February 2007
Feb. 1, 2007
Local women’s volleyball MVP commits to WolfPackKAMLOOPS-TRU WolfPack women’s volleyball coach announced her newest recruit today.
Amanda Frayne, a Sa-Hali Secondary student who has played volleyball at school since grade six and club volleyball since grade seven, has committed to the WolfPack for its 2007-08 season.
The Grade 12 student, who has achieved first-class honours throughout high school, and will be studying sciences at TRU, has received numerous athletic awards as well.
This year’s team Captain, Amanda accompanied her team to provincial finals in Grades 10, 11 and 12 and was named Female Athlete of the Year from grades 8 through 11.
In addition, she has won All-star/MVP awards at the Vernon, UBCO and Valleyview tournaments, was named Kamloops Volleyball Association MVP from grades 9-11, and was a member of the Zone 2 volleyball team which competed at the 2004 BC Summer Games in Abbotsford, where her team finished 4th.
She was a member of the U16 Team BC in 2005, and a member of the 2006 U17/U18 Team BC. Amanda also volunteered as assistant coach of the junior girls’ volleyball team at Sa-Hali Secondary in 2006, and has been a local-level referee since 2005.
“We are thrilled that Amanda has decided to attend TRU and join the WolfPack volleyball team,” said WolfPack head coach Carrie Barrett. “Amanda is a terrific student athlete who has the potential to impact our program’s future successes. I look forward to working with her,” she added.
Asked why she chose to play for the WolfPack, the outside hitter, who stands 5’11”, has a spike reach of 9’8” and plays both volleyball and basketball for her high school, said “Carrie has been part of my volleyball since grade 8.”
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For more information, please contact
Carrie Barrett (head coach, women’s volleyball) at 250-318-0789
Feb. 7, 2007
TRU offers free international trade seminar next MondayKAMLOOPS-TRU’s School of Business & Economics and the
Forum for International Trade Training (FITT) will present a free International Trade information session next Monday.
The information seminar will focus on the merits of obtaining a Certified International Trade Professional (CITP) designation, a prestigious credential which attests to individuals' solid international business skills and experience and the highest level of professional accreditation available to international business and trade professionals in Canada.
"FITT was established in 1992 to address the need for certification and top-quality training programs in global business. We have quickly become the leading organization in the world (and the only organization in Canada) to accredit a professional designation - the Certified International Trade Professional (CITP) - to international trade practitioners, and have built over a decade of success in curriculum development,” explained Darcy Ferron, CITP - Director, Business Development for FITT.
“Our mission is to prepare individuals and businesses to compete in global markets. We do this by partnering with over 60 educational institutions across Canada in the delivery of our core program, FITTskills, or by recognizing the partner’s educational program as meeting some or all of the CITP competencies," he said.
TRU is an educational partner with FITT and offers courses that lead to this valuable designation, including Marketing Research, International Business, International Marketing, Global Management, International Trade Finance, International Trade Law and Logistics and Global Entrepreneurship.
Local businesspeople and others interested in the growing field of international trade who would like to explore the possibility of obtaining the CITP designation, or find out more about FITT, are invited to attend the seminar, which will be held at 5:30 pm Feb. 12 in TRU’s Old Main Building, Room 2621.
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For more information, please call Giuseppe Liberatore (School of Business and Economics) at 250-828-5257 or check the FITT website at:
www.fitt.ca
Feb. 7, 2007
TRU students set to help prepare 85,000 mealsKAMLOOPS-Ten TRU students will take their cooking skills on the road this semester—the ice roads of the Yukon to be exact.
The students, all in Levels 2 and 3 of TRU’s Culinary Arts Program, along with Chair Kimberly Johnstone and instructor Derrick Moffat, will be in Whitehorse Feb. 22 through Mar. 9, preparing meals for the athletes and volunteers at the 2007 Canada Winter Games Athlete’s Village.
