Welcome to the UVic Speakers Bureau

What is the UVic Speakers Bureau?

The UVic Speakers Bureau is a community service provided by volunteer speakers from among the faculty, staff, graduate students and retirees who teach, conduct research, study and work at the University of Victoria.

Through the bureau, experts and knowledgeable individuals from UVic make themselves available to speak to community groups, schools, clubs and other organizations throughout Greater Victoria and southern Vancouver Island. The service is free (although travel expenses may be requested to some locations).

UVic is known for its strengths in the arts and sciences and selected professions. Some areas of note are: society and health, oceans and climate, matter and energy, Indigenous and cultural studies, global change and sustainability, genomics and proteomics, fine and performing arts, and computational modelling and information processing.

These and many other fascinating areas of expertise are represented among the 392 topics offered this year by Speakers Bureau members.

President's Message

As the University of Victoria celebrates 50 years of academic excellence and close community ties, the UVic Speakers Bureau exemplifies UVic’s dedication to volunteering and to enhancing the intellectual, social and cultural development of our region.

For more than 30 years, faculty, staff, graduate students and retirees from the University of Victoria have shared their knowledge and enthusiasm with community groups and organizations on southern Vancouver Island through the Speakers Bureau -- the only university-wide bureau of its type in Canada.

I am very proud of our Speakers Bureau volunteers. Last year, they gave 372 presentations to schools, seniors groups, service clubs, business associations and community centres. This year, 147 new topics have been added, reflecting the extraordinary breadth of scholarship at UVic as well the keen desire of our speakers to address and engage in the issues that matter to our communities.

I invite your school or organization to make use of this tremendous resource and to see and hear for yourselves the people and ideas that make UVic such a diverse and dynamic learning community.

David H. Turpin,CM, PhD, FRSC
President and Vice-Chancellor