University Lecture Series
The Office of Research Services is pleased to announce the University Lecture Series at UFV, profiling UFV researchers and their work.
Upcoming Lectures
Davida Kidd - February 1st, 4:00 pm, B121
Who Needs Art When You Have a View Like This
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Davida Kidd |
Davida Kidd’s latest body of work features an array of images that engage in biting double entendres.
It was inspired by a billboard Kidd read when driving across the Cambie Street Bridge that exclaimed “Who Needs Art When You Have a View Like This!” In keeping with Kidd’s practice of constructing sets and staging subjects, she creates large-scale photographic images that use digital collage to combine multiple objects, images, and views.
Davida Kidd’s practice addresses themes of the blurred line between illusion and reality. She cultivates the ambiguous moments at which subjects become invented by the viewer.
Born in Edmonton, Davida Kidd received her BFA and MVA in Print Media from the University of Alberta, where she specialized in Print Media, Photography, Digital Imaging and Installation. Kidd is currently an instructor in the UFV Visual Arts department. She was awarded the prestigious Grand Prix at the 2003 International Print Triennial in Poland and recently received a major project grant from the Canada Council of the Arts.
Gregory Schmaltz, March 7th, 4:00 pm B121
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Greg Schmaltz |
Competition and maternal effects in group-living birds.
Although most bird species exhibit a mating system similar to humans (social monogamy), there are exceptions to the rule. Smooth-billed anis are communally breeding birds that live in groups of up to 17 adults. What is unusual is that all female group members lay their eggs in the same nest. This nest-sharing habit has important consequences for these birds. For instance, females compete for access to the incubated clutch of eggs by burying each other’s eggs under leaves and nesting material. Males or females may also decide to toss eggs out of the joint nest. Nonetheless, group members co-operate after the egg tossing/burial stage and share incubation, territory defence, and care of young, though not evenly. During his talk, Greg Schmaltz will examine some of the potential reasons as to why these birds decide to live in groups. He will also highlight various types of conflicts that are part of this unusual mating system.
Past Lectures
Derek Harnett
Exotic Bound States of the Strong Nuclear Force
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Derek Harnett |
For centuries, scientists have searched for the fundamental building blocks of matter. In this pursuit, significant progress has been made. We now know that (macroscopic) matter is composed of molecules; molecules, in turn, are built from atoms; atoms are bound states of electrons and nuclei; and nuclei are just collections of protons and neutrons. In the 1970s, physicists discovered that protons and neutrons are themselves assembled from even smaller bits of matter called quarks. The force responsible for bundling quarks together is called the strong nuclear force, and its mathematical description is provided by a theory called quantum chromodynamics (QCD).
In addition to protons and neutrons, QCD predicts the existence of a wealth of other strongly bound particles, many of which have been found; however, there are several varieties that continue to defy conclusive experimental detection. These hypothetical particles are collectively referred to as exotics. Do they actually exist? If so, then why are we having so much difficulty finding them? If not, then what are the implications for QCD?
View the presentation (streaming video)
Chris Bertram, Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education
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Chris Bertram |
Finding Strengths, Building Hope: Strength-based interventions for children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD)
Intervention programs for children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) have traditionally focused on the commonly cited deficits in cognitive ability, intellectual capacity, or on direct attempts to adapt social behaviors. Such programs have met with limited success and there is a growing consensus that new and innovative approaches are needed. Toward this end, we have developed two novel intervention programs (FAST Club and Brain Gamers) at the University of the Fraser Valley that seek to identify existing strengths in children with FASD, and to develop these strengths to the fullest capacity of the individual. Our project is a part of nation-wide multidisciplinary collaboration that was recently funded by two separate Network Centres of Excellence — NeuroDevNet and GRAND. An overview of the projects will be discussed along with some preliminary data that suggest that targeted approaches to intervention based on an individual's strengths can lead to neuroplastic changes in children with FASD.
View the presentation (streaming video)
Trevor Carolan, Ph.D, Department of English
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Trevor Carolan |
Ecosystems, mandalas, watersheds, and citizenship:
The works of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder
As a founding father of the international Environmental Movement, Snyder’s approach to global ecology is informed by his upbringing and connection with peoples in the Cascade Range that overlooks UFV, trans-Pacific poets, land and wilderness sustainability issues, cross-cultural anthropology, Mahayana Buddhism, lived experiences with “the bush”, and his scholarly connections with the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dr. Carolan will consider Snyder’s contributions to what citizenship might mean in the current global age, in particular his conception of planetary ecological stewardship as a form of citizenship.
View the presentation (streaming video)
Peter Raabe, Ph.D, Department of Philosophy and Political Science
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Peter Raabe |
Change your brain, change your mind?