This is the first time Games organizers have called upon the skills of students in culinary arts programs. TRU’s students will join students from Northern Lights College, Northwest Community College, Malaspina University College and Yukon College, for a total of 65 student chefs and eight chef instructors, who will prepare the food for athletes and their coaches alongside 95 other food-service volunteers.
During a regular day at TRU the students are responsible for 300 to 350 meals per day, Monday to Friday in the university’s culinary arts cafeteria. For the Games, they will be feeding upwards of 1,700 at each meal at the main kitchen at Yukon College and several off-site facilities, working over 100 hours each to prepare over 85,000 meals during the 17 days of the Games.
“It will be an amazing experience for our students,” said Johnstone. “Not only will they learn first-hand the logistics of preparing so many meals, they will have full access to all the sporting venues and an expense-paid trip to Canada’s North.”
As great fun as a northern field trip may be, Moffat and Johnstone are making sure there is a course component.
“We looked at the menu and schedule in November in order to ensure the students will receive as much experience in the different styles of food preparation as possible,” Moffat said.
“They’ll be working at production prep, handling large volume thermal systems, buffet set up and service, as well as cook-to-order stations like stir-fry, pasta bars, deli bars and omelet breakfast stations, where the students will cook to order in front of the guests,” he added.
“The quality of food at the Whitehorse Athletes’ Village will surpass that provided at any Canada Games to date,” said Stu Mackay, Yukon College’s Dean of Professional Studies, who has been instrumental in developing the culinary arts collaboration. “None of these chefs are novices and they’ll be putting in long hours during the Games.”
Depending on the meal they are assigned to prepare, the students’ days could start as early as 5 am and end as late as 9 pm. Students will also have to keep up with course work as well with daily debriefs and Web CT assignments.
But it won’t be all work. For the few spare hours the students will have, Games organizers have arranged a dogsled tour for them to see the highlights of Whitehorse, and the student chefs will also have the opportunity to participate in recreational activities at the Athletes’ Village, view some athletic competitions and experience Yukon hospitality.
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For more information, please contact Kimberley Johnstone at 828-5356.
February 7, 2007
Award-winning photojournalist holds workshop at TRUKAMLOOPS-Award-winning filmmaker and photojournalist Elaine Brière, whose photographs have appeared in magazines and newspapers in Canada, the US and abroad, and whose film, “Bitter Paradise: The Sell-out of East Timor” won Best Political Documentary at the l997 Toronto HOT DOCS! film festival, will conduct a two-day workshop at TRU next week.
Aimed at teaching the fundamentals of long-form photojournalism, the workshop, Making it Work and Making it Pay, to be conducted over two days from 9 am to 5 pm Feb. 10 and Feb. 11, will enable students to create a documentary project of their own from start to finish.
Students will explore how the immediate and personal nature of documentary work allows complex political and social issues to be expressed in a vital and accessible manner, and will learn how to workshop story ideas and define the parameters of a project when working without an assignment, how to structure a visual narrative, including fundamentals of storytelling, shooting strategies and editing procedures, how to access subjects, including gaining official permission and the importance of building relationships, how to fund personal work, including media publication, grants and foundations and working with NGOs and other non-traditional sources, and how to publish in today’s marketplace, including: print media, book industry, film industry, the Internet, galleries and exhibitions.
The workshop, non-credit TRU continuing education course, is offered at $25 for students and $150 for community members. Those wishing more information may call 371-5516. To register, call 828-5035 or 828-5041.
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For more information, please contact Shawn Thompson at 371-5516.
Feb. 8, 2007
Satisfaction survey suggests arts critical to quality of lifeKAMLOOPS-A research team led by Research Director Dr. Will Garrett-Petts of Thompson Rivers University is now ready to share preliminary descriptive results from a five-community Arts and Quality of Life Survey.
The largest ever undertaken anywhere on the impact of arts-related activities on quality of life, the survey, conducted by TRU honorary doctor and UNBC professor emeritus Dr. Alex Michalos, is part of a set of projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council through its Community-University Research grants program aimed at creating an index to measure quality of life in small cities.
