UBC Reports | Vol. 47 | No. 04 | Feb. 22, 2001

Headliners

Experts raise level of key public debates

The following excerpts feature some of the many members of the campus community who have recently shared their expertise with local and national news media.

Lead Time, UBC Public Affairs' on-line guide to UBC experts at www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/experts/ fielded more than 590 inquiries from the media last month.

Invest for a non-Third-World future

The Vancouver Sun, Jan. 26, A17, Editorial

If you are concerned about negative impacts of the oft-publicized brain drain, what you have read is nothing compared to what could happen at B.C. universities and colleges within a decade...

Without an excellent academic community, it is virtually impossible to make pioneering discoveries, transform them into innovative technologies, and thereby create economic opportunities that will continue to support our enlightened social programs.

Failure to do so may mean telling our children they are better off pursuing their education and creative aspirations elsewhere. Then, like many Third World nations, our most tragic export will be our brains. John Steeves, professor and director of CORD at UBC.

It's just a matter of time

The National Post, Jan. 29, C12

People toying with the prospect of juggling a job and university studies often ask... should they take their degree part-time or leave their job and pursue classes full-time?

Andrew Arida, co-ordinator of Student Recruitment at the University of British Columbia, suggests people decide what is best for their personality and lifestyle.

"The key is to do stuff that you are comfortable with and to work at a comfortable pace. Diving headlong into it is great for some people but for others you are going to need to kind of slowly work yourself into it," Mr. Arida says.

Canada's `time warp'

Ottawa Citizen, A1, Feb. 15

President George W. Bush's choice of Mexico rather than Canada for his first foreign visit is a "wake-up call" for Canadians, says former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy...

"We've been too reliant on the historical perception that we have a `special relationship' with the United States," said Mr. Axworthy, who is now director of the University of British Columbia's Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues.

"We need to broaden our perspective, priorities and policies into a North American context."

Study probes organ donation impediments

The Vancouver Sun, A5, Jan. 30

Anecdotes abound about the apparent incompatibility between some ethnic groups and organ donation, but finally, B.C. researchers are setting out to gauge the actual attitudes and beliefs among some of the province's largest minorities.

Michael McDonald, director of the University of B.C.'s Centre for Applied Ethics, said that in some ethno-cultures, there is a reluctance to consider donating organs because of a belief that it may interfere with "bodily integrity and wholeness after death."