UBC This Week | Aug. 9, 2007

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.

Sign up for UBC This Week and other UBC Public Affairs e-mail services at www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/eservices.

Recent UBC Media Releases

• Aug. 8: UBC researcher suggests NZ fix for soaring Canadian Rx drug prices

Upcoming Event Highlights

• Aug. 14: Women's soccer v. Seattle at Wolfson Field
• Aug. 14: Office Ergonomics
• Aug. 16-17: Operating on Health Care

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 professor elected a Corresponding Fellow
• Educause award acknowledges UBC two years in a row
• Tale of Two Ians – hardly Mickey Mouse
• UBC Fisheries professors out to help our oceans
• Nobel Laureate to speak at UBC

UBC People

UBC professor elected a Corresponding Fellow

Prof. Derek Gregory, Department of Geography, has been elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. 48 new scholars were elected into the Fellowship for their academic achievements, 38 of whom are based in the UK and 10 overseas. Gregory is the only scholar working in Canada to be elected a Corresponding Fellow this year. Election to the Corresponding Fellowship is the highest honour that the Academy confers in recognition of scholarly distinction.

The British Academy, established by Royal Charter in 1902, is the United Kingdom’s national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.

For further details, see www.britac.ac.uk/news/release.asp?Newsid=258.

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Educause award acknowledges UBC two years in a row

The JA-SIG uPortal Project, the creator of a free web portal for higher education, has won the 2007 Educause Catalyst Award. UBC’s information technologists contributed at a number of levels, including governance, direction, design, development and ongoing support. myUBC, a web portal to help students and staff access the university’s information resources, was a direct result of the university’s involvement in the uPortal Project. 

In 2006, the Catalyst Award was presented to Course Management Systems, a number of initiatives that have had a major impact on post secondary education. Singled out for recognition was the development of WebCT at UBC, an online web-based course management system designed to allow students to communicate, chat, participate in discussions and submit assignments online.

Educause is a non-profit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

For more information on JA-SIG, visit www.ja-sig.org.

For more information on Educause, visit www.educause.edu/AwardRecipients/10957.

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A Tale of Two Ians – hardly Mickey Mouse

Theatre at UBC Alumnus Ian Giles, BFA Design & Production 2007, and BFA Design Candidate Ian Schimpf earned the Best in Show: Creative Innovation prize in Walt Disney Imagineering’s 16th ImagiNations design competition. ImagiNations is a program designed and sponsored by Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative arm of Disney Parks and Resorts, to encourage students and professionals to consider careers in creative and technical fields including digital arts, engineering, and architecture.

As one of eleven finalist teams selected from entries worldwide, Giles and Schimpf visited Disney Imagineering in Glendale California from July 16 to 27. Their proposal was called "Mickey's Stunt Pilot Academy" and casts guests as stunt pilots in a fictitious 1930's Mickey Mouse cartoon. Guests fly stunt planes through an environment that uses a combination of projections, live dimensional sets and special effects.

For more information, visit www.theatre.ubc.ca/awards.shtml.  

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UBC Fisheries professors out to help our oceans

Prof. Daniel Pauly, Director of UBC’s Fisheries Centre, Assoc. Prof. Ussif Rashid Sumaila and Assoc. Prof. and Canada Research Chair Amanda Vincent are the sources for three of 10 ways to help our oceans in a cover article for the most recent issue of Conservation Magazine, a publication of the Society for Conservation Biology.

The article is at: www.conbio.org/CIP/article30713.cfm.

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Nobel Laureate to speak at UBC

Derek Walcott, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, will give a reading and commentary at the Chan Centre at 6 p.m. on Aug. 17 as part of the inaugural evening of the Literature for fur Times conference. Walcott is the author of more than 28 books of poetry, essays and drama in Caribbean and World Literature.

Literature for our Times is a gathering of Commonwealth writers and scholars that takes place triennially. After 24 years, Canada takes its turn to host the conference, sponsored by the Association for Commonwealth Literary and Language Studies (ACLALS), from Aug. 17-22 at UBC. Tickets ($15) are available from the Chan Centre Ticket Office at 604-822-2697.

For more information, visit www.aclals.org.

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