"Over the next two years, we will have about 20 projects going," explained Garrett-Petts, who oversees the research program, providing intellectual direction for all the research projects and bringing them together into a coherent whole.
Together with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Creative City Network, the Canadian Council on Social Development, and over 20 other community partners, Thompson Rivers University's researchers are in the process of establishing new instruments for measuring the cultural, social, economic, and environmental health of small cities.
"The range of projects could be described as sinking different shafts into the same mine," said Garrett-Petts, who explained that researchers will be using various disciplinary methods to better understand culture of small cities and how social, cultural, environmental development can best be measured.
Michalos' mineshaft involved a survey last fall of 2000 randomly selected households in five BC communities. Householders in Comox Valley, Prince George, Nanaimo, Kamloops and Port Moody, were sent surveys specific to each community, of which 1027 responded. Breakdowns for each community will be available around mid-April, when the group will also undertake a province-wide survey.
"In the survey, we refer to arts in a very broad sense to include such things as music, dance, theatre, painting, sculpture, pottery, literature, including novels, short stories, and poetry, photography, quilting, gardening, flower arranging, textile and fabric art," said Michalos.
Survey respondents, of whom two-thirds were women of about 53 years of age, a third of whom had a university degree, "are not likely to be representative of each community," he explained, adding, "It is fair to say that those who responded to the survey had some interest in the arts."
Sixty-seven arts related activities were identified in the survey and respondents were asked to indicate average numbers of hours or times per year that they participated in each, and then rate their average levels of satisfaction with each activity on a seven-point scale running from very dissatisfied to very satisfied.
The weekly activity with the greatest number of participants (917=90%) was listening to music, followed by reading novels (705=69%) and watching movies on video/dvd (422=41%). On average, respondents listened to music about 13 hours per week, and had an average level of satisfaction of 5.9 out of 7.0. Reading novels averaged 8.5 hours per week with a 6.2 average level of satisfaction.
Among activities engaged in a relatively few times per year, the greatest number of participants (657=64%) listed going to movies, followed by going to concerts (612=60%) and attending community festivals (557=54%). Average times per year engaged in movie-going was 5.9, with an average satisfaction level of 5.4. Average times per year going to concerts was 4, with an average satisfaction level of 6.1.
Interestingly, 917 music listeners scored the second highest average number of hours per week (13), likely because people often listen to music while participating in other activities or performing other tasks.
When asked where people first learned about their most important arts-related activity, 51% said in school and 30% said listening to a parent. Apparently one way to kill arts-related activities would be to drop them from our school curricula. On average, people were about 13 years old when they first learned about their most important arts-related activity.
There were 45 statements about beliefs and feelings about art, and these will be used to construct indexes as our analyses proceed, e.g., Index of Arts as Health Enhancers, as Community Builders and so on. However, here are some examples of specific items.
Ninety percent of respondents agreed that "my artistic activities have a positive effect upon my life," eighty-nine percent agreed that "my artistic activities contribute to my emotional wellbeing," ninety percent agreed that "attractive buildings/architecture are important for a community," and eighty percent agreed (55.7%) or strongly agreed (24.1%) that "artistic activity strengthens a community."
As usual for practically any surveyed population in the world, highest average levels of satisfaction were reported for one's living partner, 6.2 out of 7.0, and average scores for satisfaction with life as a whole were 5.7, for happiness 5.9 and for satisfaction with the overall quality of life, 5.8.
Lowest average levels of satisfaction were reported for government officials; 3.4 for provincial officials, 3.5 for federal and 3.8 for local officials.
"Governments at all levels tend to be public punching bags in satisfaction surveys," said Michalos.
The Mapping Quality of Life and the Culture of Small Cities CURA is a five-year research initiative funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thompson Rivers University was awarded $1,000,000 in May last year.
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For more information, please contact:
Dr. W.F. Garrett-Petts (Director the Small Cities CURA, TRU) at 250-828-5248 or
by email.
Dr. Alex C. Michalos (Director, Institute for Social Research and Evaluation, UNBC) at 250-962-8719 or
by email.
