Events
Upcoming Seminars
CHET & EDST Policy Cluster Seminars: September-December 2009
During our lectures in Ponderosa, coffee/tea and cookies are provided to fuel your brain.
Feel free to bring your lunch as well.
Questions regarding these seminars can be directed to Dr. Kjell Rubsenson
If you would like to discuss this seminar (or others), then please consider joining our CHET group on Linkedin |
2009 Green College Interdisciplinary Lecture Series
PAST - 2009 Internal Seminars
PAST - 2009 CHET/Green College Interdisciplinary Lecture Series
(Directions to Green College: http://www.greencollege.ubc.ca/About/p-about.htm)
Feb. 4 - Schisms and Scapes: Knowledge econom/ies in Canada's Policies (lecture powerpoint notes)
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critical debate on these and other issues in post-secondary
education and training.
Click here for other Conferences and Workshops that CHET
organizes, either alone or in collaboration with other institutions.
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Abstracts:
25 September 2008:
The sustainable city, methodology and the social sciences: Is this the emergence of a new discipline?
Discussion of submission for SSHRC International Opportunities Fund: Development Grant
Dr. Kalervo Gulson,
Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia
The International Opportunities Fund: Development Grant is an internationally collaborative and multi-disciplinary endeavour that will generate new knowledge about ways of undertaking social science research on the sustainable city. This grant places particular emphasis on bringing together international scholars from nations such as Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States where the sustainable city is a common and prominent research object. These scholars bring expertise and experience from a range of disciplines including education, political science, geography and urban planning. The anticipated outcomes of this proposal on the sustainable city include: 1) identifying applicable conceptual and methodological aspects of social science research; 2) addressing whether the challenges require the development of new interdisciplinary approaches; 3) considering the implications for undergraduate and graduate education and research training; and, 4) creating new international research networks and generating potential interdisciplinary social science projects.
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8 October 2008:
Research for and off policy: Some introductory reflections
Dr. Kjell Rubenson
Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia
The seminar will explore two disparate traditions in educational policy research that often are referred to as “research for policy” and “research of policy.” Their different logic and accompanying approaches will be examined.
A special seminar on “Traditions in Policy Research” sponsored by CHET and the Policy Studies and Education Cluster
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22 October 2008:
Is UBC a World Class Institution?
A Critical Analysis of World Ranking Systems
Dr. Donald Fisher, Dr. Kjell Rubenson, and Dr. Amy Scott Metcalfe
Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia
Two world ranking systems (Times Higher Education and Shanghai Jiao Tong University) have become central to the ways in which higher education institutions define themselves and to higher education policy making. The trend toward international ranking has increased competition between and within universities and has increased the level of stratification and status hierarchies in higher education systems. This lecture will provide a critical review of the leading ranking systems and provide insight to the consequences of rankings to higher education policy.
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23 October 2008:
Strange bedfellows: Research and political decision-making
Dr. Charles Ungerleider
Director of Research and Knowledge Mobilization, Canadian Council on Learning
The call for evidence-informed decisions makes strange bedfellows of researchers and politicians. In his presentation, Charles Ungerleider will identify the differences between the worlds in which researchers and decision makers live, the different norms to which they adhere, and the different languages they speak to illustrate how these differences impede the relationships between researchers and decision-makers. He will also suggest what decision makers and researchers might do to improve their relationship and encourage the use of evidence to inform policies and practices.
A special seminar on “Traditions in Policy Research” sponsored by CHET and the Policy Studies and Education Cluster.
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12 November 2008:
From advocate to academic and back again: A realist approach to policy research
Robert Clift Executive Director, Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC
To engage in social policymaking assumes there exist effective and reliable causal mechanisms in the social world. The nature of those causal mechanisms is seldom articulated or explored in government policy formulation, however. To the extent that causal mechanisms are considered at all, they are assumed to be self evident (i.e., common sense) or empirically established through methods of statistical correlation of lesser or greater sophistication. Using critical realist concepts, Robert Clift traces his intellectual journey from student activist, to public policy analyst and now proto-academic and the effect it has had on his professional practice as an advocate for the interests of faculty members at public universities.
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19 November 2008:
Becoming a University:
The Shifting Landscape of Postsecondary Education in BC
Dr. David Atkinson, President, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Robert Fleming, Associate VP Academic, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Earlier this year, the government of British Columbia moved forward on the recommendation from the Campus 2020 Report to grant university-colleges the new status of regional universities. Mr. Fleming will provide an overview of the changing landscape of university-colleges and set the stage for the discussion by elaborating on postsecondary policy shifts at the provincial level. Dr. Atkinson will discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by the transition from Kwantlen University-College to Kwantlen Polytechnic University. A discussion with the audience will follow to explore the implications of these changes on postsecondary education in BC.
