Welcome to the speakers bureau topics list. To select a speaker click on the light gray box that contains the topic of interest. Once that is open, the page will refresh and you will see a the list of speakers in that topic.

‡ Denotes graduate student topic.

E (K-5), M (6-8), S (9-12) Denotes topics appropriate for K-12 students.

Bones, Beaks and Teeth: A Comparative Look at Animal Skeletons (E, M, S)

• Ms. Becky Wigen
• Senior Lab Instructor and Co-undergraduate Advisor
• Department of Anthropology
• This talk is a hands-on look at different animal skulls including mammals and birds. Can be tailored for any age group.

Flowers Under Glass: Greenhouse Conservatories in Western Canada, the US and Great Britain, plus the 2008 Chelsea Flower Show

• Dr. David J. Ballantyne
• Associate Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biology

Growing Rhododendrons and Azaleas in Victoria, BC

• Dr. David J. Ballantyne
• Associate Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biology
• This presentation surveys varieties (cultivars), discusses growing methods, and outlines recent photosynthesis research.

The Natural History of Snakes

• Dr. Patrick Gregory
• Professor
• Department of Biology
• This talk provides an overview of the natural history of temperate-zone snakes (annual cycle, hibernation, reproduction, feeding, etc.), plus a survey of the snakes of BC.

Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change (M, S)

• Dr. Susan Crockford
• Adjunct Assistant Professor
• Department of Anthropology
• Polar bears are remarkably resilient to changing climate, attested to by their survival through a multitude of past climate shifts, some of inconceivable magnitude. This talk incorporates little-known biological and historical facts commonly omitted from popular polar bear accounts into a balanced overview of life and adaptation on Arctic sea ice. Skulls of a polar bear and grizzly bear provide a hands-on component.

Stardust, Bacteria and Tao: Beneficial Bacteria (in English or French) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Real Roy
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Biology
• This talk discusses how science in astronomy, molecular biology and ecology provides us with answers to three questions: Where does life's constituents come from? Is life as we see it on Earth possible without bacteria? How can bacteria help us solve environmental problems?

The Artists Archives at UVic: Documenting Victoria's Influential Art Scene (S) NEW

• Ms. Lara Wilson
• University Archivist
• Library
• UVic is strategically collecting the archives of historical and contemporary artists with strong links to the University, Victoria and Vancouver Island, and who have established a prominent reputation nationally and internationally. The archives of artists who have taught at UVic and whose works are a part of the University of Victoria Art Collections form a key part of these holdings. Artists include: Ted Harrison, Sandra Meigs, Robert Amos, and Glenn Howarth.

Autism and Art: What Can We Learn about Autism Spectrum Disorders through Autistic Art? ‡ (S)

• Ms. Kayla Ten Eycke
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• Research in psychology is moving toward positive perspectives by emphasizing the strengths and abilities of individuals with developmental disabilities. In autism spectrum disorders (ASD), for example, it is not uncommon to observe superior visual learning and a marked talent for art. The unique and peculiar skills of individuals with autism are often reflected in their drawing and in their art, making this interdisciplinary field of research fascinating. In my presentation, I discuss the common features of autistic art and how these relate to autistic characteristics. I focus on how individuals with ASD perceive, remember, and express visual information. I present art from talented and well-known artists with ASD, as well as art by less talented artists (which also aids in our understanding of the interesting set of disorders). I conclude with the particular advantages of art for individuals with ASD.

Belling the Cat: The Artful Subversion of Advertising

• Dr. Robert Dalton
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Advertisers pride themselves in knowing consumers better than we know ourselves. Perhaps this is why we accept so much advertising uncritically. This presentation looks at the work of artists within the industry who have used humour to subvert advertising, exposing its methods and assumptions.

Looking at Others Looking at Us: Portraiture by Leading Photographers (S)

• Dr. Robert Dalton
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Great photographs tell us more than what people look like, they “speak” about them, revealing character, commenting on human virtue or folly, and even presenting a portrait of an entire generation.

Popular Myths about Art and Artists (S)

• Dr. Robert Dalton
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Sculpture in a Digital Era NEW

• Dr. Daniel Laskarin
• Associate Professor and Chair
• Department of Visual Arts
• Examining the importance of physical objects at a time when most of what we do is mediated by computer technology.

War and Peace: Children’s Drawings Promoting Peace (S)

• Dr. Robert Dalton
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Young at Art: Elderly Artists and Their Work (S)

• Dr. Robert Dalton
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Back Health for Sport and Daily Living

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education
• Developing the “core” has become very popular for athletes but also those people who suffer from low back pain (LBP) or are just interested in having a healthy back. This presentation starts with a quick look at the structure of the back and why it tends to cause problems with one out of every two people. Approaches to exercise are presented that show simple progressions to improve the stability of the back or spine and how these approaches should be integrated into our daily lives.

Boosting or Maintaining your Brain Power as You Grow Older NEW

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education
• This presentation looks at ways to maintain or boost brain power through lifestyle choices, especially the role of physical activity which is the number one way to preserve memory and other cognitive functions.

The Child Athlete: Reaching for the Stars (E, M, S)

• Dr. Kathy Gaul
• Associate Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education

Children, Health and Fitness (E, M, S)

• Dr. Kathy Gaul
• Associate Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education

Getting Stronger: You’re Never Too Old NEW

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• Strength training is important for all age groups, including the elderly. This presentation looks at the many benefits that can be derived from a strength training program and provides sample programs using theraband exercises designed for older groups as well as simple exercises to help balance.

Health and Staying Physically Active as One Grows Older

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education
• This presentation addresses the importance of staying active as we grow older dealing with some important health issues in a light hearted way! The presentation will cover the many aspects of health that are improved through a commitment to regular physical activity, including some of the recent research showing the value to cognitive functioning. Simple suggestions for staying active and improving strength will be addressed with time to address specific questions.

Health and Wellness: Resistance Training and Quality of Life ‡ (M, S) NEW

• Mr. John Buxcey
• Graduate Student
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education

Hockey and Lacrosse: Unwritten Codes of Conduct ‡ (M, S) NEW

• Mr. John Buxcey
• Graduate Student
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education

Mental Training Tools for Athletics, School, and Life ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Alison Quinlan
• Graduate Student
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• My research thus far has focused on mental training tools for improving athletic performance. These include, but are not limited to, goal setting, arousal regulation, attentional control and visualization. Specifically, I have been looking at the implementation of mental training tools among Olympic athletes in their preparation and during the Olympics. I am prepared to speak on the use and effectiveness of these tools in sport, and also how they are transferable to business, school and other areas of life. I use a variety of real-life examples as to how these tools have been used by athletes to overcome problems or obstacles that they have faced.

Stepping into Fitness NEW

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education
• This presentation looks at the many benefits of walking and the use of the pedometer in reaching and maintaining goals for physical activity. The use of Nordic poles to assist or complement walking is included as well as a demonstration on how to use them. It also looks at the relationship between stepping and caloric intake and expenditure.

Weight Reduction through Exercise and Diet

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education
• This presentation examines why diets work for the short term but not for the long term and the importance of including exercise in any effort to lose weight. It also addresses some of the challenges that face people trying to lose weight using diets and exercise.

Cross-cultural Management (in English or Korean)

• Dr. Sanghoon H. Nam
• Associate Director
• Peter B. Gustavson School of Business

Discussing Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money (S)

• Dr. Pascal Courty
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Economics

The Euro and Financial Markets in the Eurozone

• Dr. Paul Schure
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Economics

Financial Crises and Economic Crisis

• Dr. Paul Schure
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Economics

The Good Goals Workshop: Strategies for Performing Well in Dynamic Organizational Settings NEW

• Dr. Rhordon Wikkramatileke
• Instructor and Curriculum Developer
• Division of Continuing Studies
• This session examines the issues associated with performance management in changing public sector environments and explores several strategies and tools that one may use to manage this process for oneself and for others.

Korean Management and Economy (in English or Korean)

• Dr. Sanghoon H. Nam
• Associate Director
• Peter B. Gustavson School of Business

Organizational Behavior (in English or Korean) NEW

• Dr. Sanghoon H. Nam
• Associate Director
• Peter B. Gustavson School of Business

Social Marketing: Not Just Business as Usual (M, S)

• Dr. Joan Wharf Higgins
• Professor and Canada Research Chair
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• An approach to facilitating social change that borrows concepts and strategies from commercial marketers.

Childhood Stress (E, M)

• Dr. Lily Dyson
• Professor Emeritus
• Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• Addresses types and sources of childhood stress and suggests ways parents and teachers may consider to help reduce children's stress.

Early Literacy Development of Young Children

• Dr. Margie Mayfield
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Early Moral Development (S)

• Dr. Ulrich Mueller
• Associate Professor
• Department of Psychology
• The question of how people come to develop inner standards by means of which they judge what is right and wrong has occupied psychologists for decades. Recent research shows that the seeds for moral standards are emerging in infancy and early childhood. In this talk, I will review recent research on early moral development, and what research suggests about factors that promote or hinder moral development.

Effective Parenting (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Loren Acker
• Retirees Association
• Department of Psychology
• Effects of rewarding, effects of punishing, and painless patience. All presentations involve short lectures on basic principles followed by extensive fielding of questions from participants.

The Importance of Arts Education in Child Development (S)

• Dr. Robert Dalton
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

The Importance of Play for Development (S)

• Dr. Ulrich Mueller
• Associate Professor
• Department of Psychology
• Play is a universal phenomenon that can be found in children across the world. There are different types of play, ranging from physical, rough-and-tumble play to symbolic play with others. Research has shown that different types of play promote development. I will review this research and discuss ways in which play can be used in educational and clinical practice with children.

Let's Play: Giving Meaning to Numbers and Counting - Developing Number Sense (E)

• Dr. Werner Liedtke
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Description, illustrations and simulations of strategies for problems, activities and game-type settings that can contribute to an understanding of number and foster: ability to visualize; confidence; willingness to take risks; thinking; thinking flexibly and use of imagination.

Nursing, Pregnancy and Childbirth Information for Children (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Karen MacKinnon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Nursing

Parent-child Attachment: Do Mothers and Fathers have Complementary Roles? (S)

• Dr. Ulrich Mueller
• Associate Professor
• Department of Psychology
• Attachment is the social-emotional relationship that develops between an infant and a caregiver over the first year of life. Traditionally, research in this area has focused on the role of the mother as an attachment figure. More recent research suggests that fathers play an important role as attachment figures as well. I will discuss the roles of mothers and fathers as attachment figures.

Parenting Preschool Children (E, M)

• Dr. Lily Dyson
• Professor Emeritus
• Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• Explaining young children's needs and main development and recommending how parents, teachers, and child care professionals may guide young children to help promote their social development.

The Relationship Between Neighbourhoods and Children's Reading (E, M) NEW

• Dr. Lily Dyson
• Professor Emeritus
• Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

STD-proofing Your Kids (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Loren Acker
• Retirees Association
• Department of Psychology
• Practice, practice, practice: Talking is not enough! All presentations involve short lectures on basic principles followed by extensive fielding of questions from participants.

Survivors of War: Children Draw Their Experiences (S)

• Dr. Robert Dalton
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Want To Help Your Child Learn Math? There Are Apps for That!

• Dr. Tim Pelton
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• iPod Touch/iPhone devices provide unique opportunities for parents to engage their children in anytime, anywhere, micro-tutoring activities. There are thousands of educational apps available on the App store – but only a fraction of them can be recommended. We examine features of educationally sound apps and suggest tutoring strategies for parents.

Why Kindergarten for 3-to-5 Year Olds?

• Dr. Margie Mayfield
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Computers for Everyone? Open-source Software Opens Possibilities (M, S)

• Mr. Rich McCue
• Systems Administrator
• Law Library
• Open Source software like Linux and the Linux Terminal Server Project can breathe new life into older computers for both individuals and organizations. This is both environmentally friendly–with less computers in landfills–and can give access to technology to people who may not be able to afford it otherwise. Find out how easy it is to use Open Source software on older computers.

Conserving Energy One Cubicle (or Home) at a Time (M, S)

• Mr. Rich McCue
• Systems Administrator
• Law Library
• Do you know how much electricity you use in your personal office, cubicle or home? Do you know how much energy your desktop computer or laptop uses? Will you save more electricity by turning off your computer at night or shortening your daily shower by five minutes? Discover some counter-intuitive facts about saving energy, money and the environment.

How To Prepare Your Home Computer for Everything from Deleted Files to Natural Disasters (M, S)

• Mr. Rich McCue
• Systems Administrator
• Law Library
• Strategies for backing up your computer so that documents and photos don’t get lost, whether by accidental deletion, hard drive failure, or natural disaster. Talk is intended for non-technical computer users.

Information Technology (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Shubha Hosalli
• Electronic Technician
• Department of Chemistry
• Talks are related to the use of computers and telecommunications to store, retrieve and transmit information and security of information.

The Interlocking History of Computer Science, Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. Eduard Cojoc-Wisernig
• Graduate Student
• Computer Science

The iPhone and iPod: Research Tools for Students? (M, S)

• Mr. Rich McCue
• Systems Administrator
• Law Library
• Can iPhones and iPads be more than just distractions, but actually help with homework and research? This session will look at different strategies and applications that can help turn your iPhone or iPad into a serious research tools. Talk is intended for non-technical users.

Modelling for Computer Graphics in Video Games and Movies (S) NEW

• Prof. Brian Wyvill
• Professor and Canada Research Chair
• Department of Computer Science
• My computer graphics talk covers the science behind building models. How are the tools constructed, which artists in the games and movie industries are using? How does mathematics play an important part in the design of modelling tools?

Youth and Electronic Media (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Shubha Hosalli
• Electronic Technician
• Department of Chemistry
• Ways Electronic Media Harm Kids' Health and Ways They Can Help

Biochemistry and Microbiology Co-operative Education (S)

• Dr. Rozanne Poulson
• Co-op Coordinator
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology

Science Co-operative Education Programs (S)

• Dr. Rozanne Poulson
• Co-op Coordinator
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology

Introduction to Islam ("Islam 101: an Academic Perspective") (S)

• Dr. Andrew Rippin
• Professor
• Department of History
• A discussion of what makes Islam different from and similar to Judaism and Christianity in terms of basic religious beliefs and practices.

Islam in the Modern World (S) NEW

• Dr. Andrew Rippin
• Professor
• Department of History
• "Islam in the modern world" addresses debates in the Muslim world about how Islam should be conceived (political, personal, activist etc). While religion certainly does not explain everything that happens in the Muslim world today, some aspects certainly are relevant, especially when seen in a historical perspective. Exploring those topics helps clarify the role of Islamic ideas in the modern world.

Mexico’s “Day of the Dead” (S)

• Prof. Rosa Stewart
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies
• The fascinating celebration of the "Day of the Dead" is explored in this talk. I have slides of preparations and the beautiful altars that are created to remember those that have passed away.