Feb. 12, 2007
TRU hosts free talk by Doctors without Borders Canada founderKAMLOOPS-As part of its President’s Lecture Series 2007, TRU will host a free talk by the founder of Doctors without Borders Canada, Dr. Richard Heinzl, at 7 pm Thursday, Mar. 1 in the university’s Grand Hall, located in the Campus Activity Centre.
Dr. Richard Heinzl began the work of creating a Canadian chapter of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Doctors without Borders in 1985 while still a resident at the University of Toronto’s Women's College Hospital. In 1988 his dream became a reality shortly after he graduated from McMaster University’s medical school, and upon receiving a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard University in 1990, he became the organization's first field volunteer, working in Cambodia, Turkey, Iraq and Mozambique.
Dr. Heinzl, who speaks five languages, has travelled to 45 countries. He has received numerous awards and citations, including being named to Report on Business Magazine's prestigious Top 40 Under-40 List. Since its inception, Doctors without Borders Canada has sent more than 650 medical and non-medical volunteers, including nearly 200 physicians, overseas to the world's most vulnerable people, and has volunteer-staffed offices in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax and Ottawa.
The former CEO of Toronto-based CardioView Inc., an information technology company in the field of cardiology, Dr. Heinzl is also Vice President of Vivid Health Solutions which creates motion picture and new media solutions for the health sciences. His latest venture, MediSpecialist.com, is a project involving the creation of a web site linking doctors around the world.
The public is invited to hear this inspirational speaker as he relates “The Doctors without Borders Story.” Admission is free (no tickets required), but seating is limited.
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For more information, please contact Maryanne Bower at 250-828-5318.
Feb. 16, 2007
Local artist featured on BRAVOKAMLOOPS-A half-hour documentary film on the work of local artist and Thompson Rivers University faculty member Donald Lawrence will be broadcast at 4 pm Feb. 28 on BRAVO.
Produced by Regina’s “
291 Film Company” as part of their “
Landscape as Muse” series, the film, which, according to the film company’s website, “explores the connection between art and environment through two main components, the artist and his/her process, and the geography/location,” features Lawrence’s Underwater Pinhole Photography Project, a body of work that has been exhibited across Canada, including at the Kamloops Art Gallery in 2002, and which has been the subject of two exhibition catalogues and several reviews.
Lawrence worked with the film crew on location this past summer in the Deer Group Islands near Bamfield on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Lawrence used a “Hammer” folding kayak which he outfitted for the needs of his Underwater Pinhole Photography.
“This eastern European kayak is 30 years or so old and typifies the type that I have previously taken on solo trips to such places as Maine and Scotland’s Outer Hebrides,” explained the artist, who teaches in TRU’s Visual Arts program and is the Lead Researcher of a Research/Creation grant awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
In the body of work to be broadcast, Lawrence use pinhole cameras which he designed and constructed to photograph the anemones and starfishes that inhabit the shallow intertidal waters of BC’s coastal waters. Pinhole cameras are typically simple homemade adaptations of such things as shoeboxes and tin cans. By contrast, Lawrence’s cameras are complex constructions, sculptural works in themselves, a collage of everything from yacht fittings to common plumbing fittings. Together with other objects that he has created to take his underwater pinhole photographs, the design and use of these cameras speaks to his interest in the meeting place of urban and wilderness culture.
In keeping with the theme of the Landscape as Muse series such activities speak to Lawrence’s interest in the coming together of his practice as an artist and his interest in wilderness landscapes. The documentary relates his
Underwater Pinhole Photography project to the history and broader scope of his artistic practice.
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For more information or for images, please contact Donald Lawrence at 250-574-0223. Please note that Mr. Lawrence is available for interviews Feb. 16-18 only.
Feb. 16, 2007
TRU Small Cities group to participate in KAG Mayor’s Panel
KAMLOOPS- CURA researchers involved in the Small Cities Community-University Research Alliance project related to quality of life in small cities will participate in and videotape the upcoming Cities of Canada show and the Mayors Panel to be presented by the
Kamloops Art Gallery Feb. 22.
