UBC
November

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Think About It


Survey ranks UBC tops for reputation

UBC claimed the top spot for best overall reputation among Canadian medical/doctoral universities, according to Maclean's magazine's annual ranking of Canadian universities.
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Campus fund boosts humanities research

UBC researchers in the social sciences and humanities are finding opportunities to undertake new research projects or projects outside their recognized fields of expertise with support from the Hampton Research Fund.
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Australian Studies a first for Canada

A Centre for Australian Studies -- the first of its kind in Canada -- will be created at UBC in collaboration with post-secondary institutions in Australia and with the support of the private sector.
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Economics study reaps million-dollar funding

The distribution of material well-being in Canada and Canadians' attitudes towards inequality and related public policies, are among the subjects of a UBC-led interdisciplinary research project that recently won a $1.25 million grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

Bernie Bressler, vice-president, Research, called the SSHRC award "a significant achievement for UBC."
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Breakthrough could lead to E. coli vaccine

A new understanding of how E. coli bacteria bond to host cells may lead to the creation of a vaccine against strains of the bacteria that cause potentially fatal diarrhea in children, as well as hamburger disease, salmonella and dysentery.
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Student fellowship lasting APEC legacy

UBC has announced the creation of an APEC Graduate Fellowship established with $250,000 from the President's Fund, an endowment which supports various campus initiatives.
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Pigskin T-Birds triumph in Vanier Cup victory

For the first time in a decade, the UBC Thunderbirds have brought home the holy grail of Canadian university football, the Vanier Cup. The T-Birds defeated the Ottawa Gee Gees 39-23 in the Canadian Interuniversity Athletics Union (CIAU) championship game in Toronto Nov. 22.
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Business ethics not a cut and dried issue, says chair

When an employee of a local firm was caught on video stealing a pickup truck full of goods from his company's depot, he was fired immediately. But the union grieved on his behalf, and reluctantly, the company gave him his job back.

Assoc. Prof. Wayne Norman, the first holder of the Centre for Applied Ethics' Chair in Business Ethics in the Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, has been confronting his MBA students with real-life scenarios such as this one, which was discovered by one of Norman's colleagues.
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Shootout unfit end for would-be soccer champs

Sports quiz. In what sport can a team out-shoot an opponent 20-0 and still lose?

The answer is soccer, and members of the UBC Thunderbirds men's team are still shaking their heads after a penalty kick loss to the McGill Redmen in the finals of the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union (CIAU) soccer championship tournament in Halifax earlier this month.
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Campus' modernist jewels on display in VAG show

The construction of the Wesbrook Building in 1947 was an important milestone in UBC's architectural history. It was the first of many modernist buildings constructed on campus during the city's modernist era.

Among the buildings now considered gems of the era are War Memorial Gymnasium (1949), Buchanan Building (1956), the Lasserre Fine Arts and Architecture Building (1958) and the Koerner Graduate Student Centre (1959).
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Book buyer pens journal to aid fellow cancer patients

As senior general book buyer for the UBC Bookstore, Jennifer Pike knows you can't tell a book by its cover.

Unless you wrote it yourself.
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Agricultural Sciences? Think again, says dean

Agricultural Sciences. What does that mean to you?

Chances are, says the faculty's new dean, Moura Quayle, the impression that many people have of the faculty poorly reflects the range of expertise and activity within its variety of programs and departments.
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Student spends spare time fighting famine

Spending three months fending off starvation in a war-ravaged African country isn't anyone's idea of a summer holiday.

Yet second-year medical student Simon Pulfrey didn't hesitate to spend his summer organizing feeding centres in the former Zaire in central Africa.
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New Science Chairs support marine, minerals and bio-chemistry research

Three professors in the Faculty of Science have been appointed to new chairs in minerals and the environment, biological chemistry, and the ocean environment.
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