Pond Inlet: Understanding an Arctic Community (M, S)

• Dr. Ian MacPherson
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History

British Columbia: A Plate-tectonic Odyssey and its Role in the Great Alaskan Terrane Wreck (S)

• Dr. Stephen T. Johnston
• Professor
• School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
• Some 250 million years ago the earth looked very much different than it does now. All the continents were grouped together in a single supercontinent - Pangea. Pangea was surrounded by a global superocean - Panthalassa. The west coast of North America, bordering the eastern margin of Panthalassa, was located near the Alberta - British Columbia provincial border. Almost all of the crust that makes up British Columbia was subsequently added to the west margin of North American during the break-up of Pangea. This begs the questions, where did all this crust come from and how did it get here? I will discuss evidence that suggests that British Columbia was assembled in a "subduction factory" located on the other side of Panthalassa, greater than 15 000 km west of North America; speculate on the long strange odyssey that subsequently brought BC to our shores; and describe the "terrane wreck" that terminated BC's wanderings and which gave rise to the Rocky Mountains and was responsible for the construction of Alaska.

Citizen Science Using the Digital Fishers Feature from NEPTUNE Canada (M, S) NEW

• Mr. Bob Crosby
• Software Quality Assurance Team Lead
• Neptune Canada
• See how you can contribute to ocean research from your home. Learn how to use the Digital Fishers tool to observe 15 second clips of video, then record your observations of sea life, water quality, presence of objects, and appearance of the sea floor. Learn how to use the tutorials to increase your knowledge as you move through the various levels of difficulty. Earn playing cards that contain interesting trivia about various sea creatures.

Climate Change Fore and Aft: Where on Earth Are We Going? (S)

• Dr. Tom Pedersen
• Director
• Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions

The Coastal Regions of Alaska and the Arctic

• Dr. David Atkinson
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Geography
• An overview of the Alaskan and Arctic coastal regions, including who lives there, what the land/coast is like, how important sea ice is, how climate change is manifesting itself in these areas, and new threats/opportunities from oil/gas development or the Northwest Passage opening.

Field Research in the Arctic

• Dr. David Atkinson
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Geography
• This is more of a picture tour showing what it looks like in the Canadian high Arctic–land forms, research, animals–a place most people have never seen.

Glaciers and Tree Rings: What Ancient Forests Buried by Glaciers Can Tell Us about Climate ‡ (M, S)

• Ms. Bethany Coulthard
• Graduate Student
• Department of Geography
• I have spent four field seasons in the central and Northern Coast Mountains and in Patagonia sampling wood from ancient forests that have been overrun by glaciers. I use tree ring records from these samples to reconstruct histories of climate and glacier mass balance (amount of ice). I have lots of pictures of ice environments and alpine places, and would be happy to talk about how glaciers work, how trees record climate, how trees can be used to tell us more about glaciers, and how climate change is impacting alpine ice, trees, hydrology, and microclimates. This could be in the form of a more technical talk or something directed to the layperson who just loves the outdoors!

How Storms Impact the Coasts

• Dr. David Atkinson
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Geography
• How storms affect the ocean to cause impact to the coast. How the nature of the coast–water depth, type of beach material, how the coast is shaped– affects how a storm can cause impact. How features like bars and rip-currents work. Why there are bigger waves in winter.

How Vancouver Island Came to Be: The Rock Story (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Eileen Van Der Flier-Keller
• Associate Professor
• School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
• The geological history of Vancouver Island is explored through hands-on activities designed to discover the stories that rocks tell.

Marine Invasive Species and their Impacts on Vancouver Island ‡ (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Kylee Pawluk
• Graduate Student
• Department of Geography
• Invasive species are thought to be a leading cause of loss of native species around the world. However, not all introduced species are bad! We just don’t hear about the species that can have positive impacts on the habitats they invade. In addition, much of our understanding of how invasive species affect native communities comes from work on terrestrial habitats–but invasive species are equally, if not more important in our marine habitats. I will discuss how marine invasive species are transferred throughout our oceans and the impact they can have on their new habitat, drawing from both classic examples as well as my own research here on Vancouver Island. The audience should leave with a more thorough understanding of the ecological importance of introduced species, the roles they can play in new environments, and gain a greater appreciation of the marine habitats around Vancouver Island.

Mother Ocean: Why Oceans Matter (E, M, S) NEW

• Mr. Dwight Owens
• Web Content Manager
• NEPTUNE Canada
• A review of how oceans are critically important to our survival and an introduction to some of the key threats to ocean health.

NEPTUNE Canada: Bringing an Ocean of  Data to Your Doorstep in Real Time (S)

• Dr. Dilumie Abeysirigunawardena
• Scientific Data Specialist
• ONC Observatory Neptune Canada
• This presentation explains how Neptune Canada, one of the world’s pioneering ocean cabled network system bridge this gap by bringing in real time multidisciplinary ocean data and tools to your door step.

Pacific Storm Types and Tracks

• Dr. David Atkinson
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Geography
• What are the types of Pacific storms? Where do they form, where do they travel, and why do they move as they do? Why do we have more storms in winter than in summer? How do El Nino/La Nina affect them?

Real-time HD video from the Bottom of the Sea: Acquiring, Annotating, Archiving and Analysis of Video from NEPTUNE Canada

• Mr. Murray Leslie
• Software Quality Control Specialist
• ONC Observatory/NEPTUNE Canada
• Anyone can visit SeaTube, the video channel of NEPTUNE Canada. This presentation will introduce users to SeaTube, how you can search for clips of beautiful seal life in full HD. Also demonstrate digital Fishers, a crowd-sourcing tool for identifying plants, animals and interesting scenes from hundreds of hours of deep-sea video archives.

Researching our Ocean using the NEPTUNE Observatory Network (M, S) NEW

• Mr. Bob Crosby
• Software Quality Assurance Team Lead
• Neptune Canada
• Find out what the NEPTUNE Canada and Ocean Networks Canada observatories consist of. Learn what geographical areas are being studied, and what kinds of sensors are located on the sea floor. See examples of how we are studying tsunamis, listening for whales, and tracking changes in the ocean chemistry. Watch interesting videos of octopus, squid, brittle stars, spider crabs, and hot vents releasing 300 degree water from below the sea floor into the ocean above. Learn how you can contribute to ocean research by viewing videos and recording your observations of sea life.

Spain: Rocks, Romans and Rioja in the Geological Heart of the Pangea Supercontinent (S)

• Dr. Stephen T. Johnston
• Professor
• School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
• Between 300 and 400 million years ago, Earth's continents coalesced into one supercontinent, Pangea. What is now Spain lay at the heart of that supercontinent, and the geology of Spain provides us with a record of the monumental continental collisions that give birth to Pangea, and to the faulting and oceanic inundation that attended its subsequent demise. This geological heritage shaped the history of Spain.  Rome colonized Spain in order to gain access to the rich Gold deposits that formed during the continental collisions that formed Pangea. The Romans brought with them their wine culture that survives to this day, most notably in the highlands of Rioja. Mercury mined from deposits that characterized Pangea was carried to the New World to aid Spanish gold mining in the Americas. Spain is at the geological heart of Pangea, and an ongoing testament to the significance of the geological history of the crust beneath us.

What on Earth is in Our Stuff? Non-renewable Resources and Us (E, M, S)

• Dr. Eileen Van Der Flier-Keller
• Associate Professor
• School of Earth and Ocean Sciences
• This hands-on presentation explores the links between products (at home, school, work and outdoors) that we use every day, and the non-renewable resources that are needed to produce them.

Why I Became a Merman (E, M, S) NEW

• Mr. Dwight Owens
• Web Content Manager
• NEPTUNE Canada
• My personal journey from the prairies to my current job working for the world's first and most advanced regional-scale deep-sea cabled observatory network.

Wiring the Abyss: How NEPTUNE Canada is Extending the Internet to the Seafloor (E, M, S) NEW

• Mr. Dwight Owens
• Web Content Manager
• NEPTUNE Canada
• How NEPTUNE Canada has extended the internet into the oceans, allowing researchers around the world to monitor ocean conditions and conduct research via the web.

Boys and New Literacies (E, M, S)

• Dr. Kathy Sanford
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• There is evidence to suggest that students, especially males, are becoming literate in many ways despite their school instruction, through interaction with non-fiction texts, electronic texts, and popular media texts. Despite the fact that males appear less successful throughout school, there is growing evidence to suggest that the literacy skills they are learning outside of school might be providing them with sustained opportunities for productive life-long skills.

Changing for Good: Choices for Creating a Healthy Living School (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Patti-Jean Naylor
• Assistant Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education

Conflict Between School Districts and the Public (M, S)

• Dr. Ian Cameron
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• School boards spend more tax money than any other level of government. And they are rated as being the most contentious part of government. Why? How can they do better?

The Fraser Report on Schools: What Does it Really Mean? (M, S)

• Dr. Ian Cameron
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

How Good is My School? (M, S)

• Dr. Ian Cameron
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• The Fraser Institute rates BC secondary schools each year. Their system isn’t very good, but there are ways of measuring (and rating) schools that work. How good is your school?

How Should Schools Report to Parents? (M, S)

• Dr. Ian Cameron
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Parents, Schools, Goals and Evaluation (M, S)

• Dr. Ian Cameron
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• The Ministry of Education has decreed that parents are now to be included in school action plans and in program evaluation. How will that work?

What the Letters Mean: Interpreting Report Cards (M, S)

• Dr. Ian Cameron
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

The Benefits of Humanities Education NEW

• Dr. John Archibald
• Professor and Dean
• Department of Linguistics

Beyond the Shadow of the Residential School: Understanding the On-Reserve Day School in the History of Indigenous Educations NEW

• Prof. Helen Raptis
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• The history of Indian day schools has been eclipsed by the vast scholarship on residential schooling. This talk presents the experiences of students who attended Port Essington Indian Day School during the 1930s and 1940s. It illustrates how pupils successfully negotiated through two educational worlds: formal schooling where they were “Anglicized” and traditional learning taught by their elders. The day school was less benign than previously thought, contributing to the loss of ancestral language and culture.

Designing a Persuasive Poster (S)

• Dr. Michelle Wiebe
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• We are surrounded by posters and quickly turn to this form of communication when we want to get a message out. Learning some easy design approaches for creating posters that communicate clearly can make a huge difference to the impact of the posters that are produced.

Educating to Encourage Reasonable Public Dissent

• Dr. Graham McDonough
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Conformity to certain laws and social norms is required for society to function, but there is also a danger in conformity for its own sake. "Just going along with the crowd" or "following orders" is not always a valid rationale for moral action, and can have devastating effects in business, politics, and the promotion of justice for all. This presentation proposes that there is "reasonable dissent" from social norms, and, most importantly, that it can be taught in our schools.

Ending the Reign of the Fraser Institute School Rankings NEW

• Prof. Helen Raptis
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• The Fraser Institute's school rankings have won the hearts of parents and the press, despite the fact that they distort test scores. For over a decade, the rankings have been particularly burdensome for low-ranking (usually low socio-economic status, high-poverty) schools when parents of high achieving children move them to higher-ranking schools. This talk explores the nature of the rankings and the many factors that have ensured their long media reign.

How to Inspire Creativity (S) NEW

• Dr. Michelle Wiebe
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• The word creativity is often used but sometimes poorly understood. This talk discusses what is meant by the word and then discusses exercises and approaches that enhance creativity.

Indigenous Education in Teacher Education Programs (in English or Spanish) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Overview of the Indigenous Education courses offered in the Faculty of Education some of which are required to all Teacher Ed. Programs.

Moving Forward through the Rearview Mirror: Future, Change and Indigenous Education (E, M, S)

• Dr. Jason M.C. Price
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Aboriginal perspectives on special education practice, including alternatives.

New Digital Technologies: Hope and Possibility in Open Education (E, M, S)

• Dr. Jason M.C. Price
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Religious Differences in Public and Private Education

• Dr. Graham McDonough
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Religion forms a significant part of the diversity in Canada's population. This is reflected in the commitments that students bring to secular public schools, and in the presence of religious schools, some of which receive public funding, too. This presentation challenges two problems: (1) views which would completely strip religion from public schools-even in their commitments to multiculturalism, and (2) how teachers in public and private/independent schools deal with diversity of views within their own religious traditions.

Socio-economic Disadvantage and Child Development (E, M) NEW

• Dr. Lily Dyson
• Professor Emeritus
• Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Stage Presence and Confidence in Speaking ‡ (M, S)

• Ms. Colleen Clement
• Graduate Student
• Department of Curriculum & Instruction
• Need a boost to help you present your ideas better? To try something new? To face an interview? Or just to walk a little taller in today’s interesting economy? Has your felling of self-worth gotten a little banged up lately? Trying to find your own voice? To express yourself? To know that you’re not alone? This workshop helps to increase confidence/self-respect both on and off stage. Fun, non-threatening, encouraging atmosphere.

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Possibilities and Promise (E, M, S)

• Dr. Jason M.C. Price
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Explores the power and potential of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child for changing schooling.

Videogames and Learning (E, M, S)

• Dr. Kathy Sanford
• Associate Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Ethnobotany: Plants, Peoples and Culture, with a Focus on First Nations of British Columbia (in English and French) (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Fiona Hamersley Chambers
• Sessional Lecturer
• School of Environmental Studies

Human Dimensions of Climate Change: Rural Fishing Communities in Southern Africa ‡ (S)

• Ms. Jessica Blythe
• Graduate Student
• Department of Geography
• The magnitude of current social and ecologic change is unprecedented in recent history. As the world’s population nears seven billion, the natural systems that support all living things are being challenged. In the ocean, for example, top predators like blue fin tuna are on the brink of extinction, half of coral reefs are gone, ocean acidification is threatening the oxygen producing phytoplankton that our atmosphere depends on and natural disasters such as tsunamis increasingly devastate human populations. However, there is good news! This is also a time of unprecedented capacity to understand these changes. My graduate research explores how rural fishing communities in Africa respond to change. I would love to share some of their stories in order to contribute to a discussion about how we can understand and cope with contemporary change.

Why Western Culture Loves Nature, and How As a Culture, Our Collective Facebook Relationship Status with Nature Should Read "It's Complicated" (S) NEW

• Prof. Richard Pickard
• Senior Instructor
• Department of English
• We wear leather shoes, but we protest against forestry; we eat beef and lamb, but we love our pets. This talk looks at the roots of this complicated relationship, especially over the last three centuries.

Collective Responsibility for Wrongdoing (S) NEW

• Prof. Cindy Holder
• Associate Professor
• Department of Philosophy
• We often talk about groups as though they act and are blameworthy for outcomes that involve them. But can groups actually be responsible for wrongdoing? One worry about holding groups responsible is that it seems to let individuals off the hook. But without group responsibility it is hard to see many socially generated wrongs, like vulnerability to violence, as wrongs rather than bad luck. In this presentation I explain how groups may be treated as actors for purposes of assigning responsibility without this giving individuals a free pass.

