US News & World Report, a leader in college and grad school rankings, has released its list of the world’s top universities for computer science based on reputation and research. UBC is ranked 19th. Click here for the complete list.
Nov 6, 2014
Acclaimed poet and UBC creative writing instructor Ken Babstock received the inaugural Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, which awards $25,000 to a writer with an exceptional body of work. Babstock also won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2012 for his collection Methodist Hatchet. Click here for more.
The Movember Foundation has awarded $150,000 to the Man/Art/Action project co-led by Tim Laidler, director of the Veterans Transition Network, and education professor Dr. Marvin Westwood with co-researcher Dr. George Belliveau.
Military men can experience high levels of mental distress and are unlikely to seek professional help. The project’s studio art and theatre interventions are meant to help them reinterpret their experiences in positive ways.
Each year, 3,500 Canadians die from influenza and 12,000 are hospitalized, but this month UBC Medicine, Nursing and Pharmaceutical students will help the campus community avoid the bug. From November 3 in the Okanagan and November 4 in Vancouver, 116 students will administer flu shots as part of UBC’s free flu immunization program for staff, faculty and students. Read more here.
A new learning approach was introduced at APSC 150 (Engineering Case Studies) this year. Students under Case I instructor Dr. Nobo Yonemitsu participated in hands-on design and real performance testing in place of traditional lectures and tutorials, and created poster presentations instead of taking quizzes to demonstrate understanding.
Yonemitsu developed the approach with help from integrated engineering students Jonathan Lassam and Nik Radosevic. Click here for more.
The UBC Students’ Union Okanagan (UBCSUO) referendum in mid-October asking students to financially support a library/learning centre expansion has passed with an 85 per cent yes vote.
The project will add 45,000 square feet of study and learning space, more than doubling the size of the existing library. Read more here.
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture graduates Arthur Leung and Matthew Beall took first and second prizes in Simon Fraser University’s RISE competition, which seeks out ideas for responding to rising sea levels in Metro Vancouver.
Leung proposed the use of “soft infrastructure” around deltaic landscapes instead of “hard infrastructure.” Beall suggested pairing the region’s sea-level rise response with welcoming and integrating global climate refugees. Click here for more.
The School of Community and Regional Planning is presenting two SCARP Lunchtime Dialogues:
• November 10 – User-Centred Transportation: A Cross-Discipline Dialogue, with Larry Frank (SCARP), Kay Teschke (Public Health) and Robin Lindsey (Sauder School of Business)
• November 12 – Therapeutic Landscapes and the Healthy City, with Clare Cooper Marcus (University of California, Berkeley)
Can art help the public to better understand science? How can scientists nurture their inner artist? These and other questions will be the subject of “Pure Beauty: Science and Your Inner Artist,” November 13 at the Beaty Museum. The panel includes microbiologists Patrick Keeling and Erick James, historian Robert Brain, and science student Paul Bucci. Click here for more info.
Eric Jarosinski, the brains behind the popular Twitter feed @NeinQuarterly and a self-identified “failed intellectual,” is hosting a presentation and discussion at St. John’s College on November 20. Jarosinski is an expert on modern German literature, culture, and critical theory. The event is co-sponsored by the Ziegler Fund in the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies (CENES), and the Department of Philosophy. Click here for more information.