January 2008

Science’s demand to scientists to cut the jargon was a shot heard around the world, and long overdue. Now let’s talk about story telling

But rising workload a concern as demands on professors’ time multiply

Canadian universities graduate plenty of people who can deal with the intricacies of molecular biology and genetic manipulation, but few who understand the basic mechanics of defending the country’s plants, including crops and forests, from biological threats responsible for billions of dollars worth of damage every year. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency wants to fill […]

Teaching conference attracts hundreds of faculty

University of Alberta part of UNESCO program to train teachers

Touched by a chance encounter on an earlier trip to Cambodia, Toronto-based photographer V. Tony Hauser returned to that country in May 2006 to photograph Cambodian children who had survived land-mine accidents. The 14 children live in Siem Reap in the Cambodia Land Mines Museum, which offers a dormitory, schooling and a medical clinic. Not […]

When you’re given lemons, the old saying goes, make lemonade. That’s the situation at the University of Northern British Columbia, where at least a dozen researchers are working on 28 different projects to understand and mitigate the devastating impact of the mountain pine beetle. Over the past several years, large swaths of the normally green […]

Here’s some good news for a change from northern B.C.’s pine-beetle ravaged forests: a PhD student at the University of Northern British Columbia has discovered an ancient rainforest with massive red cedars, some estimated up to 2,000 years old. This type of forest is more typically found in B.C.’s southern coastal regions, but the stand […]

Five totem poles located in Simon Fraser University’s Naheeno Park were once considered a landmark but in recent years risked being forgotten as trees and brush filled in the area where they were standing. This prompted the university this past fall to remove the poles, which will be restored and relocated to a more prominent […]

Writing is one of the crucial skills that academics need to perfect, no matter what field they’re in. But it’s a skill that scholars, and everyone else, mostly learn through instruction, then trial and error. Dalhousie University’s school of graduate studies is trying to add a modicum of observation to the process. On Jan. 26, […]

Academic misconduct is a reality, but what’s less certain is how often it occurs and what’s the best way to combat it

Canada’s mishmash of student aid programs is working up to a point but has failed to close the gap in university participation rates between the rich and poor