The show and panel is part of the Kamloops Art Gallery's ongoing partnership with the Small Cities CURA; the Art Gallery was the lead partner with an earlier research program, and continues as a key community research partner with the recently funded
"Mapping Quality of Life and the Culture of Small Cities" CURA.
"Thompson Rivers University is proud to be working with the Kamloops Art Gallery on both this event and our ongoing research into the role of art and cultural sustainability in small cities," said CURA Research Director Will Garrett-Petts.
“The panel relates to our Cities of Canada show, which I booked several years ago as a direct link to the CURA, and our on-going discussions around art and culture in building cities,” explained KAG Executive Director Jann Bailey.
Asking “How can arts, culture, and heritage contribute to our cities' futures?” the KAG invites the public to join mayors Terry Lake (Kamloops), John Ranta (Cache Creek), Ella Brown (Logan Lake) and David Laird (Merritt) in taking their imagination fifty years into the future to help envision cities of the TNRD in the year 2056 related to urban development and the arts.
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For more information, please contact Dr. Will Garrett-Petts at 250-828-5248 or by
email.CURA podcasts are available via the CURA website at:
www.smallcities.ca
Feb. 16, 2007
TRU research chair to discuss networked surveillance at workshop next week
KAMLOOPS-TRU Canada Research Chair in E-Learning Practices Norm Friesen will present a workshop discussion in a controversial subject next week when he travels to Burnaby to participate in the "(Re)Inventing the Internet: Critical Case Studies," a one-day workshop featuring cutting-edge research related to Applied Communication & Technology (ACT) to be held at the Segal School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Feb. 23.
Friesen will present as part of the 11:15 am panel, “Whose Internet? Agency and activism in cyberspace,” speaking on “Networked Surveillance and User Agency: A Phenomenological Approach.”
"Networked surveillance refers to video cameras and other devices like motion detectors that are connected up through the Internet or some other big network to allow for easy remote monitoring,” explained Friesen.
“Especially relevant would be everyday examples like nannycams, which are webcams used to monitor what the babysitter is doing, or surveillance at ATM machines which also involve ‘dataveillance,’ which is surveillance through records of transactions and other kinds of computer data,” he added.
Friesen will discuss these forms of surveillance in relation to ‘user agency,’ which refers to what people who are under surveillance, or caught in legal and other relations through surveillance can or can't do about it.
“We can, for example, disrupt the behaviour patterns that people fall into in situations of surveillance,” said Friesen. “For instance, one website encourages cinema-goers to snap a photo of the warnings that appear at the beginning of movies. These warnings generally forbid any photographic reproduction of what is shown in the cinema, and the flash going off in the theatre at this moment of ‘public browbeating’ is a symbolic protest that can at least provoke laughter, and hopefully dispel a feeling of complete and utter impotence.”
To discuss this new and sometimes unsettling ‘watchdog’ reality, Friesen uses a phenomenological approach, which is the philosophy and study of lived experience, particularly related to how people experience everyday things in terms of their bodies, experience of time and space, and how they experience "others" in their relations.
“It doesn't so much see these things as personal or subjective, but emphasizes that we share experiences of these things through our common involvement in a shared world of experience, called the ‘lifeworld,’” he explained.
Other presentations include “Hacking for Social Justice: Tech Activists, Wikis and IMC,” “Online Education: The Human Factor” and “Internet at Play: Music and Games Online.”
Friesen’s findings and other event presentations are based on contributions to the upcoming Applied Communication Technology (ACT) Lab book, currently being co-edited by Dr. Friesen and Dr. Andrew Feenberg, Canada Research Chair in the Philosophy of Technology (SFU), and expected to be released in 2008.
Admission to the workshop, co-sponsored by SFU’s School of Communication and the Institute for the Humanities, is free, but reservations are required. Potential participants may call 604-268-7845 to reserve seats.
