March 5-9
Celebrate Research Week 2012
There is no doubt that research rocks at UBC's Okanagan campus. This year's Celebrate Research Week is the time to learn how.
Alumni are invited to see for themselves the powerful, far-reaching impact of research in the Okanagan and beyond. Discover what it means to your life and applaud the investigative and collaborative efforts of UBC's accomplished researchers.
Join faculty, staff and students for an up-close look at research that is changing the world.
Click the button below for the full list of Celebrate Research Week events. |
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Thank you curlers
UBC alumni, students, staff and friends joined together with gusto for the 3rd annual Alumni and Friends Curling Funspiel, making it a fun and memorable day for all. Congratulations to the Hot Rocks for best team name, and The Bad News Bears for best costume.
View shots of the day’s fun through the link button below. The event was a wonderful, collaborative effort of Alumni Relations, Campus Rec, Campus Life and the Kelowna Curling Club. Thanks to Development & Alumni Engagement, Campus Rec and the UBC Bookstore for generous prize donations.
New alumni - Rose’s Pub fundraiser
February 16
Come out and support the Student Legacy Council as they raise money for this year’s grad class gift. Each year, a commemorative stone tablet is placed at UBC’s Okanagan campus, a gift from the graduating class, citing names of the previous year’s graduates in lasting tribute to each and every proud alumnus who learned, worked and played here.
The legacy council is made up of students from across campus who raise the funds to honour their peers with this gift. Five stones now grace the campus, naming all graduates from 2006 to 2010.
Time: 6:30-9:30pm
Location: Rose’s Waterfront Pub, 1352 Water Street, Kelowna
Tickets: $10 and include a burger (beef, chicken or veggie), fries and a beverage (house wine, beer or highball).
Please contact Erica Triggs at 250.807.9360 to reserve your ticket. See you there! |
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Toronto alumni – last chance!
February 22
UBC’s Deputy Vice Chancellor and Principal at the Okanagan campus is traveling to Toronto for a private dinner to hear what you have to say about your life as a student, your plans for the future and the ways that you want to stay connected with UBCO. If you’re in Toronto, make sure you’re on the guest list by contacting Erica Triggs.
For information on volunteer opportunities visit UBC's Okanagan Learning Exchange website. To be added to the alumni and friends volunteer roster contact Brenda Tournier at 250.807.8167.
Alumnus appointed to Queen’s Counsel
Jim Herperger, BA ‘76 was recently selected for the prestigious honour of Queen’s Counsel (QC), a designation conferred on members of the legal profession to recognize exceptional merit and contribution.
Congratulations Jim, on this well-deserved tribute.
UBC grad scores big in business competition
Congratulations to Zach Webster, BA ’06, for placing first with his teammate in the ethics category of the Inter-Collegiate Business Competition (ICBC) held at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario in January. Having completed his UBC degree, Zach is currently taking the business program at Okanagan College.
Okanagan Short Fiction Contest winners announced
Alumna Shelley Wood, M Journalism ’00, of Kelowna, tied for the merit prize and a $100 cash award for her story The Drop in the Okanagan Short Fiction Contest. Karen Hofmann, of Kamloops was the winner of the competition with Billeh and the Bee Man.
University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus writer-in-residence Karen Connelly judged the contest entries.
Deborah Buszard appointed Deputy Vice Chancellor and Principal
The University of British Columbia Board of Governors has approved the appointment of Professor Deborah Buszard to lead UBC’s Okanagan campus as Deputy Vice Chancellor and Principal. She will begin her five-year term on July 1, 2012.
Buszard is currently Professor of Environmental Science at Dalhousie University, and has held a variety of academic and leadership positions at Dalhousie University and McGill University. In her new role, she will be the senior leader at UBC’s Okanagan campus and a core member of the University’s executive leadership team.
“We are very pleased to welcome Dr. Buszard to UBC,” said Prof. Stephen Toope, President and Vice Chancellor. “She is a distinguished scholar and an effective leader who will provide strong support and guidance to this extraordinary campus.”
Buszard succeeds Doug Owram, who has held the position since July 1, 2006. A historian who held senior leadership roles at the University of Alberta before coming to UBC, Owram has helped establish and grow the new campus since just after its creation. The student population at the Okanagan campus has doubled to more than 7,900 this year.
UBC's Okanagan engineers design a first-place finish
Team takes top spot at Western Engineering Competition 2012
At first, all they knew was that the problem had something to do with water, but at the end of the eight-hour competition it was problem solved.
A team of engineering students from the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus took first place at the Western Engineering Competition 2012 in Calgary recently when faced with the best way to clean up an oil spill.