Contemporary Theories of Justice (S) NEW

• Dr. Colin Macleod
• Associate Professor
• Department of Philosophy and Law
• A discussion of recent developments in political philosophy concerning the nature of a just society. Addresses issues of how basic political institutions should be structured and how the benefits and burdens of social cooperation should be shared.

Democratic Ethics (S) NEW

• Dr. Colin Macleod
• Associate Professor
• Department of Philosophy and Law
• A discussion of the ethical responsibilities of politicians, members of the media and citizens in contemporary Canadian democracy. Focuses on the importance to democracy of reasoned debate and discussion and widespread participation in democratic processes.

Educational Equality (S) NEW

• Dr. Colin Macleod
• Associate Professor
• Department of Philosophy and Law
• A discussion of the nature of justice in the provision of education with special attention to the interpretation of equality in the distributional of educational opportunities.

End-of-life Issues (S)

• Dr. Eike Kluge
• Professor
• Department of Philosophy

Ethical Issues in Animal Experimentation (S)

• Dr. Eike Kluge
• Professor
• Department of Philosophy

Ethics around Aboriginal Health Research and Social Determinants of Aboriginal Health ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Karen Hall
• Graduate Student
• Human and Social Development

The Origins and Significance of Political Correctness (M, S)

• Dr. Rennie Warburton
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Sociology
• Research and debates on the origins of “political correctness”. Focus on PC (1) as a description of measures to reform language and practices in order to reduce social injustice, notably discrimination by race, gender, sexual orientation, disability etc., and (2) as an ideological tool used by those who oppose such measures.

Patenting of Genes and Ethics of Patient Information (S)

• Dr. Eike Kluge
• Professor
• Department of Philosophy

Reproductive Technologies: Ethical Issues (S)

• Dr. Eike Kluge
• Professor
• Department of Philosophy

The Value of Truth in Transitions from Violence (S) NEW

• Prof. Cindy Holder
• Associate Professor
• Department of Philosophy
• Why is it important to establish the truth about what happened when governments and other groups violate human rights? And what do we mean when we say that one description but not another is true? In this presentation I discuss what the value of truth is for societies recovering from human rights abuses and what makes a description of such abuses true or false.

The Feminist Vegetarian Connection (M, S)

• Prof. Maneesha Deckha
• Associate Professor
• Faculty of Law

Wise Women Speak: Changes along the Path

• Dr. Lara Lauzon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• Have you ever found yourself thrown off the path you know only to discover you are now traveling down a new path, one that has uncharted territory? This session, based on a chapter I have written in a book for the Wise Women series, is about personal and professional challenges and the opportunity to reflect on the many changes along your path. In celebration of women, let’s talk about growing wiser, pursuing dreams, and overcoming loss and fear.

Women, Fitness Health and Nutrition (M, S)

• Dr. Kathy Gaul
• Associate Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education

Women's Bones: Solid Support (M, S)

• Dr. Kathy Gaul
• Associate Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education

Advocating for Your Child’s Health: How Child Life Specialists Can Help your Child Understand their Medical Procedures or Illness (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Leanne Sigismund
• Child Life Specialist
• Child Care Services
• This allied health care profession deserves more awareness and recognition and is an important part in alleviating stress and anxiety for both the child and family during their health care experiences. This profession believes in providing family-centered care to empower the family unit.

Brain Health with Aging (E, M, S)

• Dr. Brian Christie
• Associate Professor
• Island Medical Program

Building Upon Strengths: Supporting Community-based Research to Promote Women’s Health in Rural, Remote and Aboriginal Communities (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Karen MacKinnon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Nursing
• This presentation focuses on a study conducted to promote women’s health and prevent STIs in women and families living in North Vancouver Island communities. The proposal was developed and submitted by the North Island Research Team, recognizing that building upon community strengths is essential for women’s reproductive health and for promoting the health of families and communities. The main research component focused on evaluating Women’s Wellness Fairs using a program evaluation framework. The Women’s Wellness Fairs take a holistic approach to women’s health and were offered in ten rural, remote and Aboriginal communities with the goal promoting the health of women and their families.

Compassion Fatigue: What it Looks Like and What to Do about it?

• Dr. Susan Tasker
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• A presentation discussing the special case that we commonly refer to as “burnout.” The presentation will provide a working understanding of what compassion fatigue is and how to proactively guard against its development. Time will be given to the discussion to the co-existence of vicarious or secondary traumatization in some instances of compassion fatigue—especially in those working in the emergency services or in family caregivers of traumatically injured family members. While compassion fatigue is most commonly thought to be a risk factor for those in caregiver and health profession roles, the presenter will also discuss her clinical experience of working with compassion fatigue in school.

The Constitution of Risk in Pregnancy: From Braxton Hicks to Preterm Labour (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Karen MacKinnon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Nursing

A Critical Evaluation of Probiotics on Human Health

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• Claims that live bacterial cultures, known as probiotics, are beneficial to human health date back over 100 years. This presentation summarizes recent research into the validity of these claims.

Demystifying Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• There are two distinct forms of human influenza, the localized seasonal epidemic form that routinely appears annually during winter months and the rare but more virulent pandemic form, such as the H1N1 virus of 2009. This talk will focus on the basic molecular biology of influenza virus (in lay language), the distinction between seasonal and pandemic flu viruses, and how pandemic flu strains evolve.

Does Everyone Age at the Same Rate? ‡

• Ms. Janet Love
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology

Ethical Issues in Health Care (S)

• Dr. Eike Kluge
• Professor
• Department of Philosophy

Ethical Issues in Medical Informatics (S)

• Dr. Eike Kluge
• Professor
• Department of Philosophy

Falls and Restricted Mobility as Indicators of Impairment ‡

• Ms. Janet Love
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders ‡

• Ms. Anna Patten
• Graduate Student
• Department of Biology

Growing and Guiding New Neurons in the Healthy and Injured Brains (S) NEW

• Prof. Leigh Anne Swayne
• Assistant Professor
• Division of Medical Sciences

Herbal Medicines: Mechanisms, Efficacy and Safety (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Stanley Bardal
• Senior Instructor
• Division of Medical Sciences
• The talk will begin with a general overview of issues associated with the use of herbal medicines, followed by a review of a few specific herbals, how they work, what evidence there is (if any) that they do work, and safety issues associated with their use.

How Drugs Work and Why they Sometimes Cause Harm (E, M, S)

• Dr. Stanley Bardal
• Senior Instructor
• Division of Medical Sciences
• A basic overview of the mechanisms by which drugs exert their effects, both beneficial and harmful. The talk will include a description of how our response to pharmaceuticals changes across different stages of life, as well as some general tips on how to medications safely.

How Functional Abilities and Health Contribute to Cognitive Aging‡

• Ms. Janet Love
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology

The Human Genome Project and its Impact on the Field of Human Health Care

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• This is an attempt to demystify advancements in the Human Genome Project and the profound impact they have had on biomedical research. How these breakthroughs will shape the future of clinical medicine will be discussed.

Labouring to Nurse: The Work of Rural Nurses Who Provide Maternity Care in BC (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Karen MacKinnon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Nursing

Living with Brain Injury: Inside Stories from Those Who Know

• Dr. Susan Tasker
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• A presentation of research findings describing the lived experiences of a group of adults with traumatic brain injuries. The experience and impacts of brain injury from the research participants’ point of views are discussed in terms of their felt frustrations, losses, needs, and ways of coping.

A Look into the Eye: How the Retina Functions and Recent Advances for Treating Retinal Disease (M, S)

• Dr. Bob Chow
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Biology
• This talk is an introduction to the anatomy of the eye and the retina, explaining how the retina works, and the diseases that affect the retina. The role of basic research, and what kinds of therapies are being developed to treat retinal diseases, are also addressed.

The Microorganisms that Inhabit the Human Body: Sorting Out the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• The normal human body is host to about 100 trillion bacteria representing hundreds of different species. A major objective of a new international research program, called The Human Microbiome Project, is to characterize this complex microbial community. This presentation will focus on exciting recent breakthroughs on the impact these microbes have on human health as well as disease.

New Emerging Human Infectious Diseases

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• New human infectious diseases are evolving at an unprecedented rate in recent years. Over 40 new diseases have been recognized since 1970. This talk will focus on the impact such diseases have had on global health, with an emphasis on how and why they are apparently evolving.

A New Era of Snake Oils: Chemical Rip-offs of the Elderly and Not-so-old

• Dr. Reginald Mitchell
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Chemistry
• Quack formulations of some arthritis, weight-loss, anti-wrinkle, colon cleansers and chelators, and sex-drugs are discussed, particularly those that freely come up on Internet searches, as they relate to costing seniors too much of their pensions.

Obesity Prevention: Ideas for Action in Your Community, in Your School and in Your Family

• Dr. Patti-Jean Naylor
• Assistant Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• The presentation provides an overview of current Canadian statistics about obesity, physical activity and healthy eating, then introduces strategies that schools and communities can adopt to try to tackle the issues.

Plagues: Past and Present (in English or French) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Real Roy
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Biology
• This talk discusses plague in history, the natural history of plague and its use as a metaphor by Camus.

Resistance to Antimicrobial Agents: Current Trends and Future Directions

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• In the beginning of the twentieth century, infectious diseases were the major cause of death. The introduction of antimicrobial drugs in the late 1940's played a major role in the virtual elimination of the infectious disease problem in developed countries. However, by the 1990's, antibiotics had lost much of their efficacy due to the evolution of drug-resistant microbes. This talk will focus on why and how microorganisms develop resistance to drugs and what scientists and policy makers are doing to respond to a crisis that may mark the end of the antibiotic era.

The Rise of Superbugs in Hospitals and in the Community

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• Superbugs are drug-resistant bacterial pathogens. This presentation will focus primarily on one example, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) to illustrate the problems these microorganisms have caused in hospitals and, more recently, in the community.

Vaccination Refusal: Tensions Between Science and Religion (in English or French) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Real Roy
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Biology

What Everyone Should Know about Listeria, Salmonella and Other Food-borne Pathogens

• Dr. Edward Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• Gastrointestinal infections have been among the top 4 leading causes of death worldwide for several decades. The vast majority of mortalities have been in developing countries and primarily attributable to substandard sanitary conditions. My presentation will focus on Canada and other developed nations where circumstances are quite different and yet the incidence of foodborne infections has been on the rise in recent years. Our major problems relate to the emergence of a growing list of new foodborne pathogens, including Listeria, Samonella, and E. coli O157:H7. Using specific examples, I will discuss the apparent roots of our problems and the challenges they impose on public health organizations.

What is Autism? ‡ NEW 2013 (EMS)

• Ms. Sarah Hutchinson
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• This presentation is intended to increase autism awareness through discussion and video clip examples. Specific examples on how to be a better friend to a person with autism will be provided. Recent research on autism and other specific topics (e.g. cognition, bullying, social attention) can also be presented.

Another Female Husband? The Long Prehistory of Same-Sex Marriage in America (S) NEW

• Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves
• Associate Professor
• Department of History
• A sweeping overview of the four hundred year history of same-sex marriage in North America, drawing on wide ranging sources including newspapers, dramas, court documents, diaries, and fiction.

The Canadian Co-operative Movement and its 18 Million Members (M, S)

• Dr. Ian MacPherson
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History

Central and Southern Spain (S) NEW

• Prof. Rosa Stewart
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies
• This is a slide show of some of the outstanding cities in central and southern Spain, starting in Madrid, visiting Avila, Salamanca, Merida, Sevilla, Cordoba, Granada and moving up the Mediterranean coast to Barcelona.

Charity and Sylvia: Portrait of a Same-Sex Marriage in Early America (S) NEW

• Dr. Rachel Hope Cleves
• Associate Professor
• Department of History
• Charity and Sylvia describes the lives of two ordinary women who lived in an extraordinary same-sex marriage in Vermont from 1807 to 1851. Based on extensive primary research.

The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association Archives: Preserving Chinese Immigration History (S) NEW

• Ms. Lara Wilson
• University Archivist
• Library
• Founded in 1884, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association was a crucial force in Victoria's immigrant history. The oldest Association of its kind in North America, the CCBA was an active participant in Canadian life, struggling to build an inclusive society and to gain individual and group rights for people of Chinese origin.

The Creation and Use of Public Space at World’s Fairs in Seattle and Vancouver ‡ NEW

• Mr. Vincent Gornall
• Graduate Student
• Department of History
• My proposed thesis topic explores the creation and use of public space at World’s Fairs in Seattle (1962) and Vancouver (1986). I will also be treating aspects of the visual culture of modernism in the 20th Century, as it relates to such public mega-events. I have a PowerPoint presentation on these issues that is easily adaptable for different audiences and events.

From Victoria to Vladivostok: Canada's Siberian Expedition, 1917-19 ‡ (E, M, S)

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• Uncover the forgotten journey of 4,200 Canadian soldiers from Victoria to Vladivostok, Russia in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. This thought-provoking multimedia presentation challenges how Canada's military history and foreign relations have been remembered.

Historical Chronology: How We Date Ancient Events (S)

• Dr. Florin Diacu
• Professor
• Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Settling the Prairies (M, S)

• Dr. Ian MacPherson
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History
• Using slides as illustration, the presentation is on the opening of the Prairie region to settlers from Central and Eastern Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

A Tale of Three Mexican Cities: Mexico City, Oaxaca and Xalapa (S)

• Prof. Rosa Stewart
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies
• Through "A Tale of Three Cities" we see sites in Mexico City, Oaxaca, in the southern part of the country, and Xalapa, in the highlands near the eastern coast. The sights of Mexico are as colourful and spicy as their food!

The Victoria Women's Movement Archives - Documenting Grassroots Feminism (S) NEW

• Ms. Lara Wilson
• University Archivist
• Library
• The Victoria Women's Movement Archives opened in September 1995. It is a collaborative effort of women's groups in Victoria, the University of Victoria Archives, and the Department of Women's Studies. The Archives recognizes the important contributions that local women have made to the improvement of women's social, economic and political condition in the Victoria area. It provides a record of the events that have lead to the rich legacy of activism which has served all women in the Victoria area.

Walking to Santiago: A Modern Pilgrimage

• Dr. John Tucker
• Professor
• Department of English
• The Santiago pilgrimage has become a significant cultural phenomenon. This talk records two walks of mine, the first from Roncesvalles to Santiago, the second from Moissac to Roncesvalles. My goal is to situate the pilgrimage in its medieval context, and to bring it alive for an audience.