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Past Seminars
10 January 2008
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Ponderosa H 123* |
Campus 2020: What are the Next Steps? Working Session
The Ministry of Advanced Education will disseminate soon a document tentatively called a “Transformation Plan” that will spell out the steps the Ministry plans to take on the Campus 2020 recommendations. In this session we will discuss the November 19th session in Victoria, review the Ministry’s document and consider a response from CHET. |
24 January 2008
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Ponderosa H 123* |
How Marketing Efforts Contribute to Advancing Research Intensive Universities
Top tier universities worldwide increasingly compete for students, faculty, research funding, philanthropy and other forms of community support. We will provide an overview of best practices in integrating internal strategic planning efforts and external marketing efforts and share UBC's own efforts in this arena. We will also touch on market segmentation, using UBC's international student recruitment efforts as a case study. In addition, we will argue that one of the most effective ways for UBC to market itself internationally is by sending its faculty members and students overseas to engage in teaching, research, study, and volunteer activities as an expression of our commitment to global citizenship. Finally, we will explore how "creation stories," "tribalism" and "net promoters" serve as powerful, informal marketing mechanisms.
Panel presenters:
Scott Macrae, Executive Director, Public Affairs
Don Wehrung, Director, International Student Initiative
Craig Klafter, Associate Vice President International
Marie Earl, AVP Alumni and Executive Director, UBC Alumni Association |
28 February 2008
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Ponderosa H 123* |
Moles and Serpents in British Columbia: A Deleuzian Critique of Higher Education Policy in Campus 2020
Dr. Taylor Webb, Department of Educational Studies
"The old monetary mole is the animal of the spaces of enclosure, but the serpent is that of the societies of control." --- Gilles Deleuze, 1992, p. 5
The talk critiques the most recent policy document in British Columbia, Canada that attempts to hold the university accountable to performance. The document in question is entitled Campus 2020: Thinking Ahead (Plant, 2007). My talk demonstrates how this Canadian example of educational accountability intends to develop governmentality constellations to control the university and regulate its knowledge output. I pursue my critique by juxtaposing sections of the government report with sections from Gilles Deleuze's (1992) Postscript on the Societies of Control. The synthesis of these two texts reveals how British Columbia's provincial government intends to: 1) subjugate education to economic desires, 2) develop governmentality constellations to maintain power, and 3) use such constellations to hold education accountable through macro- and micro- surveillance technologies. In the end, I argue that British Columbia will assemble its accountability machine and finally participate in the liberal democratic network of educational surveillance in Canada, and potentially, the world. |
25 September 2008
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Ponderosa H 123* |
The sustainable city, methodology and the social sciences: Is this the emergence of a new discipline?
Discussion of submission for SSHRC International Opportunities Fund: Development Grant
Dr. Kalervo Gulson
Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia
|
8 October 2008
11:30 am - 12:50 pm
Ponderosa H 123* |
Research for and off policy: Some introductory reflections
Dr. Kjell Rubenson
Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia
(This seminar is part of a special series on “Traditions in Policy Research” sponsored by CHET and the Policy Studies and Education Cluster.)
|
22 October 2008
5:00 - 6:30 PM
Coach House at
Green College** |
Is UBC a World Class Institution? A Critical Analysis of World Ranking Systems
Dr. Donald Fisher, Dr. Kjell Rubenson, and Dr. Amy Scott Metcalfe
Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia
|
23 October 2008
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Ponderosa H 123* |
Strange bedfellows: Research and political decision-making
Dr. Charles Ungerleider
Director of Research and Knowledge Mobilization, Canadian Council on Learning
(This seminar is part of a special series on “Traditions in Policy Research” sponsored by CHET and the Policy Studies and Education Cluster.)
|
12 November 2008
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm
Ponderosa G Lounge |
From advocate to academic and back again: A realist approach to policy research
Robert Clift
Executive Director, Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC
(This seminar is part of a special series on “Traditions in Policy Research” sponsored by CHET and the Policy Studies and Education Cluster.) |
19 November 2008
5:00 - 6:30 PM
Coach House at
Green College** |
Becoming a University:
The Shifting Landscape of Postsecondary Education in BC
Dr. David Atkinson, President, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Robert Fleming, Associate VP Academic, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
|
27 November 2008
11:30 am - 1:00 pm
Ponderosa H 123* |
University involvement in promoting higher education access for disadvantaged groups
Dr. Audrey Addi-Raccah
School of Education, Tel Aviv University
|
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