Through collaboration with BCcampus, workshop organizers will also video-podcast the workshop at a later date.
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For more information, please contact Dr. Norm Friesen at 250-377-6256 or by
email, or go to:
http://learningspaces.org/n/
Feb. 21, 2007
TRU athlete wins Canada West rookie honoursKAMLOOPS-Thompson Rivers University WolfPack athlete Robin Schoebel has been named the 2007 Canada West Rookie of the Year.
Schoebel, selected by head coaches across the conference, came to TRU from Beausoleil, France, last fall to take an outside hitter position with the WolfPack in his first year of CIS play.
The talented young arts student, who came to TRU after logging 65 matches with the U-18 French national team, ranked among the leaders in several categories during conference play, picking up 4.10 points/set to finish fourth in the league, along with making 3.42 kills/set, seventh-best in the conference, and 0.27 aces/set (9th).
“Robin is planning on staying in Canada over the summer and will return to the WolfPack in the fall. I think that to find someone of his ability and desire to be here for five years is certainly exceptional, and someone you can build a winning program around,” said WolfPack men’s volleyball head coach Patrick Hennelly.
“As he became acclimatized to our systems and a new country and being a student athlete, he definitely got stronger as the year went on and his results in the second half of the season were even better. Finishing with his Friday night result vs Winnipeg in the post-season, scoring 32 points (26 kills, 3 aces, 10 digs and 3 blocks) was an exceptional performance for any athlete in volleyball, much less a first-year athlete,” added Hennelly.
Schoebel helped TRU to a 6-12 record this season, a vast improvement from the 1-19 mark the WolfPack had in its first CIS season, and his outstanding 22-kill performance in the WolfPack’s penultimate regular-season match vs the Calgary Dinos was crucial to securing the ‘Pack the final playoff spot in Canada West.
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For more information, please contact Patrick Hennelly at 250-572-6619.
February 22, 2007
TRU the place to be March 10th KAMLOOPS-Who cares if the groundhog’s still hiding in the windy month of March? TRU will be featuring fun for everyone Saturday, March 10th.
The latest in marine, automotive and industrial robotic technology will be on display while pastry chefs demonstrate their artistic skills at the TRU Techno Expo and competitors watch as their popsicle-stick bridges bend and break under hydraulic pressure.
The Expo, which will be held next Saturday in conjunction with the annual university-hosted Cariboo Regional Skills Competitions and Popsicle Stick Bridge Contest, was originally conceived as an open house to give parents and teacher-sponsors something to do on campus while high school students from six school districts within the Cariboo Skills Region compete in automotive, welding, joinery, electronics, carpentry and culinary arts from 9 am to 3:30 pm.
Starting at 9 am, both the Trades and Technology and Culinary Arts Centres will be open, and the public is invited to take in activities and displays both inside and outside the buildings.
The compound outside the Trades and Technology Centre will be filled with trucks, cars, boats, ATVs and other outdoor power equipment displayed by 23 regional businesses; meanwhile, inside the building, students and faculty from mechanical, electrical and electronics programs will demonstrate industrial robots, electromagnetism and other wonders of technology. Over in TRU’s Culinary Arts Centre, pastry chefs will entertain with sugar sculpting and chocolate decorating.
From 10 am to 3:30 pm, competitors in the 4th annual Popsicle-Stick Bridge Contest will be crossing their fingers and holding their breath as they watch to see how much pressure the bridges they constructed out of 100 popsicle sticks held together with white glue can take. For some, it’s over half a ton: the winning bridge out of a total of 72 entries last year took 1,070 lbs of pressure before giving way.
And on the other side of the curriculum, and in keeping with TRU’s comprehensive mandate, students from TRU’s academic programs will gather in the International Building to present papers and discuss scholarly topics at the 2nd annual Undergraduate Conference. Students from all backgrounds and disciplines in the arts and sciences will give papers or make other presentations discussing and sharing their intellectual experiences and opinions with their peers. Members of the public interested in attending may contact Kelly-Anne at 377-6074.