Winnipeg: The Golden Years (M, S)

• Dr. Ian MacPherson
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History

Women Travellers Throughout the Ages

• Dr. Margie Mayfield
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Boundless Optimism: Richard McBride's British Columbia (S)

• Dr. Patricia Roy
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History
• Richard McBride was premier of British Columbia from 1903 to 1915, a period of unprecedented growth. A native of the province, he became premier at age 32; brought some order to provincial politics, promoted the development of railways, encouraged British investment and immigration, and played a role on the national and imperial stage and even had the province purchase two submarines.

British Columbia’s Ambiguous Relations with the Rest of Canada (S)

• Dr. Patricia Roy
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History
• From the time that they first considered joining Canada, British Columbians have had an ambiguous relationship with the rest of the country. They are proud of their province and of being Canadian but they have frequently felt that the rest of the country did not appreciate them and indeed exploited them. The talk is illustrated with editorial cartoons.

A Humorous History of Highways in BC (S)

• Dr. Patricia Roy
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History
• With the help of several generations of editorial cartoonists, "A Humorous History of Highways" traces the development of the road system of the province and its political manifestations from 1858 to the present day.

Medieval Victoria: How the Middle Ages Shape Modern Victoria

• Dr. John Tucker
• Professor
• Department of English
• Although Victoria did not exist in the Middle Ages, it is profoundly shaped by a number of institutions that emerged in the Middle Ages and that still exhibit their medieval heritage in costume and architecture. The institutions that I consider are the university, the law, the Christian church, and commerce.

A People’s History of Victoria and Canada ‡ (E, M, S)

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• This “history from below” traces the evolution of southern Vancouver Island and Canada–from contact with First Nations people, through the establishment of Fort Victoria and the colony of Vancouver Island, to BC’s entry into Confederation and interactions between First Nations and newcomers in the recent years.

Reflections on the History of UVic (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Ian MacPherson
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of History

A Walking Tour of Victoria’s Urban History ‡ NEW

• Mr. Vincent Gornall
• Graduate Student
• Department of History
• I have developed a couple of walking tours in the Victoria area, dealing with issues of development, redevelopment, gentrification, community planning and urban history. These tours can be easily adapted for new audiences or expanded to new neighbourhoods. With sufficient notice, I am willing and able to treat similar topics in either Vancouver or Seattle. These presentations could take the form of walking tours or photographic tours by Power Point.

About the Chinese Language (in English or Chinese)

• Dr. Hua Lin
• Associate Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Accents, Dialects and Voice Qualities (S)

• Dr. John H. Esling
• Professor
• Department of Linguistics

All about Learning a Second Language Pronunciation (in English or Chinese)

• Dr. Hua Lin
• Associate Professor
• Department of Linguistics

The Benefits of Bilingual Education NEW

• Dr. John Archibald
• Professor and Dean
• Department of Linguistics

The Benefits of Multilingualism NEW

• Dr. John Archibald
• Professor and Dean
• Department of Linguistics

Bilingual or Tongue-tied? Stories and Strategies for Maintaining a Heritage Language (in English or Spanish) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• This presentation introduces the audience to the importance of bilingualism through sharing some research findings in my interviews with Spanish-English speaking families.

How Babies Acquire the Capacity to Speak

• Dr. John H. Esling
• Professor
• Department of Linguistics

The International Phonetic Alphabet (S)

• Dr. John H. Esling
• Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Pronunciation Teaching in Second-language Instruction (S)

• Dr. John H. Esling
• Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Second Language Acquisition (S) NEW

• Dr. Sandra Fotos
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Speech Production in the Pharynx and the Larynx (S)

• Dr. John H. Esling
• Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Speech Sounds of the Languages of the World (S)

• Dr. John H. Esling
• Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Teaching ES: EFL/ Heritage Language Maintenance Issues (S) NEW

• Dr. Sandra Fotos
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Animal (Rights) and Law (E, M, S)

• Prof. Maneesha Deckha
• Associate Professor
• Faculty of Law

Animals, Culture and the Law (E, M, S)

• Prof. Maneesha Deckha
• Associate Professor
• Faculty of Law

Assistive Reproductive Technologies: The Legal Landscape (M, S)

• Prof. Maneesha Deckha
• Associate Professor
• Faculty of Law

Climate Change and the Insurance Industry ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. Matthew Joseph
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law

Climate Change and the Legal System ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. Matthew Joseph
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law

Climate Change Litigation ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. Matthew Joseph
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law

Compensation for Climate Change Harms ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. Matthew Joseph
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law

Convicting the Innocent: Wrongful Convictions in Canada (S)

• Prof. Gerry Ferguson
• Distinguished Professor
• Faculty of Law
• In recent years, an alarming number of incidents have been uncovered involving the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of innocent persons. Donald Marshall, David Milgaard and Guy Paul Morin are but a few of the better-known examples. The common causes for such miscarriages of justice and the possible remedies to reduce or eliminate these failures in our justice system will be explored.

Groups and States in International Law (S) NEW

• Prof. Cindy Holder
• Associate Professor
• Department of Philosophy
• International law is state-based. This creates problems for groups who cross state borders or whose history and relationship with the state distinguishes them from other of a state's subjects; but it also opens up possibilities. In this presentation I explain both the problems that groups face in their attempts to use international law as a tool for social justice, and the potential that international law offers for groups who are subject to injustice.

Insurers’ Legal Duties to Defend Companies Accused of Polluting the Environment ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. Matthew Joseph
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law

Juvenile Justice: Why Other Countries Do a Better Job

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

Linking Policies for the Mitigation of Climate Change and Energy Security ‡ (S) NEW

• Ms. Ikenna Ulasi
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• This talk addresses the possibility of using the policy framework of contraction and convergence, to present a feasible way of combating global climate change by linking it to one of the key obstacles to success; the relentless pursuit of energy security.

Occupying Deadwood: Reflections on Law, Economy and Television (S) NEW

• Prof. Rebecca Johnson
• Professor
• Faculty of Law
• Links are drawn between the Occupy movement and the TV series Deadwood. In the pleasures it offers, and the spaces of imagination it invites us to occupy, Deadwood offers a space to explore the emotional investments that sustain colonial and capitalist relationships in our contemporary world.

One Hundred Years of Advocating for Justice: Litigating the Calder Case (A presentation on Aboriginal Title in BC, 1849-2010) (Jan-April)

• Prof. Hamar Foster
• Professor
• Faculty of Law

Restorative Justice ‡ (S)

• Ms. Jssica Rourke
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• Through my work and research on forgiveness, I have also become very involved in restorative justice (RJ); the different RJ models; and I can speak about the differences between our traditional justice system and the RJ process.

Siblings of Young Murder Victims in Canada: A Nonissue? NEW

• Dr. Susan Tasker
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies
• Children and youth are murdered in Canada and siblings are left behind in difficult circumstances. Few if any studies have looked at this traumatized and vulnerable group of children. Though families are sometimes publically scrutinized by the media and investigated by the criminal justice systems, no empirical work exists on the effects on siblings. Taken together, outside of anecdotal report, there appears to be little knowledge and understanding of the long-term effects of a sibling’s murder. The matter appears to be a nonissue. Preliminary results of a Canadian study are presented and implications for practice and policy across counsellor services, the media, and criminal justice systems are discussed.

Social Movements and the Law ‡ (E, M, S) NEW 2013

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• What is the relationship between social movements and the law? This multi-media presentation examines the response of judges, courts, lawyers and other legal actors to protests over labour rights, environment protection and First Nations land claims.

Wild, Domestic, Devalued: What the UVic Rabbit Controversy can Teach Us About the Legal Status of Animals NEW

• Prof. Maneesha Deckha
• Associate Professor
• Faculty of Law

The Anti-inflammatory Lifestyle (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Kim Foster
• Physician
• University Health Services
• We’re beginning to understand that inflammation is at the root of many of our disease processes, such as heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune disease. This talk will look at what it means to adopt an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle, and how this can improve your health and well being.

Blueprint for a Healthy Heart (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Kim Foster
• Physician
• University Health Services
• Heart disease is the number one killer in North America—but much of it is preventable. This presentation will explore the idea of developing a comprehensive, lifelong plan for keeping your heart healthy.

Career-life Planning (M, S) NEW

• Prof. Bryan Hiebert
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Chronic Stress and Our Health: An Overview of Current Research ‡ NEW 2013 (S)

• Ms. Constance Sobsey
• Graduate Student
• Department of Biochemistry & Microbiology
• A summary of research about 1) health risks associated with chronic stress, 2) what happens to our bodies during periods of chronic stress and why it’s different from short-term stressors, 3) what makes some people more vulnerable to stress than others, 4) what we can do about it. The presentation can be geared to a variety of audiences (workplace, high school, academics)

Demonstrating the Value of Human Services (M, S) NEW

• Prof. Bryan Hiebert
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Eating to Win: Effective Nutritional and Hydration to Enhance Performance (M, S)

• Dr. Kathy Gaul
• Associate Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education

Fitness, Fatness, Finances and Friends: What Makes People Healthy (M, S)

• Dr. Joan Wharf Higgins
• Professor and Canada Research Chair
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• This presentation reviews what we know makes people healthy, including exercise, eating, friends and a sense of control.

For the WELLth of It

• Dr. Lara Lauzon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• This interactive session looks at a number of current wellness models that incorporate Physical Activity, Nutrition, Stress Management, Environmental and Self-Responsibility dimensions. The session is valuable for anyone who finds themselves better at taking care of others than taking care of themselves.

Fun, Fitness and Fatness

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education
• This presentation on fun, fitness and fatness asks the question are you eating right and getting enough physical activity to have health benefits as well as discussing the merits of different types of physical activity. The presentation examines some serious health issues in a light hearted way (no pun intended!).

Health, Happiness and A Long Life (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Kim Foster
• Physician
• University Health Services
• A growing body of research shows that happy people are healthier and live longer. In this talk we’ll explore the interconnection between health, happiness, and longevity, and look at the things you can do to improve your own happiness level—and thus live a richer, healthier, longer life.

Leisure Education: A Key to Successful Transitions? NEW

• Dr. John Meldrum
• Assistant Professor
• School of Exercise, Physical and Health Education
• What we choose to do (or not to do) in our leisure time can have important impacts on our well-being, sense of self and overall happiness. This is particularly important as we enter transitions such as retirement, moving to a new city or some other change in one's life. Unfortunately many of us do not plan for our leisure time and are left without the support a quality leisure life can offer through times of transition. This presentation will discuss how to best use your leisure to work through transition and how to begin planning now for future transitions.

Passport to Wellness: Health Secrets From Around The World (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Kim Foster
• Physician
• University Health Services
• This presentation examines the health wisdom we can learn from other countries and cultures, from the French Paradox to the Mediterranean Diet to the long-living Okinawans in Japan, and many more.

Protecting Yourself From Cancer (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Kim Foster
• Physician
• University Health Services
• Cancer is a terrifying spectre for many of us. But the fact is, there are several things you can do to reduce your risk. This presentation will cover those strategies: from small lifestyle tweaks to big changes, from time-honoured advice to cutting-edge recommendations based on recent research.

Reframing Your Organization – Are You Working Well?

• Dr. Lara Lauzon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Exercise, Physical and Health Education
• Multi-frame thinking and decision making can help managers, administrators, supervisors, and leaders discover how they view their organization and take steps toward a strategic planning process for sifting options and solving problems when an organization is ready for change. This workshop is of value for anyone who has a vision or plan for renewal within their organization–a plan to help their organization, department or section to “work well”.

Relaxation (M, S) NEW

• Prof. Bryan Hiebert
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Stress and Stress Control (M, S) NEW

• Prof. Bryan Hiebert
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Stress and Wellness (M, S) NEW

• Prof. Bryan Hiebert
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Taking Risks and Coping with Change

• Dr. Lara Lauzon
• Assistant Professor
• School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education
• This session deals with personal and career changes and outlines steps on how you can respond to change you initiate – or change you have little or no control over. A discussion of how risk-taking and change is connected to personal lifestyle is also part of the workshop. Life is a balancing act between forces for and against change and personal wellness is affected by how you adapt to change. This session can help you evaluate or re-evaluate what changes might be needed in your life or what risks you are willing to take to “be well”.

Climate Change and Science Fiction (S) NEW

• Prof. Richard Pickard
• Senior Instructor
• Department of English
• Fiction has always imagined alternate realities. In this time of climate change, we can read contemporary or older science fiction for clues about how to behave both now and in the future, and about what kinds of pressures that climate change may exert on our culture.

The English Ghost Story (S) NEW

• Dr. Stephen Ross
• Associate Professor
• Department of English
• Emerging from the gothic tale of the early nineteenth century, the English ghost story quickly became the most popular and enduring genre of the last two hundred years. But there are key differences between ghost stories and stories of actual hauntings. This talk explores some of those differences and questions whether the ghost story is just mass entertainment, or whether it does important social and cultural work as well. Emphasis will be placed on the ghost story at the end of the nineteenth century, as it dovetails with the emergence of literary modernism.

The Ethics of Modernism (S) NEW

• Dr. Stephen Ross
• Associate Professor
• Department of English
• The modernists (writing from about 1890-1940) encountered a world in which key certainties had been undermined: the certainty that you could know yourself, the certainty that you could know your situation, and the certainty that you could know how to act. In the face of this radical destabilization, writers like Joseph Conrad, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce forged an entirely new aesthetic in an attempt to discover new ways of ethical existence.

An Introduction to Literature in British Columbia (S)

• Dr. Nicholas Bradley
• Assistant Professor
• Department of English
• A discussion of some of the authors, past and present, who have made significant contributions to the literary culture of the province.

James Joyce's Ulysses: The Greatest Novel Ever? (S) NEW

• Dr. Stephen Ross
• Associate Professor
• Department of English
• James Joyce's Ulysses is often called the greatest novel ever written. Certainly it is the most influential. But what makes it "great"? And why have so few read it compared to how many have heard of it? This talk will explore the structure and achievement of Ulysses, while opening it up to readers who may have been too daunted or intimidated to attempt it before.

Joseph Conrad's Life and Literature (S) NEW

• Dr. Stephen Brodsky
• Associate Retiree
• This will depend entirely on the nature of the request, the prospective audience, and level of knowledge and intellectual engagement. A talk (or talks) on Conrad's life could focus on an entire biography or only the early Polish years, or on his sea life, or on the whole, and how it influenced his literary oeuvre; or the focus could be on particular novels or stories, or on unifying themes.

Mapping the Literature of Early Modern London (S) NEW

• Prof. Janelle Jenstad
• Associate Professor
• Department of English
• What was it like to live in Shakespeare's London? We're digitizing a map that shows houses, churches, cows, and early shopping malls, and then plotting literary texts on this map. I'll show you the map, talk about what it can tell us, and describe the process by which we put literary texts in their place.

