuses on updating its system, students continue to utilize new ways to thwart it — which might be doing more harm to education accessibility than previously thought.

9. ‘Vicious cycle’: AMS elections suffer from a crisis of apathy

Authors: Zak Vescera and Ryan Patrick Jones

Unique page views: 1,374

Another year of AMS elections came and went, and almost nobody cared. For this year’s elections issue, The Ubyssey dug into why students don’t come out to the polls when it comes to student government — and what some determined AMS employees are doing about it.

8. ‘Balancing act’: What is the limit of freedom of expression at UBC?

Author: Alex Nguyen

Unique page views: 2,008

As UBC seeks advice on its draft statement on freedom of expression, The Ubyssey took a look at where students, faculty and community groups want it to draw the line when it comes to freedom of expression on campus.

7. ‘Bare minimum’: How students with disabilities navigate UBC

Author: Sophie Sutcliffe

Unique page views: 2,086

Nominated for a John H. MacDonald award for excellence in diversity reporting in Canadian student journalism, this feature investigated the implications of Policy 73 for students with disabilities, which hasn’t been updated in almost 20 years.

6. Seismic upgrades: Problems continue to plague engineering co-op amidst structural changes

Authors: Alex Nguyen and Moira Wyton

Unique page views: 2,395

Amidst structural changes, personnel shake-ups and dismal student satisfaction rates, the engineering co-op program is still trying to figure out whether or not sufficient changes can be made.

5. ‘Nobody Knows’: UBC struggles to respond to Vancouver’s fentanyl crisis

Author: Zak Vescera

Unique page views: 3,060

When this article was written in November 2017, there were only 63 naloxone kits available at UBC. With no data collected on how many overdoses, fentanyl-related or not, take place at UBC each year, this investigation revealed that fentanyl in Vancouver is a crisis traditional health services at UBC aren’t prepared to face.

4. Conflict in Kelowna

Authors: Emma Partridge and David Nixon

Unique page views: 4,293

Winner of the 2018 John H. MacDonald award for outstanding investigative reporting in student journalism in Canada, “Conflict in Kelowna” was the result of months of investigation that revealed conflicts of interest, fiscal irresponsibility and abuses of power running rampant in the UBC Students’ Union Okanagan.

3. Our ‘Big One’: Lifting the crushing weight of the Vancouver housing crisis

Authors: Alex Nguyen, Moira Wyton and Emma Hicks

Unique page views: 5,025

In the year that Vancouver was officially declared Canada’s most expensive city, we did a deep dive into how UBC is trying to fight against the crushing pressure of the Vancouver housing crisis — and finding the limit of what it can actually do.

2. You in?

Author: Emilie Kneifel

Unique page views: 6,001

Being a residence advisor isn’t all fun and trust games. After speaking with ten residence advisors about their experiences in crises and balancing their commitments with their own wellbeing, The Ubyssey found intense financial, psychological and emotional burdens are often placed on residence advisors’ shoulders.

1. Choosing ‘between groceries and rent’: Low wages, no security for hundreds of UBC professors

Authors: Jack Hauen and Zak Vescera

Unique page views: 6,855

This year’s most-read feature made waves in academic circles on campus and online. According to our investigation into employment satisfaction data and pay among sessional lecturers at UBC, we learned that hundreds of contracted faculty at UBC are struggling simply to pay their bills.

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