UBC's best-kept secret Print E-mail
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Thursday, 04 February 2010 17:03

Every Saturday night during the fall and spring semesters, a crowd gathers to hear a lecture in the Woodward Instructional Resources Centre at UBC. The lectures are open to the public and are free of admission charges. This has been going on since 1916, yet most Vancouverites seem quite unaware of it, unless connected with UBC in some way.

The lectures are organised by The Vancouver Institute, which is directed by an executive board of volunteers, probably mostly academics, current or retired, who appreciate opportunities to continue to learn and desire to share those opportunities with the community at large.

The speakers are usually visiting academics, but are often subject matter experts from outside the academy, too, including Nobel laureates and world leaders. The 500 seat theatre doesn't fill every time, but when it does they usually provide an extra theatre into which the lecture is broadcast using audio-visual equipment. The front half of the theatre is reserved for Vancouver Institute members ($10/year) until 8:00pm, after which it is opened to non-members. Unlike many other events, this one usually starts precisely, at 8:15pm, and ends at about 9:00. It is often followed by a Q&A session. Often, large crowds show up for the best known speakers, such as the Dalai Lama or John Ralston Saul, but the big names do not always provide the most interesting lectures. One of the benefits of the Vancouver Institute is that you can challenge yourself by showing up for something about which you have no prior knowledge, and learn something new. I once attended a talk on the subject of lemmings in northern Canada that I feared might be a boring, scientific recitation of facts from a biology text, but that turned out to be so fascinating that I was telling people about it for days after.

Subjects in coming lectures include Can Carbon Capture and Storage Solve Global Climate Change?: Lessons from Nature;    Journey of the Blue Whale;    The Writer and Human Rights;    Waltzing With al-Bashir: Juggling Peace and Justice in Darfur;    and    Human Mitochondria: Window Into Our Origins, Ailments, and Longevity.

Why not check it out one Saturday night? It's like a free education. And you'll still have time to go out to a party after!

For more information about coming lectures or for directions, visit the Vancouver Institute website at http://vaninst.ca/.

 
Last Updated on Tuesday, 09 February 2010 22:23