Modern Latin American Culture (in English or Spanish) (S) NEW

• Prof. Dan Russek
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies

Modern Latin American Literature (in English or Spanish) (S) NEW

• Prof. Dan Russek
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies

Modern Latin American Literature and Visual Arts (in English or Spanish) (S) NEW

• Prof. Dan Russek
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies

Robert Burns: Scotland’s Greatest Poet (S)

• Dr. James M. Skinner
• Retiree
• Though celebrated every January 25, most Canadians find it difficult if not impossible to understand Burns poems because of language and age. By studying ‘Holy Willie’s Prayer’ we hope to demonstrate why Burns should be regarded as a major literary figure in Enlightenment Scotland.

Tudor Queens and Other Boleyn Girls (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Erin E. Kelly
• Assistant Professor
• Department of English
• Popular films about Queen Elizabeth I, television series like The Tudors, and novels about the wives of Henry VIII are evidence of our culture's fascination with sixteenth century English history and culture, especially as it relates to the lives of powerful women. This talk compares such contemporary texts to historical representations of Tudor queens and even to writings by some of these women to explore how issues of women's political power are raised whenever an author depicts individual women central to the Renaissance royal court.

What Shakespeare Knew (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Erin E. Kelly
• Assistant Professor
• Department of English
• This talk about the sorts of things Shakespeare would have learned in grammar school, in church services, and from independent reading will include discussions of how such knowledge manifests itself in the author's plays and poems. More importantly, it will suggest what aspects of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century culture and education might offer helpful models to contemporary students, teachers, and writers.

Young Adult Literature and Politics (S)

• Dr. Janni Aragon
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Political Science
• Young Adult literature offers political stories that can educate readers about politics, society and more. Why is there a focus on dystopias and missing parents?

The Allegory of Apartheid and the Concealment of Race Relations in District 9 ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• Locating any film narrative in the setting of Johannesberg immediately signifies the story in terms of apartheid. When the ‘Other’ of an alien species enters the narrative, allegories of racial and class distinctions are nearly unavoidable. Neill Blomkamp’s 2009 science fiction blockbuster District 9 does both. Inverting the typical alien invasion film, in which a superior race of aliens threatens earth’s global populace, Blomkamp’s aliens arrive in a broken-down mother ship and quickly come to occupy the role of the abject, impoverished, and oppressed racial inferior. Several critics observe the film’s function as an allegory for apartheid. This discussion examines the way in which the surface allegory appears to be a scathing indictment of race relations and the corruption of the industrial military complex that serve another ideological purpose. By focusing on the obvious allegory, the political message that underscores the film is neatly concealed. Using the language of dissent, the film challenges certain dominant ideologies while reproducing and naturalizing others. District 9 works to reproduce ideological notions of racial binaries and naturalizes a pervasive system of class and racial distinctions in which miscegenation becomes the primary threat to the bourgeois domestic myth.

Analyzing Music Using Computers NEW

• Dr. George Tzanetakis
• Associate Professor
• Department of Computer Science
• Humans are remarkably good at extracting information from organized combinations of air pressure waves that we call music. Even toddlers are able to recognize melodies, dance in rhythm with music, and express music preferences. Computers are increasingly being used to perform similar tasks of information extraction from music signals. Accomplishing these seemingly simple tasks requires sophisticated techniques from digital signal processing and machine learning. Such systems enable new ways of interacting with the large amounts of music material available digitally.

Concealing Canada in Films about the Thermonuclear Cold War ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• Whose fault was the holocaust that never occurred? In the early 1980s, ultra-conservative American President Ronald Reagan amplified the industrial military complex arms race, and squared off politically against the USSR’s Leonid Brezhnev. Although their political rivalry was alarming, the cold war arms race seems to have destabilized even further following Brezhnev’s death in 1982. The tenuous political leadership of Russia that followed with Andropov, Chernenko, and later Gorbachev gave rise to heightened fears of global thermonuclear Armageddon. Movies such as War Games (1983), music videos such as Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Two Tribes (1984) (that depicts Reagan and Chernenko in a bloody wrestling match), and songs such as Sting’s Russians (1985) provide a popular culture overview of the fears and preoccupations of the Western world. In 1983 the made-for-television American movie The Day After shocked television audiences with a graphic depiction of a nuclear assault against a sleepy Midwestern town in Kansas. The following year, Canada responded with Countdown to Looking Glass, another made-for-television movie that also addressed the nuclear fear. This discussion explores the way in which these two films locate responsibility and construct an ideology that displaces or effaces their own responsibility in the threat of thermonuclear holocaust.

Constructions of Non-diegetic Hope in Last Night ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• The turn of the twenty-first century witnessed a deluge of American apocalypse films. Films such as Independence Day (1996), Armageddon (1998), Deep Impact (1998), The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and 2012 (2009) articulate fears regarding the demise of American culture in the face of interstellar or ecological disaster. The fundamental question these films pose is “If you found out the world was going to end, what would you do to stop it?” Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar responded with Last Night (1998) - a single representative example of a Canadian film that explores the apocalypse from a distinctly different perspective. Last Night follows the interconnected narrative trajectories of various characters as they live out their final moments on earth and concerns itself with a more open ended question: “If you found out the world was going to end, what would you do?” Last Night ends with what seems to be the death of all life on earth. Does this mean that the Canadian apocalypse film is void of themes of hope? The question seems counter-intuitive to a film so full of folly, levity, and revelation. However, if all the characters die where can the hope be? This discussion addresses the way in which Last Night responds to the American blockbuster apocalypse film and the unique way in which it constructs hope for the audience.

Cube and the Postmodern Fear of America ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• Canadian horror films are often relegated to the position of low art and ignored. Recent scholarship has recognized the significance of Canadian horror cinema ventures as both culturally and politically relevant. One of Canada’s greatest horror film successes was the 1997 psychological thriller Cube. So innovative was its premise that American producers quickly acquired the rights to produce and distribute Cube 2: Hypercube (2002) and Cube Zero (2004) This discussion explores Cube and its two sequels in light of the way the films represent a change in the horror film genre to reflect many of the characteristics of postmodernism and how they demonstrate the way in which Canadian constructions of national and cultural identity are negotiated.

Emerging Connections Between Theatre and Ecology ‡ (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Bronwyn Preece
• Graduate Student
• Department of Theatre
• I am prepared to talk on topics that include the emerging field of theatre and ecology. I can also talk about my MA project, leading a discussion about the community-engaged multi-month inter-generational and inter-cultural dramatic process I am facilitating between local residents and the Sliammon Nation. This project is leading up to the creation of a one-time, site-specific embodied ‘living history’ on this unique off-the grid island in BC’s Salish Sea. Relationships to place and to ‘home’ – and how we might perform them – are explored and their meanings extended from the specific geographic location to ‘traditional territory’ and everywhere in between.

Environmentalism and Popular Culturen (S) NEW

• Prof. Richard Pickard
• Senior Instructor
• Department of English
• You know that environmentalism is in trouble when even David Suzuki says the movement has failed. But has it failed, really, when it keeps showing up in pop culture, from movies like The Lorax or WALL-E, to novels like Margaret Atwood's Oryx & Crake?

His and Hers: Comparison of Songs Based on the Same Poem by a Woman and a Man (S)

• Dr. Harald Krebs
• Professor
• School of Music

Improvisation and Flow Experiences (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Patrick Boyle
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music
• I can present on many aspects of jazz, including jazz improvisation, history/profiles of specific artists/genres. As well, I often perform live soundtracks to silent film presentations and discuss my compositional process.

Improvisation and the Politics of Error (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Patrick Boyle
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music
• I can present on many aspects of jazz, including jazz improvisation, history/profiles of specific artists/genres. As well, I often perform live soundtracks to silent film presentations and discuss my compositional process.

Invisible Witches and Media Monsters: Documentary and Simulacra in The Blair Witch Project ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• What is truth and what is reality? One might do as well to ask what the meaning of life is. In art and film, at least, the former question has received much attention in an effort to differentiate narrative fiction and documentary films. But the lines of distinction are not as clear as one might think. In 1999 an innovative film emerged that spawned a generation of documentary-styled ‘found footage’ horror films and that celebrate the documentary claim to reality and truth as powerfully horrific. In The Blair Witch Project, the documentary style of the film locates the source of repressed fear in reality itself and inverts the psychology of horror. The monster is not merely some fantastical creature inherent to a fictitious narrative; the monster is reality itself within the boundaries of a documentary record, and the monster is as elusive as the referent. This discussion explores the way in which The Blair Witch Project uses the documentary film format to construct horrific simulations of reality.

Latin American Film (in English or Spanish) (S) NEW

• Prof. Dan Russek
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies

The Monstrous Monkey Man as Fundamental Fear in Films ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• The last two decades have seen an explosion in academic publication regarding the cultural politics and sexual repression at play in horror cinema. Much of this criticism has focused on what Robin Wood refers to as the construction of a monstrous Other as a return of social or sexual repression. Wood speaks in predominantly psychoanalytical terms. Twentieth century horror and fantasy cinema, such as Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) or King Kong (1933), has demonstrated at least one motif that depicts some sort of monstrous ape-man. Authors such as Joshua Bellin and Tom Johnson make compelling arguments to locate this motif as a representation of racial fears based on a white/black binary. This reductive perspective not only reproduces the stereotype of the primitive ape-man as a representation of African ethnicity, it also fails to recognize the possibility of a more fundamental and deeply repressed fear that makes such images universally horrific. Interestingly, both Bellins and Johnson have chosen composite stills from these movies to adorn the covers of their respective surveys of horror cinema as the signifier for the entire contents of the books. This lecture interrogates the re-signification of such images from an iconographic perspective over time and the layers of significance they acquire in different visual contexts.

Music and Technology: Past, Present and Future NEW

• Dr. George Tzanetakis
• Associate Professor
• Department of Computer Science
• The way music is produced, distributed and consumed has always been influenced by technology. In this overview talk, I will highlight some interesting moments in time when particular technologies had a dramatic impact to music. Starting from the hydraulis, the first organ and keyboard instrument to the availability of thousands of songs in portable music players today we will travel through history making interesting stops along the way when technology drastically changed how music was produced, distributed and consumed and speculate about where this trend will take us in the future.

On the Road: A Musical Diary of a Trip to Europe (S)

• Dr. Harald Krebs
• Professor
• School of Music
• This talk describes experiences in Europe during study leave (August to December 2007), with interspersed performances of relevant classical songs (in German; translations and relevant images provided in PowerPoint).

Open Musicianship: A New Approach to Jazz Improvisation (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Patrick Boyle
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music
• I can present on many aspects of jazz, including jazz improvisation, history/profiles of specific artists/genres. As well, I often perform live soundtracks to silent film presentations and discuss my compositional process.

Rearranging the Pieces: Transcriptions, Arrangements and Remixes in Contemporary Concert Music (in English or French)

• Dr. Jonathan Goldman
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music

Rising Cynicism about Christianity in Modern Horror/Fantasy Film ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• With the advantage of hindsight, it's easy to ask how classic movies involving monsters or the monstrous - Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Ridley Scott's Alien, or Stephen Spielberg's Poltergeist, for example - articulate or seem to be tied to the social anxieties of their day. Looking at movies from the last ten years, this talk looks at ways that Christian doctrine is increasingly vilified in an atmosphere of increasing lack of faith in traditional sites of authority, and in social anxieties around collective trauma.

The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy as Political Allegory ‡ NEW 2013

• Mr. David Christopher
• Graduate Student
• Department of History in Art
• As part of the twentieth century fin de siècle zeitgeist, George Lucas was prompted to revisit his most successful film franchise. Lucas claims that by the mid-1990s, he felt cinematographic technology had advanced to the point that he was prepared to begin construction of a prequel trilogy to the Star Wars saga long awaited by millions of cult followers. In “Postmodernism and Consumer Society,” Fredric Jameson claims that the first Star Wars film is essentially a nostalgia film that looks back at Science Fiction conventions celebrated in the “afternoon serial of the Buck Rogers type” (197). Surely, such conventions as “alien villains, true American heroes, heroines in distress, … and the cliffhanger at the end” are present in the new trilogy as well (Jameson 197). However, if the first trilogy is nostalgic and backward looking, the prequel trilogy is anything but. Contemporary American cultural politics are closely reflected in the film. This presentation explores the way in which these films immediately reflect social, economic and governmental politics in a way that betrays the film’s ideological mandate to mask America’s manifestation as a militaristic empire and that provides a fantasy of redemption for the American viewing populace for their part in the devastating Iraq war.

Shakespeare on Screen NEW

• Dr. Erin Ellerbeck
• Assistant Professor
• Department of English
• Since the early days of cinema, filmmakers have been enthralled by the possibilities afforded by adapting Shakespeare's theatre for the screen. This talk will offer a survey of Shakespearean film. The films under consideration will range from classics, to cross-cultural adaptations, to recent, popular renditions of Shakespearean plots.

Solving Problems Together: Silent Films and Big Bands (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Patrick Boyle
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music
• I can present on many aspects of jazz, including jazz improvisation, history/profiles of specific artists/genres. As well, I often perform live soundtracks to silent film presentations and discuss my compositional process.

Spring Songs (S)

• Dr. Harald Krebs
• Professor
• School of Music

The 1952-53 Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker (E, M, S)

• Dr. Patrick Boyle
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music
• I can present on many aspects of jazz, including jazz improvisation, history/profiles of specific artists/genres. As well, I often perform live soundtracks to silent film presentations and discuss my compositional process.

What Does Highland Dance in Owen Sound Tell Us about Gender Roles? ‡ (E, M, S)

• Ms. Kathleen Jerome
• Graduate Student
• Department of Theatre
• Topics to be discussed are: a brief history of Owen Sound and its Scottish origins, the history of Highland dance and its shift from a traditional focus on males to female domination, the Owen Sound Celtic Festival, and two sociological gender theories; the first from Michael A. Messner’s article, “Boyhood, Organized Sports, and the Construction of Masculinities”, and the second from Rural Gender Relations: Issues and Case Studies by Bettina B. Bock and Sally Shortall. Through using the time range (1999-2010) of the Celtic Festival as a framework I will approach this question through the use of case studies.

When Are We Really Improvising? Towards an Understanding of Reciprocal Contingency (E, M, S)

• Dr. Patrick Boyle
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music
• I can present on many aspects of jazz, including jazz improvisation, history/profiles of specific artists/genres. As well, I often perform live soundtracks to silent film presentations and discuss my compositional process.

When Bluegrass Turns Green: Alison Krauss and Niche Market Evolution (E, M, S)

• Dr. Patrick Boyle
• Assistant Professor
• School of Music
• I can present on many aspects of jazz, including jazz improvisation, history/profiles of specific artists/genres. As well, I often perform live soundtracks to silent film presentations and discuss my compositional process.

