Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College. Bioethics was born of the problem of "lifeboat ethics," the situation in which resource limits insist some must die that at least some others might live. The idea of scarcity as a natural condition is fundamental to current economic theory and to the ethics that has driven bioethics since the 1960s. In this lecture, we consider this idea and its medical application in law and history and medicine. It begins with the problems of the lifeboat and the great index case of US v Holmes in 1842. The relation of assumptions of scarcity to medicine and in ethics are critiqued through a reinvestigation of that case. Those lessons are then applied, in the end, to the general problems which are assumed to be resource-defined in medical ethics today as an example.

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College's Thematic Series: Bringing the Collective Together: Nonhuman Animals, Humans and Practice at the University. This series probes the questions of the value for humans of medical research on nonhuman animals, the value for nonhuman animals, and the role of culture and corporate interests in discourses on human disease and security. Each speaker will speak for 15 minutes followed by 30 minutes of discussion. This talk features: Fabio Rossi, Canada Research Chair in Regenerative Medicine, Medical Genetics, UBC; Bill Milsom, Zoology, UBC; Nelly Auersperg, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, UBC; Dan Weary, Animal Welfare Program, UBC.

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the Department of Education. This presentation explores the use of procedural poetics to enhance language and literacy education, in particular the teaching of writing, by developing strategic pedagogical interventions to direct language study while simultaneously providing students with opportunities to create remarkable literary works. Drawing on the range of rules and constraints utilized by the influential French movement called Oulipo, and in particular a schematic for potential literature suggested by Marcel Benabou (1986), an overview of possible writing strategies will be presented, with examples of processed poems performed. The liberating aspect of this form of creativity comes from focusing concentration on formal constraints thereby dislodging the self-conscious 'blocks' that can arise under pressure to be original and inspired. Instead, directed language play engenders mastery of difficult genres of composition by reinforcing linguistic understanding and giving aesthetic experience to the acquisition of new vocabulary. Aspects of personal preference and style become actively engaged in procedural writing and constraints can be used to strategically guide writing development with important implications for literacy and writing pedagogy.

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the Student Leadership Conference 2012. Rachel Lewis is Chief Operating Officer – Whitecaps FC, and has been in the field of sport and event management for nearly a decade, prior to joining the Vancouver Whitecaps FC in 2003 as director of event management and stadium development. In 2007, she assumed the role of Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining Whitecaps FC, Lewis spent three years with Vancouver’s PGA Tour Stop: the Air Canada Championship. As tournament director, she was responsible for overseeing all day-to-day operations. Lewis also represented BMO Financial Group as project manager for their sponsorship of the BMO Financial Group Canadian Women’s Open. She holds a BA (honours) from the University of Victoria and an MBA from the University of British Columbia. Lewis has a strong passion for community. She currently sits on the board of the Gastown Business Improvement Society, is a member of the International Women’s Forum, is a former Director of both Sport BC and Kidsport Canada, and is a former Trustee with the BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum. She also volunteered as a member of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007 Steering Committee. In 2008, Lewis was recognized as a recipient of the Business in Vancouver “40 Under 40” awards, while in 2011, she was named one of “BC’s 100 Women of Influence” by The Vancouver Sun.

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College. Beaver and Bieber notwithstanding, Canada is best known for being big. Yet few scholars have thought to ask what Canadians have thought of living in a big country or how size has informed the nation’s development? This talk will begin with an exploration of the “aboriginal ecumene” to introduce and consider questions of territoriality. It will then turn to the growing recognition—among European explorers, missionaries, settlers, and soldiers—of the size of the place, and what that meant to the colonial project. How for example, did 17th century Jesuits convey to French readers what a 1,200-km canoe trip from Quebec to Huronia entailed. Then the focus shifts to the territorial expansions of the past 250 years that made Canada’s boundaries what they are today. Size was not everything when a land’s resources were essentially only valuable to the extent that they could be transported efficiently, which tended to mean by water, so how were the territorial expansions viewed? Was there only a dawning general realization of expansion’s great value, even when there were no immediate plans for the land, or were there always a few forward-looking folks who took quiet delight as the boundaries of this political jurisdiction grew larger and larger? The period from the 1840s to 1880 is critical in this history, in that it saw the rapid consolidation and articulation of an almost unprecedented amount of land under the control of a single nation-state. Finally, the talk will explore how Canada turned its colonial impulse inward in the 20th century, to develop its territories economically and politically, before pondering the meaning of Canada’s size today, particularly under the specter of climate change. How will Canada’s “useable” area change—especially in comparison with other nations, and perhaps especially the U.S.—and what will that mean to its future, and, for that matter, to its understanding of its history?

Webcast sponsored by Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Mathabo Tsepa completed her PhD in Environmental Education with Dr. Nashon in the Dept of Curriculum & Pedagogy. Her work connected the National University of Lesotho and UBC to promote the exchange of cutting edge best practice research and policies about learning regions. She was also involved in the UBC Go Global program. By stressing Africa's impact on western higher education, the Africa Awareness Initiative (AAI) hopes that the university realizes the necessity of a stable African Studies Program. The presence of such notable speakers on campus shows that the University of British Columbia shows its continued dedication to follow through with the complete and justified 'creation of global citizens.'

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by Green College's Population Health Series. This study asks whether obesity is associated with young women's life course childbearing experiences. Weight is a physical status with important biological and social components that is linked to several proximate determinants of fertility. As such, negative consequences of obesity may accumulate over the life course leading obese young women to be stratified into disadvantaged positions for childbearing. This leads to hypotheses that obese young women have fewer children, a higher risk of remaining childless and later timing of first birth than their non-obese counterparts. Twenty-three years of data from a sample of NLSY79 female respondents who were ages 20 to 24 in 1981 are analyzed to test these hypotheses, which are all supported. In fact, obese women's predicted probability of remaining childless is almost the same as their probability of winning a coin toss. Their estimated probability for giving birth in each study year is even lower. Results confirm obese young women's position of disadvantage for childbearing and suggest that negative consequences of obesity accumulate across a life domain that is incredibly important for the vast majority of American women.