The World's Fair

Last semester I was fortunate enough to be involved with a UBC project (called Terry) that looks at global issues from a multidisciplinary angle. One of the things in my charge was arranging a kind of high profile speaker series, with an emphasis on bringing out individuals who are not only doing great things, but are also excellent engaging orators. This was wonderful in that I got to hang out with some pretty amazing folks. Anyway, the talks are all available online, a good portal for them being here, but I thought as bait, I'd present a few interesting, funny, at times poignant, and other times frankly biting soundbites below for you to check out.

- David Suzuki (Geneticist, Broadcaster, Environmental Advocate and Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation)

- Stephen Lewis (UN Special Envoy for the HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Africa)

- David Orr (Director of Environmental Studies at Oberlin, pioneer in the concept of 'ecological literacy')

Great huh?

Anyway, along the same train of thought, I should also point out that our token "about" blurb for this Terry project reads as follows:

"The Terry project is a joint initiative of the University of British Columbia's Faculties of Arts and Science with a strong collaboration with VP Students Porfolio (as well as many others including those from groups as diverse as UBC Office of Sustainability and UBC Community Affairs). Its primary mission is to educate members of the UBC community (notably undergraduate students) on the pressing global issues of our time. This has encompassed a website, design of a future interdisciplinary course addressing global issues, and delivery of our speaker's series showcasing high profile (and engaging) academics, cognoscenti, and proactive members of our global community. By creating a synergistic forum that addresses topics such as climate change, sustainability, GMOs and AIDS, we hope to stress the importance of multi-disciplinary learning, thus inspiring students to actively pursue university educations that will assist them in developing and promoting just, civil, and sustainable societies throughout the world."

I've bolded the course design aspect, because that is one of the things I'm focusing on this summer, and I put this out there because I hope to involve the blogosphere as far as feedback, opinions, etc is concerned. I'm guessing there's a lot of people out there who have an opinion about the arts/science divide. If so, stay tuned.