Canadian Labour History: From Halcyon Days Past to Current Issues (M, S)

• Dr. John Fryer
• Adjunct Professor
• School of Public Administration
• People often comment that "unions were a good thing years ago but they have outlived their usefulness and today are no longer necessary". This 30 minute talk will challenge this assertion and attempt to explain the development of unions and why they are just as necessary as ever.

Commodity Chains, Power and Conflict in the Resource Sector (S) NEW

• Dr. James Lawson
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Political Science
• The commodity chain (sometimes called supply chain or value chain) is a concept for thinking about the way raw materials contribute to making component parts and ultimately final products. Business, activists, and social scientists have used this concept as a way of thinking about logistical problems in manufacturing, but also as a way of thinking about power and politics in and between linked workplaces. This presentation would look at some of the features of this way of looking at the economy, and some of the implications for the way we think about politics and policy in the resource sector. It is an approach that goes beyond the politics governing particular state territories.

History of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

• Dr. Martin Bunton
• Associate Professor
• Department of History

How Does our Government Work? (S) NEW

• Dr. James Lawson
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Political Science
• This presentation would cover the basic official roles at the federal level of government: Monarch, Governor-General, Prime Minister, Cabinet, House of Commons, Senate, and Bureaucracy. It could also be given in a way that talked about federalism and the way we divide government work between federal, provincial, and territorial governments.

How Much Should We Pay Our Politicians? Some Fundamental Principles to Guide Us (M, S)

• Dr. John Fryer
• Adjunct Professor
• School of Public Administration

J.S. Woodsworth and the Social Gospel in Canada ‡ (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• Religion and politics have shaped Canadian society, with the Social Gospel representing a faith-based commitment to build the new Jerusalem on earth. This multimedia presentation explores the Social Gospel’s impact through the life of former Methodist minister J.S. Woodsworth, founding president of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, forerunner to today’s NDP.

Labour in British Columbia ‡ (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• Work and relations between workers and employers have been hotly contested in BC–from bitter coal-miner strikes in the 19th century to recent disputes involving teachers, hospital workers and other public-sector workers. This multi-media presentation explores these controversies and future directions for labour relations in BC and beyond.

Politics in Africa ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Sabina S. Singh
• Graduate Student
• Department of Political Science
• Based on a third-year course I’ve taught with great success at UVic for the past four years, this talk presents a very broad overview of what has been going on in Africa since independence. There are a number of views presented and explored and the audience is encouraged to within on the various issues and debates.

Politics in Uganda ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Sabina S. Singh
• Graduate Student
• Department of Political Science
• This may be historical or contemporary or both. Anyone with a very specific regional interest or who works in the area today would be a good target audience. The specific focus of my talk is on political systems and various theories related to Ugandan governance since its independence from Britain. Uganda is a good case study in relation to democratization movements across the globe and a regional leader in military and trade strategy. It is also a leading member of the African Union and is increasing its role in continental affairs.

Social Media: Community Building, Politics and Engagement (S) NEW

• Dr. Janni Aragon
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Political Science
• Social media is not going away. How can you use it to build community? This talk offers insight to the ways that you can engage and use social media effectively.

South African Politics and the Transition to Democracy (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Marlea Clarke
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Political Science

The 2012 American Election: Expectations for Today and Tomorrow (S) NEW

• Dr. Janni Aragon
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Political Science
• Breaking down the election so that it's understandable. What is happening and what we can expect after the election.

The United Nations and Development ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Sabina S. Singh
• Graduate Student
• Department of Political Science
• This explores what “development” is and what the various debates surrounding the topic are. I have also taught this 300-level course at UVic for the past few years. The history of development and contemporary status of the debate is the main focus. This would be of interest to all development students and practitioners in any country and in any field. Alternatively focus can be on the United Nations system only and its various rules and institutions.

Understanding Local Government ‡ (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• Drawing from his expertise in public office, Dr. Isitt examines the role of local government within Canada’s constitution, the responsibilities and procedures of municipalities and regional districts, and opportunities for reform aimed at strengthening citizen engagement and public services

Why BC Needs a Public Interest Disputes Commission (M, S)

• Dr. John Fryer
• Adjunct Professor
• School of Public Administration
• Close to 60% of the provincial budget is spent on wages and benefits of those working in the public sector. Our taxes pay for all of it but how can we influence outcomes and stop the disruptions in public services? Find out how a Public Interest Disputes Commission could help.

Autobiographical Memory (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Stephen D. Lindsay
• Professor
• Department of Psychology
• Mark Twain described autobiographical memory as “...little threads that hold life’s patches of meaning together.” This talk is far short of a complete treatment of this fascinating subject; rather, it merely offers a brief review of some of the presenter's research on various aspects of autobiographical memory.

Be the Change You Want to See: Can You Make a Difference? ‡ (M, S) NEW

• Mr. Reuven Sussman
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• From climate change to waste management and over-exploitation of natural resources, environmental concerns are growing and becoming increasingly problematic. As individuals, we do our best to work against these environmental and social problems, but do our actions really make a difference? Research conducted at UVic demonstrates that, although the direct results of individuals’ actions may be small (e.g., turning off the lights), the power of seeing others engage in these actions can be dramatic! The act of using a compost bin in plain view, for example, can greatly increase the percentage of other people who will subsequently use it. This, and other research, attests to the power of the individual to make a change.

Behavior Management of Others and Self (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Loren Acker
• Retirees Association
• Department of Psychology

Biological Aging: Predicting Age-Related Cognitive Impairment ‡ NEW

• Mr. Correne DeCarlo
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• The search for early indicators of age-related cognitive decline represents a critical avenue in aging research. Biological age, reflecting the functioning of multiple essential biological systems, may predict age-related cognitive deficits accurately and at early disease phases.

Childhood Obesity, Self-regulation and Cognition ‡ (S) NEW 2013

• Ms. Sarah Hutchinson
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• The increasing prevalence of childhood obesity is a major public health concern in Canada and Many other countries. The presentation will include a review of methods to measure obesity and research related to obesity, self-regulation, and cognition.

Children’s Eyewitness Memory (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Stephen D. Lindsay
• Professor
• Department of Psychology
• This lecture describes research on the factors that enhance children’s eyewitness reports and those that can compromise children’s eyewitness reports, focusing on studies conducted with Prof. D. A. Poole of Central Michigan University.

Determining the Associations Between Stress, Gait and Cognition ‡ (S) NEW

• Ms. Tina Quade
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• My research explores how lifestyle factors (e.g. stress, sleep, physical activity), functional ability (e.g. gait), and cognition (e.g. memory, processing speed) are related. In particular, I am interested in how long-term (chronic) stress affects aging over the lifespan. The presentations that I provide centre around community-based research from the Integrative Lifespan Development Research Lab in the Psychology Department at UVic. This research explores topics such as functional ability, lifestyle factors, individual differences, cognitive performance, biological aging, optimal aging, and aging across the lifespan.

The Dragons of Inaction: Why We Don't Do What We Should NEW

• Dr. Robert Gifford
• Professor
• Department of Psychology
• We all have intentions to improve ourselves and the world, but we don't always act on those intentions. Why not? This talk gathers together the many "dragons of inaction" that hold us back, and suggests some ways to "slay" them. The focus is on sustainability actions, but the dragons also apply to diet, exercise, and other good works.

Eyewitness Identification Evidence (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Stephen D. Lindsay
• Professor
• Department of Psychology
• This lecture reviews research on the confidence-accuracy relationship in studies of eyewitness identification evidence. Although most experts believe the relationship is weak, Prof. J. D. Read and the presenter have evidence that it can be quite strong under some conditions.

Forgiveness‡ (S)

• Ms. Jessica Rourke
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• There are many responses individuals can have to someone offending them. Two responses that are often contemplated are revenge and forgiveness. This talk will explore the pros and cons of both seeking vengeance, and making the decision to forgive, with the ultimate conclusion that forgiveness is the better path to follow.

Gratitude‡ (S)

• Ms. Jessica Rourke
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• Gratitude is a virtue studied in positive psychology. In order to better people’s lives, we need to focus on also building individual’s strengths. Individuals who express gratitude demonstrate better health (physical and mental) and an overall higher quality of life than those who do not. This talk will focus on describing the benefits of gratitude, why it has such a positive impact, and offer tips for how individuals can start incorporating more gratitude and positive thinking into their lives. This talk can be tailored for a younger or older audience.

High School Students’ Introduction to Cognitive Psychology (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Stephen D. Lindsay
• Professor
• Department of Psychology
• This is an informal presentation with demonstrations, introducing high school students to the field of cognitive psychology.

Hypnosis and Memory (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Stephen D. Lindsay
• Professor
• Department of Psychology
• Critical review of popular ideas about the powers of hypnosis.

The Impact of Alcohol Use on Partner Aggression: Social Support as a Moderator ‡ (S)

• Ms. Valerie Caldeira
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology

The Intergenerational Transmission of Partner Aggression: The Influence of Behavioural and Emotional Adjustment ‡ (S)

• Ms. Valerie Caldeira
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology

Know Thyself: Our Inner World

• Ms. Wendy Lum
• Registered Clinic Counsellor
• Counselling Services
• Wendy will present a concept of the inner experience of a person and present process questions that will help participants to better understand themselves in relationship to themselves, another or a situation.

Learning, Aging and Memory ‡

• Ms. Anna Patten
• Graduate Student
• Department of Biology

Modern Views of Personality NEW

• Dr. Robert Gifford
• Professor
• Department of Psychology

Recovered Memories of Childhood Sexual Abuse (Jan-April) (S)

• Dr. Stephen D. Lindsay
• Professor
• Department of Psychology
• This presentation looks at cases in which adults report recovered memories of childhood abuse, and explains the cognitive psychological process that may account for essentially accurate and illusory recovered-memory experiences.

What Does My Brain Look Like? ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Sarah Hutchinson
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology
• This talk looks at the methods used to visualize the human brain including MRI, fMRI, PET scans, and ERP. The presentation will also include a brief overview of brain regions and a demonstration with two volunteers from the audience of how neurons communicate in the brain. Research can also be discussed in relation to a specific topic (e.g. alcohol abuse and brain damage).

Becoming Batman: Is there a Superhero in You? (S)

• Dr. E. Paul Zehr
• Director
• Centre for Biomedical Research
• We admire the fictional Batman figure for all his accomplishments and abilities. Yet only through years of rigorous training has Batman approached near super-human status. This is part of what makes Batman so attractive to so many-the mythology of the character seems grounded in the reality of hard work and achievement. Is it though?

Beyond DNA: Epigenetics, Molecules and Cancer (S) NEW

• Prof. Fraser Hof
• Canada Research Chair
• Department of Chemistry
• This talk explores the connections between modern chemical and biochemical research with current issues in human health. Cancer is a special focus. By understanding the molecules in our own cells that drive diseases like cancer, we can build new molecular approaches to the treatment of disease.

The Biology of Aging

• Dr. Edward E. Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• This presentation will summarize recent advances in our understanding of the process of aging, and how this information had led to new strategies designed to prolong lifespan. I will critically evaluate some of the major strategies, e.g., anti-aging drugs, diets and dietary supplements.

Brain Basics (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Brian Christie
• Associate Professor
• Island Medical Program

Chemistry and Biology of Targeted Cancer Therapeutics (S) NEW

• Prof. Fraser Hof
• Canada Research Chair
• Department of Chemistry
• This talk explores the connections between modern chemical and biochemical research with current issues in human health. Cancer is a special focus. By understanding the molecules in our own cells that drive diseases like cancer, we can build new molecular approaches to the treatment of disease.

Chemistry and Society: Molecules Matter in Modern Medicine (S) NEW

• Prof. Fraser Hof
• Canada Research Chair
• Department of Chemistry
• This talk explores the connections between modern chemical and biochemical research with current issues in human health. Cancer is a special focus. By understanding the molecules in our own cells that drive diseases like cancer, we can build new molecular approaches to the treatment of disease.

Discovering New Molecular Targets for Brain Repair (S) NEW

• Prof. Leigh Anne Swayne
• Assistant Professor
• Division of Medical Sciences

Empowering People with Disabilities: CanAssist—A Unique Program

• Dr. Nigel Livingston
• Director
• CanAssist
• I will describe a unique program based at the university that is dedicated to promoting inclusion and to developing technology and services that will increase the quality of life of people with disabilities. The talk will start with a brief history of the program, and will then describe some of the many projects that have been undertaken.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: New Therapies for the Brain (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Brian Christie
• Associate Professor
• Island Medical Program

Galaxies and Quasars in the Distant Universe (E, M, S)

• Dr. Ann C. Gower
• Associate Professor Emeritus
• Department of Physics and Astronomy

Genetically Modified Organisms: Frankenfood or Cornucopia?

• Dr. Edward E. Ishiguro
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology
• The introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has resulted in an unprecedented level of controversy and debate. GMOs, on one hand, come with promises of improvements in characteristics that are unattainable by traditional plant or animal breeding. On the other hand, GMOs bring specters of new human health problems, environmental disasters, and economic issues. This presentation will be an unbiased (if, in fact, complete neutrality on this topic is at all possible) and will focus on both positive and negative issues surrounding GMOs with illustrations, and where possible, scientific data.

How Exercise Benefits the Brain (E, M, S)

• Dr. Brian Christie
• Associate Professor
• Island Medical Program

How Understanding Fundamental Particle Interactions Helps us Understand the Universe (S)

• Dr. Justin Albert
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Physics and Astronomy

Instinctive Science: Will Chips Beat Brains? (S) NEW

• Dr. Hugh Cartwright
• Retirees Association/Sessional until Aug. 31
• Department of Chemistry
• Artificial Intelligence is now widely used to solve problems in science. At present computers are just tools for scientists, but the situation is changing. Within a few decades, computers will be far better at doing science than scientists are; we will become their tools. Should we be worried? This talk introduces some simple ideas from Artificial Intelligence and explains why Artificial Intelligence has such potential in science. This talk is suitable for both scientists and non-scientists.

Inventing Iron Man: Can You Connect Your Body to a Machine? (S)

• Dr. E. Paul Zehr
• Director
• Centre for Biomedical Research
• Inventing Iron Man is a scientifically sound look at brain-machine interfaces and the outer limits where neuroscience and neural plasticity meet. “Inventing Iron Man” is a fun, direct, and parallel comparison of comic book science fiction with modern science.

Magnetism: Its History and Implications in Technology and Health (E, M, S) NEW

• Prof. Natia Frank
• Associate Professor
• Department of Chemistry
• The origin of the magnetic fields present in planetary dynamics, the earth's magnetic field and its reversals over history, the role of magnetic fields in migratory behaviour of hundreds of species, and the role of magnetism in medicine and data storage technologies are discussed.

