By Repp Porter (Reporting In) – Email
Print Edition: April 8, 2015
Attentive students were baffled at the disappearance of energy dashboards at UFV’s Abbotsford campus, which were replaced with only a piece of paper reading ENERGY DASHBOARD. While initial claims that this was perhaps an art installation or part of a construction project served as tentative explanations, word has recently emerged that these replaced panels are part of a larger administrative decision.
In the face of funding cuts by the provincial government, UFV has taken a radical step towards remaining economically buoyant: it’s going conceptual.
UFV administrator Dark Nevered elaborated in a phone interview about the administration’s steps towards universally conceptualizing the university.
“We are going to replace all specific, existing things with signs that simply have the names of those things. These signs will then signify something that was once there — only, they’re one step better: they’re not there! You get all of the bang, for none of the buck.
“We’ll start with the small things, like clocks and benches,” Nevered continued. “Then we’ll get rid of the things no one will miss: parking metres, smokers, Sodexo coffee. All replaced with pieces of paper with their names on it.”
Replacing things with signs of things has significant financial benefits, as it costs more to have running water than having the idea of running water. Furthermore, signs can be interpreted by each student differently, allowing for students to customize their experience with such conceptualizations.
As the conceptualization process continues, more and more vital parts of the university — like the teaching material and the professors — will be replaced by pieces of paper that will sufficiently convey class materials. Students will walk over a piece of paper labelled “door,” sit on a piece of paper labelled “chair,” and stare intently at the piece of paper labelled “professor” for a few hours, taking detailed notes and asking the paper questions.
However, some students are worried that it comes at the price of an authentic learning experience. Since human beings only have access to their own conceptualization of things, there are questions about whether students would actually learn anything new when interacting with those pieces of paper.
There are also concerns of what might happen in the event of a windstorm.
When asked about these concerns, Nevered responded by saying “we don’t know the answer to that, since you don’t.” It was then that I realized that I was talking with a conceptualization of administration. It was then that I realized that I was talking to a piece of paper that said “phone.” It was then that you realized you weren’t actually listening to me report this to you, but that you were reading a conceptualization of me on a piece of paper, and nothing really exists outside of your unsatisfactory cage of perception.