The team of Clifford Gilker, Devyn Farr, Patrick Finch and Philip Batt took first place in the Senior Design category – the top event at the competition. The team was faced with a simulated oil spill to deal with and they had eight hours to come up with a budget for the material they would need, a presentation on their plan and a method for removing the ‘oil’ from water’s surface.
The Okanagan team defeated some of the best minds from Western Canadian post-secondary institutions, but all smiled a little more when asked how it felt to defeat the UBC team from Vancouver.
They will now head to the national competition at UBC's Vancouver campus March 8 – 11.
UBC to study brain blood flow during concussion recovery
Volunteer subjects sought for leading research into athletic head injuries
Researchers at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus are launching a ground-breaking study examining how blood flow to the brain is altered in athletes recovering from sports concussions.
The Integrative Sports Concussion Research Group (ISCRG) will focus on young athletes, whose involvement in their respective sports has been curtailed due to head injury. Over the next year, faculty and students from UBC’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences will conduct an examination of up to 90 recently concussed athletes aged 14 to 25, in conjunction with Lifemark Health Sports Medicine Clinic in Kelowna.
“Concussion is a very common condition that is treated by many sport physicians. Yet there are many aspects about this condition that are poorly understood,” says Paul van Donkelaar, BPE ’87, MPE ’90, principal investigator of the research project called Exercise following concussion: do disruptions to cerebral autoregulation underlie executive function deficits.
Currently, concussed athletes are assessed and their recovery is often based on exacerbation of symptoms like headaches, dizziness, nausea and fatigue as measured on a graded exercise protocol on a stationary bike. Traditionally, once a patient remains symptom free for a period, they will be cleared for contact at practices and, in time, for a full return to sport following clinical assessments.
UBC’s research will challenge how the results of those assessments are achieved. The aim of the study is to generate data needed to identify physiological and cognitive markers associated with post-concussion syndrome.
Centre for Advancement of Psychological Science and Law opened Feb. 3
It has been years in the making, but the Centre for Advancement of Psychological Science and Law (CAPSL) officially opened on Feb. 3 at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.
The driving force behind CAPSL is the trio of Zach Walsh, assistant professor of psychology, Mike Woodworth, associate professor in psychology and Stephen Porter, psychology professor. Each specializes in different areas of psychology and law and each will bring their expertise to the centre.
“Our ultimate end will be to facilitate a better understanding of crime,” says Walsh, adding the idea behind CAPSL is to facilitate the interface of psychology and the law. All three agree that a fundamental goal is to “provide world-class research on human behaviour in forensic contexts with both basic scientific and applied relevance.”
With the potential to be a nationally and internationally renowned centre for forensic psychological research, practice and training, the centre focuses on four key areas at the cross-section of psychology and law: personality/psychopathy and aggression, investigative psychology (detecting deception, investigative interviewing, eyewitness memory), police and jury decision-making, and preventing victimization by criminals and understanding victim responses to violent crime.
The types of research conducted at CAPSL, which is funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the B.C. government, is relevant to the basic understanding of the psychology of crime and victimization, and to the types of biases that can influence decisions about suspects and defendants in the legal system, sometimes leading to wrongful convictions. This could help to improve the criminal justice system.
UBC Stories at a Glance
Volunteer – it’s worth the time
Perhaps you’ve landed that perfect job but, perhaps not. If you’ve been sending your resume out to company after company and still aren’t getting the calls you want, it might be time to look at building your career in a different way. Volunteering gets your foot in the door with companies and organizations you’d like to work for. For a potential employer, welcoming you into the fold as a volunteer involves much less investment and, therefore risk, in what is essentially an unknown entity - you. That’s just one of the up-sides of volunteering. You become known to potential employers and career contacts in a very good way. Working for free has a downside, to be sure, but think of it as your own personal investment in both your career and your community. If it leads to a job, it will pay off many times over.
When you’re mulling over your volunteer prospects, it can be helpful to look a little outside the box. Think about the companies you’d like to work for and what might provide meaningful benefit to them. You could offer to conduct research for a company, or help out with an upcoming fundraising or charity event. Try to look for openings that will allow you to shine - and keep an open mind. People with initiative don’t view many tasks as ‘below’ them. It’s surprising how much you can learn from even the simplest jobs, in the right context and with the right attitude.
When you’re hunting for volunteer opportunities, don’t be afraid to tell people what you want for the future, that you’re looking for work and what your strengths are. One volunteer position or contact can lead to more. There is no shortage of volunteer boards, committees, projects and internships out there. Find the ones that will help get you to where you want to go – and be sure to ask the organizations and people you work with for references, even introductions, when the time is right.
Benefits of volunteering
Ten professional development benefits of volunteering
Volunteer work when unemployed: should you work for free?