The TRU food kiosk will be open for service from 9 am to 3 pm.
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For more info, please contact
Techno Expo & Skills Competition: Al Green at 828-5107 or green@tru.ca or check out:
TRU Trades Skills.
Popsicle Bridge Contest: Ben Giudici at 250-828-5108
Undergrad Conference: Kelly-Anne Maddox at 377-6074
February 23, 2006
TRU celebrates 10th Canadian Studies DayKAMLOOPS-The public is invited to join TRU’s Canadian Studies Program’s celebration of its tenth anniversary Monday, March 12th.
Dr. Robert MacKinnon, now Dean of Arts at the University of New Brunswick, St. John, has returned to TRU to deliver a topic of special local interest, a comparison of the small cities of Kamloops and St. John entitled "Eastern and Western Rambles: A Comparison of Life and Work in a Maritime and a Western Canadian City" from 12:30 to 2:30 in room 1008 of the International Building.
A public reception in the TRU art gallery will follow Dr. MacKinnon’s talk.
“As the lead researcher and co-director of a Community University Research Alliance project entitled ‘The Industrial City in Transition: A Cultural and Environmental Inventory of Greater Saint John,’ and a former Kamloopsian, Dr. MacKinnon is eminently qualified to speak about small cities,” said event co-organizer anne Gagnon of the program’s co-founder, who in the 1990s led a (then-UCC) committee in the creation of a CNST program.
Dr. MacKinnon’s internationalization initiatives led to formal student exchange agreements between TRU and three German universities. These in turn led to Robert’s own guest professorship at the University of Bonn, followed by six guest professorships at German universities by three CNST professors. In addition, CNST faculty have organized three TRU visiting professorships from European scholars - the first of their kind at this university - and are currently organizing an electronic art exhibit involving former TRU students and exchange students who are now in graduate studies programs in Canada and abroad.
“The program was founded with three objectives, to foster student development through experiential learning and interdisciplinarity, to enhance student and faculty research opportunities and to develop the institution’s international connections,” explained Gagnon.
In the past decade, the program has had considerable success on all three fronts.
Since 1997, Canadian Studies students have produced two books and three major art exhibits, acted as research assistants to faculty, published articles, and presented conference papers at the TRU Undergraduate Student Conference (organized this year by CNST faculty member Kelly-Anne Maddox and her students), the British Columbia Adult Basic education conference, and the Trent University Canadian Studies Student Conference.
In addition, approximately 100 students under Canadian Studies faculty supervision have completed hands-on learning courses that engaged them in work projects within the university, with local arts organizations, and in international settings such as Guatemala, Kenya, and Spain. As well as the core course which Dr. MacKinnon developed, students today have the option of selecting from among several interdisciplinary courses in Francophone, film, regional, and Aboriginal studies.
In addition to delivering conference papers across North America and Europe and publishing in a variety of books and journals, TRU’s Canadian Studies professors organized an international conference in 2003 and edited the published conference proceedings.
With the creation of the Centre for the Study of Canada on July 1, 2005, TRU Canadian Studies expanded its research community to include former TRU professor Brigitta O’Regan, two professors emeritus, Tom Pocklington and Henry Hubert; and TRU professors James Hoffman and Kelly-Anne Maddox. CSC members are organizing a second international conference (on the theme of the Canadian West) to be held this September.
Dr. Robert MacKinnon has previously held the positions of Chair, Department of Social and Environmental Studies, University College of the Cariboo; Visiting Professor at The University of Bonn; and Visiting Fellow at Obirin University in Tokyo, Japan, and has been Dean of Arts at UNB St. John since 2001. Robert has contributed to such journals and publications as National Geographic, Acadiensis, Canadian Historical Review, and The Historical Atlas of Canada.
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For further information, please contact TRU Canadian Studies coordinator and director of the Centre for the Study of Canada, Dr. Anne Gagnon at 828-5057 or by
email.