Metabolomics: Another “-omics” Science - What Small Molecules Can Do for You. ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Constance Sobsey
• Graduate Student
• Department of Biochemistry & Microbiology
• A summary of metabolomics as an emerging ‘-omics’ discipline and its health applications. This talk addresses 1) the relationship metabolomics to genomics and proteomics, 2) the science of how tiny amounts of small molecules in a sample can now be revealed, and 3) the incredible ability of metabolomics to change our understanding of many diseases, predict disease, and suggest simple interventions to prevent or treat disease. A very exciting talk about how medicine and individual health may be revolutionized by this new approach.

Molecules that Changed History (S) NEW

• Prof. Jeremy Wulff
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Chemistry
• Have you ever wondered about the connection between Nazi gunpowder and modern agriculture? Or about the close molecular relationship between the mustard gas used in WWI and the early drugs used for cancer chemotherapy? What about the historical connection between the octane rating scale on gasoline and the invention of the birth control pill? Or about the molecular reason that Manhattan belongs to the United States and not to the Netherlands? Professor Jeremy Wulff discusses these and other examples, in an examination of history from a chemical perspective.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids and the Brain ‡

• Ms. Anna Patten
• Graduate Student
• Department of Biology

Scientific Predictions Through Computer Simulations (for example in Astronomy) (in English or German)

• Dr. Falk Herwig
• Assistant Professor
• Physics and Astronomy
• In the simulations presentation I discuss the basic principles of scientific predictions through computer simulations. Although the topic of the simulations will be in astrophysics the presentation is aimed to convey fundamental aspects of the nature of predictive science and the kind of statements scientist can make based on such simulations. This presentation would enhance the publics awareness of scientific approach and can be useful on the present debate on climate change predictions based on simulations. This presentation may be very well suited in a lecture series about a corresponding topic.

Solar Cells and Alternative Energy Technologies: Challenges and Prospects (E, M, S) NEW

• Prof. Natia Frank
• Associate Professor
• Department of Chemistry
• The history of the science behind photovoltaics (solar cells, both inorganic and organic), trends in new types of solar cells, energy requirements, political and economic considerations, and comparison to other alternative energy technologies is discussed.

STARCal: Precision Astrophysics and Cosmology Enabled by a Tunable Laser in Space (S)

• Dr. Justin Albert
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Physics and Astronomy

The Theory of Chaos (S)

• Dr. Florin Diacu
• Professor
• Department of Mathematics and Statistics
• The mathematical theory of chaos can be explained to anybody willing to understand it. Based on the presenter's book, Celestial Encounters, the Origins of Chaos and Stability.

Tour of the Astronomical Observatory at UVic (E, M, S)

• Mr. Russell Robb
• Senior Lab Instructor
• Department of Physics and Astronomy
• This tour is intended for groups of 24. Approximately 20 minutes are spent in the astronomy lab answering questions, 20 minutes looking at the sun, and 20 minutes in the dome observing Venus.

Toward Nature’s Heart of Darkness: New Technologies for Precision Astrophysics and Cosmology (S)

• Dr. Justin Albert
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Physics and Astronomy

Where Did All of this Stuff Come From? Making Lead, Gold and Carbon in Stars and Supernovae  (in English or German)

• Dr. Falk Herwig
• Assistant Professor
• Physics and Astronomy
• This presentation will present in general terms our present knowledge of the origin of the elements in stars and supernovae. It will feature animations and results from both observations and simulations. The audience will get a basic idea of the variety of physical processes that come together to provide what essentially is the basis of our earthly existence.

Wolf to Woof: Updating Darwin on Dog Origins (A Darwin Day Lecture) (M, S)

• Dr. Susan Crockford
• Adjunct Assistant Professor
• Department of Anthropology
• Charles Darwin devoted a large portion of his career to the study of domestic animals and plants. In this “Darwin Day” lecture, Dr. Susan Crockford (author of Rhythms of Life: Thyroid Hormone and the Origin of Species) will provide an easy-to-understand explanation of her theory for the role of thyroid hormone in dog domestication and breed development.

Can Punishment Reduce Crime?

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

Conflict or Cooperation: Can We Create One or the Other?

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

Crime Statistics and What They Mean

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

The Dynamics of Doing Good (or Bad)

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology
• The conditions that lead people to do good things (or bad things) are often known to many of us. However, the dynamics that lead to that behaviour are harder to predict. If we understood those dynamics better could we influence conditions and situations so that people behave well rather than badly?

Food Security and Social Housing ‡ NEW 2013

• Ms. Judy Walsh
• Graduate Student
• Department of Social Dimensions of Health
• Nutrition and safe housing are key components to the health and wellbeing of tenants living in social housing. This presentation will provide an overview of a community-based research study looking at the factors affecting food security for tenants in housing projects in Nanaimo and Port Alberni, BC. The study will examine the factors of income management and food access, between the level of food security and the health of the tenants in an urban versus a rural setting. Finally, the study will be examining which barriers have the greatest effect on food security for tenants. The goal of the study is provide new knowledge to assist policymakers in understanding the importance of food security for individual tenants. The ultimate result would be that future housing projects would have food security programs build in as an on-going support service.

The Good Samaritan: What Makes Her Tick?

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

A Grand Cure for Crime, Sin and Other Nasties

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

Housing for All: The Growth of Non-market Housing in Greater Victoria ‡ (E, M, S)

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• Homelessness and housing affordability are key social issues in Greater Victoria today. This multimedia presentation explores the evolution of non-market housing, from large-scale public-housing projects after the Second World War, to innovative co-operative housing in the 1970s, to non-profit housing for the “hard to house” in recent years.

Hungry for the Hunger Games (S) NEW

• Dr. Janni Aragon
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Political Science
• This talk explores the Hunger Games series and the varied political and social messages that the book (and movie) conveys to its audience. This is more Girl Power, Team Katniss, or Team Peeta.

If Apes Can Learn to Be Good, Why Can’t We?

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology
• Traditionally, the behaviour of primates has been seen as “hard-wired.” That is, genetics determined how they behave. A troop of baboons noted for aggressive behaviour changed dramatically after a crisis. Do these studies suggest ways in which society can reduce aggressive and violent behaviour?

The Many Faces of Racism and Why it is so Difficult to Eradicate (M, S)

• Dr. Rennie Warburton
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Sociology
• Examples and research findings on different kinds of racism, including white racism, racism among racialized minorities, overt/covert racism, and racism that intersects with class, gender and other types of discrimination. This diversity makes racism complex and difficult to explain without considering the historical contexts in which it occurs.

The Nature of Community: Are We Expecting Too Much?

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

The Philanthropist as Con Man

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology
• Those who find themselves labeled as philanthropists are sometimes given special treatment. In fact, being viewed as a philanthropist is a “good deal.” The rewards that accrue are considerable – the giver usually gets much more than he or she gives. But the main focus of this talk is on the difficulty of being philanthropic in a wise way. Are there ways to get a better return on our social investments? Are there ways to avoid excessive amounts of money being diverted from the chosen cause?

Prevalence, Predictors, and Consequences of Alcohol Use During Pregnancy ‡ (S)

• Ms. Valerie Caldeira
• Graduate Student
• Department of Psychology

The Pros and Cons of Multiculturalism (M, S)

• Dr. Rennie Warburton
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Sociology
• Multiculturalism is considered beneficial in helping Canadians to better understand one another by encouraging ethnic communities to express, celebrate and preserve their distinct cultures. Dissidents maintain that multiculturalism prevents the assimilation of immigrants and other minorities and helps to perpetuate white racism by encouraging ethnic divisions.

Public Responses to Prostitution in Hamburg

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

Science and Government: A Marriage of Inconvenience (in English or French) (S) NEW

• Dr. Jack Basuk
• Retirees Association
• Science and Government, A Marriage of Inconvenience is book I have written (in Canada's archives).My website (Jack Basuk.com) is a guide to much of what I have written and available to speak on.

Science, Government and Society (in English or French) (S) NEW

• Dr. Jack Basuk
• Retirees Association
• I was the Secretary of the now defunct advisory federal government agency, the Science Council of Canada, (SCC) between 1971 and 1978. The council was mandated to offer the government advice in any area of science policy: any policy area where science and/or technology play an important role. Between 1978 and 1989 I was a regular member of the SCC's research staff with a particular interest on the impacts of science and technology on society.

A Truly Successful Crime and Delinquency Prevention Project

• Dr. Jim Hackler
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Sociology

Beyond Diversity and Human Rights: How to Create Inclusive Spaces for Social Change  (in English or French) (M, S)

• Mr. Moussa Magassa
• Human Rights Advisor - Education
• Equity & Human Rights Office

Choosing a Degree Path (S) NEW

• Ms. Melissa Manuel
• Graduate Admissions and Records, Registrar's Office
• Working in both the Undergraduate and Graduate Offices has provided me with knowledge on degree programs offered at UVic and other institutions, the application process, and communications with the University. I would also like to discuss there many techniques that can assist students, especially undergraduate students, through their studies. This talk will discuss the types of degrees are offered and the differences between them. Can also address how to ensure you’re taking courses you enjoy and care about, tips and tricks to succeed.

Emerging Adults and Career Development in the 21st Century (S) NEW

• Dr. Janet Sheppard
• Counsellor
• Department of Counselling Services
• This talk will address the demographic and developmental shifts evident in young adults in Canada and other post-industrial countries. I will link the influences (sociological, psychological, educational and economic) and talk about the important implications this has for young people, in terms of their life/career awareness and decision making.

Higher Education and the World of Work: Canada's "Perfect Storm" (S) NEW

• Dr. Janet Sheppard
• Counsellor
• Department of Counselling Services
• I will discuss the impacts of globalization and technology on Canada's economic situation, with a particular focus on the shrinking labour pool, global economic instability, and how higher education is responding.

Intercultural Conflict Resolution (in English or French) (M, S)

• Mr. Moussa Magassa
• Human Rights Advisor - Education
• Equity & Human Rights Office

Project Management for Absolute Beginners (S) NEW

• Mr. Erik Fleischer
• Project Manager
• Learning Systems
• Project management for absolute beginners What exactly is a project? How do you turn a vision, an idea, a need into a set of concrete steps? And what do you need to do to successfully accomplish those steps? This session assumes no prior knowledge of project management.

Supplier Management 2.0: Doing Business with UVic  NEW

• Mr. Jason George
• Purchasing Website Analyst
• Purchasing Services
• Failure to reach suppliers has far reaching implications; it reduces options and competition, and affects the quality of the procurement process. The UVic Supplier Relationship Management system has resulted in more accurate supplier information and reduced workload in Purchasing Services. It is a step towards leveraging technology in procurement to bring more transparency to a sometimes opaque process and encouraging system interoperability and data integration in a more competitive marketplace environment.

What's an Archivist? Careers in Archives and Related Fields (S) NEW

• Ms. Lara Wilson
• University Archivist
• Library
• This talk explains how and why I chose a career in archives, and the future opportunities for work in archives and related information management fields. Can also include information on conducting research in archives.

When Talks Matter: Respectful and Welcoming Communities (in English or French) (M, S)

• Mr. Moussa Magassa
• Human Rights Advisor - Education
• Equity & Human Rights Office

Africa in the Global Economy: From Colonization to Globalization and Neo-Colonialism (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Marlea Clarke
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Political Science

Central and Eastern European Countries and Ex-Soviet Union States and their Quest for Closer Ties to the European Union

• Dr. Amy Verdun
• Professor
• Department of Political Science
• The European Union has gradually expanded from its original six to today's twenty-seven member states. With this expansion has come a need to reflect on how to deal with its neighbours. This presentation examines how countries that border on the European Union relate to this emerging global power. It also reviews the strategies the EU adopts to relate to these countries, which are different from the usual ones as the European Union, strictly speaking, is not yet a state.

The European Union and Canada: Similarities and Differences

• Dr. Amy Verdun
• Professor
• Department of Political Science
• Canada is a federal state with a federal government and many provinces/territories. Each has its own sovereignty -responsibility over areas of policy making. The European Union is not a federal state, and in most cases member states retain sovereignty over policy making. Yet, the European Union has made many advances towards further sharing of sovereignty. Today's European Union is starting to look more like a federal state than it did in the past.

The Future of the Euro: Will Europe's Currency Survive the Financial Crisis and Europe's Sovereign Debt Crisis?

• Dr. Amy Verdun
• Professor
• Department of Political Science
• In recent years the European Union created a new currency replacing the older ones that had often existed for many centuries. After the initial ten years, everything looked great. However, the global financial crisis has challenged the success of the euro. In this talk a political economist explains the story behind the rise and fall of the euro, and speculates on whether the euro will rise or fall further.

India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir

• Dr. Reeta Tremblay
• Vice-President Academic and Provost

Multiculturalism and Immigration in Canada

• Dr. Reeta Tremblay
• Vice-President Academic and Provost

Politics of Development: Canadian Aid to Africa (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Marlea Clarke
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Political Science

Predicting Megadisasters: Tsunamis, Volcanic Eruptions, Stock Market Crashes and Pandemics (S)

• Dr. Florin Diacu
• Professor
• Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Revolution and Military Intervention in the Middle East ‡ (E, M, S)

• Dr. Benjamin Isitt
• Graduate Student
• Faculty of Law
• Recent revolutions in Egypt and across the Arab world and NATO’s military intervention in Libya and other states have highlighted long-standing social tensions in the region. This multimedia presentation provides historical context for current events, while exploring difficult questions of democracy, human rights and foreign policy.

The World Bank and Globalization: Who is Taking Care of Our Interests?

• Dr. John Fryer
• Adjunct Professor
• School of Public Administration
• To the 6,000-plus classically trained economists from the Chicago school at the World Bank, the countries of the globe are their research laboratories. Here they carry out their so-called "structural reforms" on struggling nations. Most fail. Why? Because the people affected are not consulted, and most often don't cooperate. John Fryer went to Washington in September 2003 to get the rules changed. On May 6, 2004, a protocol on consultation in World Bank projects was inked with senior representatives of the global public sector union federation. Hear how working inside the World Bank system but not by its rules, John Fryer was able to persuade the World Bank to change its approach to consultation with the people impacted by its reforms.

The following topics are based on the personal interests of Speakers Bureau members.

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Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse: Your Past Does Not Define Who You Are Today

• Ms. Valentina Lawrence
• Projects and Communications Coordinator
• Office of the Dean
• I can share my personal story as an adult survivor of sexual abuse. My memories of growing up in a dysfunctional and abusive family, my recovery and the bumps and bruises, twists and turns along the way....to freedom!

Beekeeping (S)

• Dr. John H. Esling
• Professor
• Department of Linguistics

Bird's-Eye Views of Victoria and the Mystery of Annie Ross NEW

• Dr. Nick Russell
• Retiree
• A richly-illustrated talk describing the history and appeal of bird's-eye views, which were hugely popular across North America in the late 19th Century, plus a close-up look at an amazing 6-foot-wide watercolour bird's-eye view painted of Victoria by a totally unknown local artist. Talk includes many "before-and-after" pictures, showing how scenes in the pictures look today.

