Welcome for new students planned

For the 5,000 first-year students entering UBC this fall, the first day of classes should be an enriching experience. Organizers of the university's first campus-wide welcome certainly hope so.

"Right now what new students get is a very, very large student number," says Alison Dunnet, a third-year political science student and co-chair of the planned orientation day. "We'd like to give people a more personal connection with UBC on their first day."
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Feminist Legal Studies Centre founded

UBC will play a major role in advancing feminist legal scholarship in B.C. with the creation of a new Centre for Feminist Legal Studies.

Both Senate and the Board of Governors recently approved a proposal to establish the centre, which will focus on interdisciplinary research and teaching in the areas of feminist legal theory and analysis, including equality, human rights, family law, criminal law, taxation and mental health law.
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South American bird heading for market

Maybe tinamou doesn't immediately come to mind as you scan the menu of your favourite eatery, looking for something new to try. But Canadians may soon be feasting on the tender relative of the ostrich and emu, thanks to a team of UBC researchers.
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'Cleaner air' bus hits UBC roads for test runs

The 1981 GMC bus parked behind UBC's Dept. of Mechanical Engineering looks, sounds and performs like a regular diesel-powered transit coach with three notable exceptions.

Powered by a unique natural gas injection system, the vehicle emits half the pollutants and costs close to half as much to fuel as its gas-guzzling counterparts. And then there's the paint job.
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Interactive Web toolkit delivers courses on-line

Computer Science instructor Murray Goldberg has created a niche for himself on campus--actually, on the World Wide Web.

Two years ago, Goldberg received a grant to put his third-year operating systems course on the Web, complete with interactive exercises, on-line testing and e-mail chat. Last term alone the site had 8,000 sign-ons.

Goldberg has since designed an interactive tool which allows teachers without technical expertise to create sophisticated, web-based presentations of their own courses.
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Scientists in hunt for new schizophrenia treatment

A UBC neuroscientist has received a $300,000 grant to take a new look at how schizophrenia is affected by dopamine, the natural chemical that regulates brain activity.
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Star athletes earn Big Block honour

Jenny Rauh and Bob Beveridge were named UBC's top athletes for 1996/97 at the annual Big Block Athletic Awards Banquet March 26. At the banquet, 130 students were made Big Block members for having met the requirement of competing for two years on a UBC Thunderbird team.
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Program seeks graduate interns

UBC is co-ordinating a six-month internship program in Asia for 30 university graduates interested in sustainable development. The internships begin this September.

Wayne Nelles, program director, said participants will be selected from diverse academic backgrounds and should have a demonstrated interest in environmental and international development issues.
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