February 28, 2007
Health policy at TRU next weekKAMLOOPS- Dr. Alan Cassels, UVic health policy researcher, will deliver two talks next week on the subject of his recent book, Selling Sickness: How The World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients, co-authored with Australian journalist Ray Moynihan,
“Dr. Cassels was scheduled to give a lunch hour talk about his book at the Ministry of Health headquarters in Victoria last September, but just two days before the talk, the ministry cancelled the presentation,” explained TRU nursing instructor Penny Powers, adding, “Next Tuesday and Wednesday, Dr. Cassels will present what he would have presented to the Ministry of Health, had he been allowed to speak.”
Dr. Cassels’ Tuesday, March 6th talk will run from 1:30 to 3:30 pm in AE 212, while his Wednesday, March 7th talk is scheduled for 8:30 to 11:30am in the Alumni Theatre in the Clock Tower.
The public is welcome to attend either of these lectures, which will also be attended by TRU nursing and political science students and others of the TRU community.
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For more information, please contact Penny Powers at (250) 377-6138 or
by email. ppowers@tru.ca
February 28, 2007
Public invited to TRU International Days celebrations
KAMLOOPS-The public is invited to join TRU in recognizing and celebrating cultural diversity and internationalization on campus, home to over 900 international students from 60 countries and dignitaries from countries such as India, Norway and Indonesia, who will share their culture, talents, awareness and involvement in global education and initiatives March 5 to 9.
Monday, March 5th
The TRU Afro Club presents a free African Slide Show from 1 - 3 pm in the International Building Panorama Room, featuring over 70 slides of Africa showing beautiful places to visit, maps, night life and culture.
TRU World and Downtown Moviemart present a free showing of the international movie Infernal Affairs, a tightly wound thriller which centers on two Hong Kong police officers who find their destinies intertwined, starting at 7 pm in Room 1015 of the International Building.
Tuesday, March 6th
TRU’s Indian Student Association presents A Night of Culture, a free evening showcasing Indian performances, fashion and food from 6:30 to 9:30 pm in the Campus Activity Centre’s Independent Centre.
TRU World and Downtown Moviemart present a free showing of the international movie The Sea Inside, a 2004 Spanish movie depicting the life story of Spaniard Ramón Sampedro, who fought a 30-year campaign to win the right to end his life with dignity, starting at 7 pm in Room 1008 of the International Building.
CFBX Campus-Community Radio presents X-Nite, featuring the Saucy Fops comedy troupe, special musical guest Trevor Caswell, and more starting at 8 pm. Admission $5 at the door.
Wednesday, March 7th
TRU World and Downtown Moviemart present a free showing of the international movie Mountain Patrol, a 2004 Chinese movie about volunteers protecting antelope against poachers in the severe mountains of Tibet, starting at 7 pm in Room 1015 of the International Building.
The TRU Arts Community presents a Youtopia International Jam Night featuring international music, with people invited to bring their instruments and join in, starting at 8 pm in Heroes Pub. Cover Charge $3
Thursday, March 8th
The public is invited to wear their own ethnic dress to our campus or one they really like on this day to celebrate cultural diversity on campus.
TRU World and Orientation present a free International Showcase featuring over 20 displays, dancing & singing starting at 2 pm in the Grand Hall.
The public is encouraged to dress up and represent their country at the International Thirsty Thursday featuring games and prizes, from 7 pm to midnight in Heroes Pub. Sponsored by TRU ACE. Cover charge $3
Friday, March 9th
Heroes Pub presents a free night of International Rock Trivia. Participants are encouraged to put a team together to name international tunes from the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80’s, ‘90s and today for a chance to win prizes, starting at 5 pm in Heroes Pub.
TRUFA Human Rights Committee presents a free international movie, Water, a 2005 Canada/India film examining the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi, starting at 7 pm in the Alumni Theater, located in the TRU Clock Tower.
Heroes Pub presents the classic rock band Goodbye Charlie starting at 8 pm in Heroes Pub. Cover Charge $5.
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For more information about any of these events, call 828-5365, or
by email, or log on to:
www.truworld.ca/internationaldays.