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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’s ecotrek takes top prize at CAUBO awards
- Alumnus appointed Chancellor of Vancouver Island University
- HR releases Olympic volunteer statement
- Professor’s work part of sculpture exhibit in VanDusen Garden
- UBC hosts geochemistry conference
- Alumna Madeleine Thien reading at the Learning Centre
- University administrators to gather at UBC
UBC People
UBC’s ecotrek takes top prize at CAUBO awards
UBC earned first prize in the 2008 Canadian Association of University Business Officers (CAUBO) Quality and Productivity Awards for its ecotrek project.
ecotrek (http://www.ecotrek.ubc.ca) aims to reduce energy consumption and improve infrastructure through a cost recoverable mechanism. The project is part of a larger vision of sustainability launched in 1997 when UBC became the first Canadian university to adopt a sustainable development policy.
UBC’s finance certification system also received an honourable mention.
CAUBO is a non-profit organization representing the administrative and financial officers in Canadian universities and affiliated colleges.
For a full description of the awards, visit http://caubo.ca/awards/documents/QP_Rich_UM_Summer_08_E.pdf.
Alumnus appointed Chancellor of Vancouver Island University
Chief Shawn Atleo, alumnus of the Master’s degree program in Adult Learning and Global Change, Department of Educational Studies, has been appointed Chancellor of Vancouver Island University. Atleo is currently the Regional Chief of B.C. to the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), and has been an elected member of the AFN Executive Committee since January 2004. He is a Hereditary Chief of the Ahousaht First nation.
For further information, visit http://www.mala.ca/mainly/page.asp?Story=&ID=1454.
HR releases Olympic volunteer statement
UBC Human Resources has developed a Volunteer Statement which provides guidelines for faculty and staff who wish to participate in the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games as volunteers.
To view the statement, visit http://www.hr.ubc.ca/.
Applications for volunteering are available online directly through VANOC at http://www.vancouver2010.com/en/Participation/VolunteerOpportunities.
Professor’s work part of sculpture exhibit in VanDusen Garden
Assoc. Prof. David Walker, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, is one of several sculptors whose work is part of an exhibition put on by the Sculptor’s Society of British Columbia at VanDusen Botanical Garden.
The Sculptors’ Society of B.C. was inaugurated by Group of Seven founder Lawren Harris and continues to foster excellence amongst its professional juried membership.
Date: July 11 – 20
Time: 10 a.m. – 9 p.m. daily (July 11 from noon)
Place: VanDusen Botanical Garden, 5251 Oak St.
Contact: Louise Solecki Weir (604-224-8697 or louisaweir@gmail.com) or Georgia Hunter (604-682-7654 or georgia_hunter@shaw.ca)
UBC hosts geochemistry conference
Prof. Dominique Weis, Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, will host the 2008 Goldschmidt Conference – the world’s premier geochemistry conference – held for the first time in Canada. Speakers include NASA’s David Des Marais on photosynthesis in deep time and space; University of Bristol’s Prof. Vala Ragnarsdottir, Department of Earth Sciences, on the Role of Geochemists in the Era of "Peak Everything"; Virginia Tech’s Prof. Michael Hochella, Department of Mineralogy and Geochemistry, on nanominerals; and ENS Lyon Prof. Francis Albarède, Department of Geochemistry, on the physics of the Earth’s mantle.
Date: July 13 – 18
Place: UBC campus
Info: http://www.goldschmidt2008.org/
Alumna Madeleine Thien reading at the Learning Centre
Born in Vancouver, Madeleine Thien is the youngest child of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants. Her first work of fiction, Simple Recipes, won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 2001 and was named a Kiriyama Prize notable book. That same year she published The Chinese Violin, a children’s book based on the true story of a young girl who emigrated from China with her father. Thien’s first novel, Certainty, was named a Kiriyama Prize finalist in the spring of 2007, just before it was published in the United States. Thien has also received the Canadian Author’s Association/Air Canada Award for the most promising writer under the age of 30.
Date: July 17
Time: 3 – 4 p.m.
Place: Lillooet Room (Room 301), Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall
Info: http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/ikblc/2008/06/madeleine_thien_july_17_2008_3.php
University administrators to gather at UBC
UBC is the official sponsor of the International Meeting of University Administrators (IMUA) 2008 conference in Vancouver this summer. The IMUA is a forum for the discussion of management and administration issues in higher education. This year’s theme is globalization.
Speakers include Prof. Bryan Gould, an international authority on higher education; Prof. Carl Wieman, Nobel Laureate and Director of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative at UBC; Prof. David Dolphin, Professor Emeritus in Chemistry at UBC and lead creator of Visudyne™.; Dr. Ron Dembo, founder of Zerofootprint; Prof. Rachel Gumbi, Rector and Vice Chancellor of the University of Zululand; and Dr. Dan Muzyka, Dean of the Sauder School of Business at UBC.
Date: Aug. 17-21
Time: 8:30 – 3:45
Place: Fairmont Hotel, 900 W. Georgia St.
Info: http://www.imua2008.ca/