Drawing on existing psychiatry literature, empirical evidence, and a case study, Dr. Raabe’s lecture considers mental illness through a philosophical lens. It defines the ontology of mental illness or mental disorder in non-biomedical terms, as consisting of problematic propositional mental content rather than organic brain malfunction. This allows for a causal theory of mental disorder to be located within the parameters of existential difficulties rather than biological pathology, and contradicts the arguments made in defence of the necessity of psychotropic medications
for the alleviation of mental distress. This in turn indicates support for the argument that mental disorders can betreated, if not cured, by means of philosophy.
View the presentation (streaming video)
Olav Lian, Ph.D, Department of Geography
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Olav Lian |
Understanding the timing and nature of climatically-driven landscape change in western Canada by reading the landscape’s solar birth certificate
Dr. Lian’s research looks at how the landscape in western Canada adjusted after the last ice age, and how it has responded to subsequent changes in climate. By understanding how the physical environment has responded to past changes in climate, it may be possible to predict the impact of future changes on the stability of our fragile landscape. To help find when these changes happened, and to be able to link them to intervals of past climate change, Dr. Lian uses a technique called luminescence dating, which allows one to date when grains of sand buried within a landscape were last exposed to sunlight — or when that landscape was last unstable. He will explain how our physical environment has changed over the past 12,000 years, and how it might change in the future.
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Adrienne Chan, Ph.D, School of Social Work and Human Services
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Adrienne Chan |
What does social justice mean to the university?
Dr. Chan's broad research goal is to identify how social justice is conceptualized and implemented through policy and practice. Most universities in Canada appear to have articulated the basic ‘pillars’ of social justice but there are continuing problems with exclusionary and discriminatory practices on campus. Policies and practices that are consistent with social justice principles include those that facilitate access, equity, and the elimination of barriers to participation in education. These terms are often simple to say and difficult to exhibit in practice.
Learn More about Dr. Chan
View the presentation (streaming video)
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Tom Baumann |
Tom Baumann, Department of Agriculture
The evolution of berry production in the Fraser Valley
Working collaboratively with the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Baumann and several of his students conduct field-testing of new berry breeds. The project has produced now-common new varieties such as the Sto:lo strawberry and Chemainus raspberry, and is helping further our knowledge of how berries grow, how growers can manipulate them for optimum growth, and how we can encourage healthy food-production while remaining competitive in an international marketplace.
View the presentation (streaming video)
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Scott Sheffield
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Scott Sheffield, PhD
Mobilising Indigeneity: Comparing Settler Societies and Indigenous Participation in the Second World War
The Indigenous warrior has long captivated the imaginations of Western societies. As ‘vicious savages’ impeding the march of civilization of loyal allies fighting alongside imperial powers/noble settlers, the be-feathered North American Indian, fierce Maori, and elusive Aborigine have become entrenched in the popular consciousness of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Although pre-war indigenous-settler relationships differed substantially, each Aboriginal population responded when war broke out in 1939 by declaring their support and volunteering to serve. Thousands of Aborigines, First Nations, Maori and Native Americans fought overseas, while on the home front, their families, communities and leadership offered labour, voluntary, monetary and symbolic aid to national war efforts.
Governments that had been working for decades to undermine the cultural vitality and identity of indigenous peoples would, in the exigencies of wartime, explicitly seek to utilize perceived indigenous attributes, languages, knowledge and bushcraft for the national war effort. Whether drawing on ‘marital race’ concepts to support organisation of segregated indigenous units like the 28th (Maori) Battalion, formally or informally using indigenous knowledge of remote regions threatened by attack in Northern Australia or Alaska, indigeneity was enlisted for the Allied cause. Examining such processes in comparative perspective can tell us a great deal about these historical processes, both in the startling similarities across the four countries, and via their clear differences.
This grows out of a present SSHRC-funded research project undertaken in collaboration with Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario.
Learn more about Dr. Sheffield.
View the presentation (streaming video).
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Darryl Plecas
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Darryl Plecas, EdD
Successful Crime Reduction
When the notion of ‘crime reduction’ first came to BC four years ago, many of us who study crime and what to do about it were very excited. We were especially excited because we knew of the effect that a crime reduction approach had in its birthplace, the UK. Under the umbrella of what the country called ‘crime reduction’, the UK took concepts, such as community and multi-stakeholder accountability and thoughtfully wove them into a new, comprehensive, and very successful response to reducing crime, Within a decade, crime in the UK fell by more than 40%. Even with some important differences between the UK and British Columbia, we were confident that if communities around the province put in place the same basic principles and practices adopted in the UK, we could expect to see the same kind of results here. This lecture will discuss the efforts and the research designed and implemented to make that happen.
Learn more about Dr. Plecas.
View the presentation (streaming video)
