UBC This Week | May 29, 2008

UBC Feature Web Site

Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences:

www.fedcan.ca/congress2008

UBC This Week is a weekly summary of UBC people in the news, recent media releases and upcoming event highlights. UBC This Week past issues are also available on-line.

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Recent UBC Media Releases

Upcoming Event Highlights

Find out what else is happening at UBC this week. For sports events, visit the UBC Athletics site at www.gothunderbirds.ca/schedule.asp.

UBC People


UBC People

10,000 scholars to visit UBC over the next week

UBC welcomes 10,000 delegates to the May 31 – June 8 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, the largest multi-disciplinary gathering of scholars in North America.

Organized annually by the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Congress brings together the world’s academics and researchers and offers an extensive program of lectures, research presentations, workshops and panels.

Certain sessions and events will be open to the general public, with a $15 Community Participant Day Pass. Open events include:

  • Richard Florida, academic, author, social innovator, on Who’s Your City?
  • Stevie Cameron, journalist, on The Pickton File and the Missing Women of Downtown Vancouver’s Eastside
  • Richard Pound, former Olympic medalist and Chancellor of McGill, on Big Ideas in a Small World
  • Stephen Toope, UBC President, on Crossing Borders, Contesting Values: Do Universities Matter? Followed by a panel discussion including Chad Gaffield, President of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
  • The Book Fair – with more than 200 publishers exhibiting
  • Anne of Green Gables: A Literary Icon at 100, exhibition and symposium at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

A complete list of open events is available at http://www.fedcan.ca/congress2008 in the Community
Participants’ Guide.

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UBC professor receives Killam prize

Prof. Sherrill Grace, Department of English, is one of five Canadian scholars to receive a 2008 Killam Prize worth $100,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts. A pioneer in Canadian literary studies, Grace has worked to transcend the intellectual boundaries of research and scholarship in culture and the arts through cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The Killam Prizes were inaugurated in 1981 and financed through funds donated to the Canada Council by Mrs. Dorothy J. Killam in memory of her husband, Izaak Walton Killam. The Prizes were created to honour career achievements in engineering, natural sciences, humanities, social sciences and health sciences.

For more information, visit www.canadacouncil.ca/news/releases/2008/nf128539538656519080.htm.

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Three professors receive UBC’s highest teaching honour

Instructor Kathy O’Flynn-Magee, School of Nursing; Senior Instructor Jon Mikkelsen, Department of Mechanical Engineering; and Assist. Prof. Shahriar Mirabbasi, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, each received a UBC Killam Teaching Prize during convocation ceremonies this week at the Chan Centre for Performing Arts.

The highest teaching distinction at UBC, the UBC Killam Teaching Prizes are awarded annually from the Killam Endowment Fund to faculty nominated by students, colleagues, and alumni in recognition of excellence in teaching.

For more information about the recipients, visit www.apsc.ubc.ca/news/2008/may27.html.

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UBC professor and student named YWCA Women of Distinction

Prof. Rabab Ward, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named a YWCA Women of Distinction in the category of Technology, Science and Industry in recognition of her efforts to forge new roles and opportunities for women in such fields as the trades, science, applied science, natural resources and information technology. Ward was the first female engineering professor at UBC, and is a world leader in the application of signal processing theory to cable and high-definition TV, breast cancer detection and medical and voice signals.

UBC graduate student Amanda Reaume has been named a YWCA Women of Distinction Award in the category of Young Woman of Distinction for her work as founder, editor and Executive Director of the Antigone Foundation and Antigone Magazine, a national semi-annual periodical about women, politics, women in politics and the politics of being a woman. The foundation is a non-profit organization that encourages young women to get involved in politics.

The YWCA Women of Distinction Awards honour inspiring women from across the Lower Mainland. For more information, visit www.ywcavan.org/content/Women_of_Distinction_Awards_/201/30/114.

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Exhibitions open at the Belkin Art Gallery

On the 40th anniversary of May 1968, UBC’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery presents three exhibitions that address aspects of that revolutionary decade.

  • Audrey Capel Doray: Electronic Seascape and other works, including her husband Victor Doray’s multi-media work, Pic-A-Mix. Doray was a pioneer in multi-media, interactive and digitally based art in the 60s.
  • Noam Gonick and Luis Jacob: Wildflowers of Manitoba, a multimedia performance installation of four young men living off the grid in a survivalist camp on the shores of Lake Winnipeg in 2006.
  • Holly Ward: Radical Rupture is an installation that incorporates a recording of a 1967 speech by Herbert Marcuse in London, On Liberation from the Affluent Society.

The exhibition will also include other works from the Gallery’s collection.

Date: May 16 – Aug. 10; opening reception: May 31
Time: 1 – 3 p.m.
Place: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, 1825 Main Mall
Info: http://belkin.ubc.ca/current/

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UBC Film scores at the 2008 Leo Awards

UBC Film students, alumni and adjunct professors were honoured this past weekend at the 2008 Leo Awards with wins in categories ranging from Best Feature-Length Drama to Best Student Film.

Highlights include Best Student Production to recent BFA Film graduates Cat Mills and Lindsay Allikas for their UBC student short September, while Best Feature went to the full-length feature Elijah by alumni Mary Anne Waterhouse (producer) and Andria Spring (associate producer) on the production team.

Recent MFA Film graduate Gwen Haworth earned the Best Screenwriting award for her UBC Film thesis She’s a Boy I Knew. Former Adj. Prof. John Zaritsky’s film The Suicide Tourist was awarded Best Documentary, Best Direction, and also won Best Cinematography for Adj. Prof. Ian Kerr’s behind-the-camera work.

In television, alumni Calum MacLeod and Mark McGuckin’s Road Hockey Rumble, produced by alumnus Cal Shumiatcher, won Best Comedy/Variety Series and Best Screenwriting.

The Leo Awards celebrate excellence in British Columbia film and television. For a complete list of the winners, visit: www.leoawards.com/winners_2008.html.

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Land and Food Systems give centenary awards

In recognition of nine decades of research and education excellence, UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems honoured the contributions of nine faculty members, nine staff and nine alumni at a ceremony held last week.

For a list of recipients, visit www.landfood.ubc.ca/aboutus/article.php?page=news/2008/05/lfs-centenary-awards-in-recognition-of.html.

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Recruiting participants for depression and masculinities study

UBC’s School of Nursing and Department of Psychiatry is recruiting participants for a study of men’s experiences of depression.

Eligible participants must be English-speaking men between 19 and 44 with a formal diagnosis of depression or self-identification as depressed who currently live in Vancouver, Kelowna, Prince George or the surrounding areas (within 250 km). The study will use questionnaires and interviews to gather information. A $30 honorarium will be given to each participant upon completion of the interview.

For more information, contact Kristy Hoyak, Project Director at 604-822-7483 or kristy.hoyak@nursing.ubc.ca, or John Oliffe, Principal Investigator at 604-822-7638 or oliffe@nursing.ubc.ca.