Birth as We Know It (S) NEW

• Ms. Elizabeth Stevenson
• Library Assistant
• UVic Libraries - Music & Media Services
• We'll take a look at an alternative perspective of childbirth, one without hysteria and drama. Our conversation will include looking at the emotional and spiritual preparation necessary for natural childbirth, the potential for each woman to be the authority of her birthing experience, and the ripple effect that an empowering birth experience has in the world.

The Black Swans of Climate Science (M, S)

• Mr. Paul MacRae
• Sessional Lecturer
• Department of English
• "Black swans" are facts that weaken or falsify a scientific theory. Although many climate scientists are certain that human carbon emissions will cause runaway global warming, this talk explores climate facts-the black swans-that undermine this theory. One black swan is that the planet has not warmed for more than a decade.

Botanical Gardens on the Big Island of Hawaii

• Dr. David J. Ballantyne
• Associate Professor Emeritus
• Department of Biology
• Hear about the eight botanical gardens on the Big Island of Hawaii, as well as some volcanoes and historical sites.

The Bride Stripped Bare: The Nude Throughout Art NEW

• Mr. Tom Gore
• Retirees Association
• Department of Biology
• The Bride Stripped Bare presents the evolution of the depiction of the nude throughout the history of art and especially looks at the relationship between photography and painting of the nude. It especially considers recent trends and directions in figurative art.

A Canadian Living in Peru (M, S)

• Mr. John Newcomb
• Retiree
• Retired from Department of Geography
• UVic retiree relives his time as a grad student working in the Canadian Embassy in Lima, Peru during the tumultuous times of 1988-1990, and personal observations on similarities and differences between our cultures.

The Changing Economics of Book Publishing in Canada (S) NEW

• Mr. Marc Christensen
• Publications Officer
• UVic Communications Services
• This talk will introduce audiences to the hidden economics of traditional book publishing in Canada, including discussion of royalties, government supports, distribution costs, marketing, bookstore discounts and returns. We will also explore the ways that e-books and the rise of alternate distribution models (in particular Amazon) are changing the nature of publishing, in both positive and negative ways.

Compassionate Communication: Four Simple Steps to Improving Connection with Self and Others (S)

• Ms. Michele Favarger
• Bursary Clerk
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• Four simple steps to improving connection with self and others: nonviolent communication basics–a primer on the process of compassionate communication.

Costa Rica’s Environment and Development (M, S)

• Mr. John Newcomb
• Retiree
• Retired from Department of Geography

Cusco: Peru’s Modern City of the Ancient Incas (M, S)

• Mr. John Newcomb
• Retiree
• Retired from Department of Geography
• A month in the ancient Andean mountain city of Cusco reveals both ancient and modern urban planning and cultures.

Digital Typography: Taking Desktop Publishing to the Next Level (S) NEW

• Mr. Erik Fleischer
• Project Manager
• Learning Systems
• Digital typography: Taking desktop publishing to the next level How do you design an attractive yet readable document or web page? Explore some principles of page design and learn more about type ("fonts") and how to use it. This session can be adapted for different skill levels, but is intended for people who are at least comfortable using a word processor.

The Disappointments of the BC Treaty Process: A Nuu-chah-nulth Perspective (E, M, S)

• Ms. Dawn Smith
• Aboriginal Student Advisor
• Community Internship Coordinator for the LE, NONET Project
• For the last 12 years the Nuu-chah-nulth (NCN) have been actively involved in the BC Treaty Process with the hopes of achieving a fair and just agreement that would provide the opportunities for a brighter future. Why, after 12 years, are the NCN are only left with disappointment and a huge debt?

Discovering Peru: Machu Picchu, the Amazon Rainforest and Cuzco (in English or Cantonese) (M, S)

• Ms. Elsie Chan
• Sessional Instructor
• School of Public Administration
• A Journey from the Amazon Basin to the Inca Heartland, and on to the islands of Lake Titicaca.

Don't Just Do Something, Stand There! How to Provide Support to People in Emotional Pain (S)

• Ms. Michele Favarger
• Bursary Clerk
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• Our society focuses on 'the fix'. Here is an effective alternative which contributes to the well-being of others, and moves us out of the 'fix-it' mode.

The Easter Story: History and Myth (S)

• Dr. James M. Skinner
• Retiree
• Analysis of the four gospels to examine the events surrounding thebirth of Christ. Such occurrences are looked at from an historical point of view - e.g. the necessity of Mary and Joseph having to travel to Bethlehem from Nazareth. Comparisons with other religious traditions dealing with birth of a leader.

Ethics of Police Conduct (S)

• Dr. Eike Kluge
• Professor
• Department of Philosophy

European Vacation: London, Paris and Madrid with Stops Along the Way (S)

• Prof. Rosa Stewart
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies
• On this excursion I travelled from London to Madrid visiting some amazing places along the way: London, Paris, various castles in the Loire Valley, the Mediterranean coast of Italy, Barcelona, a bit of the northern coast of Spain and finally Madrid.

The Eye, the Heart and the Machine: An Intro to Photography (S) NEW

• Mr. Erik Fleischer
• Project Manager
• Learning Systems
• The eye, the heart & the machine: an intro to photography. What makes a photo compelling? How do different camera components affect the final image, and how do you control them? This workshop includes a bit of art, a bit of science and a lot of experimentation. Bring your camera!

The Francophone Community of British Columbia (in English or French) (E, M, S) NEW

• Dr. Real Roy
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Biology
• Since the time of Alexander MacKenzie and Simon Fraser in late 18th century and early 19th century, French has been spoken. After a brief history, this talk discuss how the presence of the Francophone community in BC.

From Chaucer to Chat-rooms: Why English is the Best Language in the Entire World

• Dr. Nick Russell
• Retiree
• An irreverent, illustrated history of the language.

From Jackal to Giraffe: How We Talk to Ourselves (S)

• Ms. Michele Favarger
• Bursary Clerk
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• Identify life-affirming ways to respond to negative self-talk.

Glorious Victorians: A Celebration of Victoria's Residential Heritage

• Dr. Nick Russell
• Retiree
• A new and richly illustrated talk on what makes Victoria such a wonderful place to live.

The Good, the Bad and a Few of the Ugly: Deconstructing the Portrait NEW

• Mr. Tom Gore
• Retirees Association
• Department of Biology
• The Good, the Bad and a few of the Ugly looks at the portrait over the past two thousand years and especially considers new approaches that evolved in response to the introduction of photography. It looks at cultural and gender issues as well as evolving artistic styles.

Grammar Instruction and the War Over College Writing Skills (S) NEW

• Mr. Marc Christensen
• Publications Officer
• UVic Communications Services
• Perceptions of the writing skills of inbound college and university students have been part of public debate (or public crisis) for more than a hundred years. This talk looks at what's at stake for the students, teachers, colleges and universities, and for the public itself in this debate, and explores the relationship between grammar instruction and composition on Canadian and American campuses.

Health and Precarious Employment (M, S) NEW

• Dr. Marlea Clarke
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Political Science

How Come You Can't Hear Me? Removing Communication Obstacles (S)

• Ms. Michele Favarger
• Bursary Clerk
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• Identify things we say and do that block our ability to hear and be heard. Learn some other ways of communicating.

How to Plant a Good Basic Garden: Seeding, Basic Propagation, Growing and Harvesting (in English or French) (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Fiona Hamersley Chambers
• Sessional Lecturer
• School of Environmental Studies

How to Say What You Mean and Be Heard (S)

• Ms. Michele Favarger
• Bursary Clerk
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• Using real-life scenarios, hear the four-step NVC process in action. Come prepared to share your challenging interactions in a safe environment.

I Know You Heard What I Said, But What You Don't Understand is What I Said is Not What I Meant! (S)

• Ms. Michele Favarger
• Bursary Clerk
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• How to express your needs in a way that is more likely to get them met, and if not, to at least enjoy the dialogue.

If it Takes a Village to Raise a Child, What Does it Take to Raise Multiples? (in English or Spanish) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• Being a mother of triplets has offered me an opportunity to document developmental aspects and unique learning experiences which might offer insight to other parents of multiples.

Indigenous Languages in Mexico (in English or Spanish) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• This presentation offers an overview of the rise and decline of Indigenous languages in Mexico in the last 200 years.

Indigenous Leadership in the 21st Century (E, M, S)

• Ms. Dawn Smith
• Aboriginal Student Advisor
• Community Internship Coordinator for the LE, NONET Project
• Indigenous leadership is critical to a nation’s cultural, social, political, economical and spiritual survival. As Indigenous peoples we have a responsibility not only to our families, community and nation, but to our surrounding environment. Therefore, it is necessary to critically evaluate the success, or lack thereof within the present leadership.

Japan: The Past, the Present and the Future (in English or Cantonese) (M, S)

• Ms. Elsie Chan
• Sessional Instructor
• School of Public Administration
• This presentation explores the culture, people, and sceneries across Japan.

Listening to Jazz Music: A Beginner’s Primer (S)

• Mr. Bert Annear
• Senior Graduate Admissions & Records Officer
• Graduate Admissions and Records
• A brief introduction to some of the highlights of jazz music and how to understand what you are hearing.

Making and Breaking the Narrative of Urban Decline in Detroit (S) NEW

• Mr. Marc Christensen
• Publications Officer
• UVic Communications Services
• The decline of the City of Detroit from the "Arsenal of Democracy" in World War II, with a population of 2 million, to its current often-lamented state as home to 700,000 mostly poor, underserved residents is a story of many strands and claims, involving planning decisions, race, class and the central role played by the automobile in the city during the 20th century. This talk addresses the traditional narrative of Detroit's rise and fall, as well as the counter-narratives and other realities that are often forgotten when we focus on the city's decline.

Maximizing Team Potential (S) NEW

• Mr. Bert Annear
• Senior Graduate Admissions & Records Officer
• Graduate Admissions and Records
• Some key ideas and concepts to help teams work together more effectively.

Mexican History and Songs (in English or Spanish) (E, M, S)

• Dr. Carmen Rodriguez de France
• Assistant Professor
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction
• In this presentation, songs relevant to the period of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921) are introduced, which expose the audience to this important historical time in Mexican history.

More Sewage Treatment for Victoria? (M, S)

• Mr. John Newcomb
• Retiree
• Retired from Department of Geography

Museum Accreditation in Australia

• Mr. Jason George
• Purchasing Website Analyst
• Purchasing Services
• Museum accreditation schemes are not new to Australia. In different forms systems have operated in South Australia, Victoria, and in Queensland. Plans are underway to establish a system in New South Wales. Museums Australia commissioned Jason George to research the potential for developing a national accreditation scheme for museums.

Peru’s “Volcanic” City of Arequipa (M, S)

• Mr. John Newcomb
• Retiree
• Retired from Department of Geography

Rock Climbing Around the World (S) NEW

• Prof. Brian Wyvill
• Professor and Canada Research Chair
• Department of Computer Science

A Summer Trip to Uganda, Africa (in English or Cantonese) (M, S)

• Ms. Elsie Chan
• Sessional Instructor
• School of Public Administration
• Explore the sceneries, culture and people of Uganda, the pearl of Africa.

Tools and Ideas to Help Stimulate Creativity (S) NEW

• Mr. Bert Annear
• Senior Graduate Admissions & Records Officer
• Graduate Admissions and Records
• A discussion on tools and ideas to help stimulate creativity. A collection of ideas and tools to help you kick start your creative process.

Touring the Midi Canal in Southern France NEW

• Dr. Ian Cameron
• Adjunct Professor
• Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies

Touring through England, Scotland and Ireland (S) NEW

• Prof. Rosa Stewart
• Senior Instructor
• Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies
• Touring through England, Scotland and Ireland - We did a bus tour of this beautiful region starting with several days in London and then visiting Edinburgh, the shores of Loch Ness, the Isle of Skye, Manchester, Dublin, Killarney, Bath, Stonehenge and several other places as well.

Travelling Lightly and Safely: Tips for Women Travellers

• Dr. Marigie Mayfield
• Professor Emeritus
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction

A Trip along the Silk Road (Ancient Trade Routes) in China (in English & Cantonese) (M, S)

• Ms. Elsie Chan
• Sessional Instructor
• School of Public Administration
• One of the world’s oldest and most important trade routes, the Silk Road was a great transcontinental path that linked the West to the East, and remains a treasure to the region. Travel in the footsteps of Marco Polo along this ancient and illustrious trade route: Beijing, Urumqi, Turpan, Dunhauang, Jiayuguang, Lanzhou, Ximing, Xian, and Shanghai.

Urban Marginalization and the Birth of House and Techno Music (S) NEW

• Mr. Marc Christensen
• Publications Officer
• UVic Communications Services
• House music, emerging from Chicago, and techno, which was born in Detroit, have intertwining narratives of cross-pollination beginning in the mid-1980s. This talk focuses on the development of these two distinct styles of music as responses to the stratification of commercial radio in the 1970s and 80s and to the increasingly narrow expectations of racialized performance during that era.

Venezuela: Beautiful Country, Unusual Politics! (M, S)

• Mr. John Newcomb
• Retiree
• Retired from Department of Geography

Volunteering in Africa (Tanzania) NEW

• Dr. David Docherty
• Professor Emeritus
• School of Exercise Science, Physical & Health Education

Water Conservation for BC—and You and Me (M, S)

• Mr. John Newcomb
• Retiree
• Department of Geography
• British Columbian’s greatest resources include water, but as our population grows, we’ll have to meet some challenging water issues. Our success depends a lot on you and me.

What are My Natural Roles for Teams? (S) NEW

• Mr. Bert Annear
• Senior Graduate Admissions & Records Officer
• Graduate Admissions and Records
• Understanding how we can use our natural skills to enhance our productivity and effectiveness in team settings.

What Christmas is and What Christmas isn't (S)

• Dr. James M. Skinner
• Retiree
• Analysis of the four gospels to examine the crucifixion of Jesus Questions regarding the date of his execution, the method, the role of Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate. The vilification of the Jewish race as 'Christ killers' over the centuries is also examined.

What's Really Going On? Dealing with Challenging Interactions (S)

• Ms. Michele Favarger
• Bursary Clerk
• Student Awards and Financial Aid
• In today's challenging workplace environment, with cutbacks and doing more with less, how can we respond in a supportive way when we feel helpless to 'do' anything.

Yoga Psychology (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Shubha Hosalli
• Electronic Technician
• Department of Chemistry
• Yoga psychology harnesses the powers of awareness, attunement and embodied learning to foster an inquiry into the foundation of your unique expression of self-awareness, health and wellness.

Yogic Living (E, M, S) NEW

• Ms. Shubha Hosalli
• Electronic Technician
• Department of Chemistry
• Many people practice yoga but yoga is not only a soothing workout. It is also a lifestyle, helping people embrace states of well being.