Making the most of a volunteer position
Career Cafes
- February 16 - Careers in Medicine without an MD
- March 1- Careers Supporting Personal Growth
- March 15 - Careers in International Aid and Development*
*location TBD
Time: 12:00-1:00pm
Location: Room UNC 207, University Centre
Career Cafés are coffee-house style events where both new alumni and students gain valuable career advice and make important connections. Panellists share career experiences and lessons learned, guided by the questions – and career aspirations - of students and new alumni. Panellists speak for a few minutes each about their own career paths followed by an open question and answer period.
These events are free to attend but RSVP email registration is required.
Career Information
Accelerate Okanagan is accepting applications for entrepreneurship@AO in partnership with BCIC. This is a 12 month program designed to support and nurture early-stage technology companies from product concept to market entry.
This year, entrepreneurship@AO will provide support for up to 15 successful applicants.
entrepreneurship@AO is open to all provincial, national and international start-up ventures. Successful applicants will receive one-year free enrolment in our Venture Acceleration Program (VAP) and free access to shared office space at Accelerate Okanagan’s Innovation Centres in Kelowna or Penticton.
Deadline for online applications: Feb 15, 2012
Winners announced: Feb 23, 2012
Program starts: Mar 1, 2012
For more information, please call 250.870.9028 or contact@accelerateokanagan.com.
Career Connections
To find out more visit UBC's Okanagan Career and Life Planning web site.
Also, check out a wealth of career resources offered through UBC Career Services in Vancouver.
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February 2012 |
What's your passion, alumni?
Name: Kelly Riccardi
Position: Behaviour Interventionist/ professional dancer
Degree: Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, ‘09
What’s my passion:
After a long time in my university education, I graduated in 2009. At UBCO, I pioneered the Hiphop 101 Club, open to whoever shared the same passion as I did in the street dance culture. I studied psychology and taught/trained in dance, with an inspiration to somehow combine the two one day. I choreographed The Living Nativity Christmas musical at Willow Park Church. That was my first experience working with children in a dance setting and it triggered something I will be forever grateful for.
After graduation, I returned to my hometown of Vancouver and auditioned for a well-known and respected hiphop dance company known as SOULdiers. I was out on a limb and had to go back for two call-back auditions over 2 months, but I got in! It was my dream to be in a professional, large-scale dance company. I then decided to chase after my other dream of being both a professional dancer and a school teacher. It was in a Math for Teachers course that I met someone who told me about this relatively new degree program called Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is a post- graduate option that sets you up to be a behaviour consultant for children with autism spectrum disorder. Something about it felt very right. I had an abundance of experience working with children and knew I wanted to make a difference using the tools UBCO had given me.
Last March I got my first job as a behaviour interventionist. I am now in my first semester of a practicum and loving every minute! I recently got hired to head the Adaptive Dance Program at RNB Dance and Theatre Arts, which specializes in transitioning children with special needs into the arts using positive behaviour support. This program is highly regarded and known by ABA professionals all the way down to California. The possibilities in the field of ABA and dance are endless and I’m able to combine my two passions into one. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Click here to watch a short video about Kelly’s hip hop club at UBC’s Okanagan campus.
If you have a passion that ties to UBC’s vision for positive change in the world, let us know.
Want to know what’s new in your faculty, unit or even course union?
The HEAT finishing up the year
The HEAT are in action this weekend (Friday, Feb. 10 to Sunday, Feb. 12) – the last of their first season in Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS). The anticipation is in the air as the men’s volleyball can secure a spot in playoffs with wins on Friday and Saturday night. A huge feat considering this is their first year of competition in Canada’s highest level of organized amateur sport. On Sunday, the basketball teams will finish the year by celebrating graduating student athletes accomplishments over their playing careers. Come cheer on your varsity athletics teams as they complete a very successful first year.
On Thursday, March 29 the Athletics Department will look to build on raising funds for student athlete financial awards with the seventh annual Valley First UBC Athletics Scholarship Breakfast. Building on the already hundreds of thousands raised for student athlete support, funds raised from the breakfast help offer student financial assistance to varsity student athletes.
For more information and tickets, please call 250.807.8862 or email adam.k.goodwin@ubc.ca.
March 7
Who cares for caregivers? Families and serious illness
Family caregivers provide $25-26 billion in-home care each year. Caregiving can be a 24/7 job and family caregivers are at risk of a decrease in their own health and well-being. What do we know about the needs of family caregivers? How can family members stay healthy while caregiving?
Time: 5:00-7:00pm
Location: Bohemian Café, 524 Bernard Avenue, Kelowna
This event is open to the public and is free to attend, but please RSVP by February 25. Contact 807.8072 or healthyliving.research@ubc.ca for more information.
UBC Events at a Glance
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