Archives by date

You are browsing the site archives by date.

Prof. Stephen J. Toope, UBC President and Vice Chancellor

Centenary Address: HKU President’s Summit – East Meets West

December 21, 2011

Heads of leading universities met for a Summit during HKU’s Centenary

UBC receives $2.2M from BMO

December 1, 2011

The largest donation in BMO’s history in BC will support family business and dairy research education

Professor Toope is pleased to welcome undergraduates, graduates, special guests and members of the greater community to the 2011 Fall Congregation Ceremonies at UBC’s Vancouver campus. Between Wednesday 23 November and Friday 25 November, undergraduate and graduate degrees from all 12 Vancouver faculties will be conferred. For more information on ceremonies, please visit the UBC […]

Prof. Toope attends opening of CIRS

November 4, 2011

UBC’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability is North America’s greenest building

Prof. Toope to chair AUCC

November 4, 2011

UBC President begins a two-year term as chair of the board of directors

Centennial Speech: President addresses AUCC

October 27, 2011

Prof. Stephen Toope has begun a two-year term as chair of the board of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.

Executive Team Visits UBC Dairy Centre

October 19, 2011

The university’s Senior Executive team recently visited the Dairy Education and Research Centre, located in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. Pictured above are the members of the Executive, who were hosted at the Centre by Nelson Dinn, Manager, Jim Thompson, Professor and Director, and Ronaldo Cerri, Professor and Researcher. Please visit the Dairy Education and Research […]

Dave Eggers, Zeitoun (Vintage Canada, 2010)

October 17, 2011

I was first introduced to Eggers through his zany family memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, one of the funniest books I have read. Zeitoun is the history of another family, tested beyond all reason by circumstance and bad public policy. The title character is a Syrian-American, married to a “white” Muslim convert. Together […]

Saul Bellow, The Dean’s December (Penguin Books, 1982)

October 17, 2011

Born in Lachine, Quebec, Bellow became the great chronicler of mid-twentieth century American (especially Chicago) life. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976, his later writing becomes elegiac, and strongly focused on intimations of mortality. The Dean’s December, published in 1982, tells the story of a dyspeptic but relatively happily married dean of […]

Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam (Penguin Books, 2006)

October 17, 2011

One of the most difficult and troubling books I have ever read. Buruma grew up in Holland, but is half-British and has spent much of his recent years in the USA. He returns to Holland in 2004 to investigate the reasons that may have prompted the murder of controversial Dutch filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh. Van […]

Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander (Harper Collins, 2002)

October 17, 2011

O’Brian is often described as the greatest of historical novelists, mostly because of his superb research and encyclopedic knowledge of the Royal Navy of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although he can sometimes descend into excruciating detail (especially about the sails on a square-rigged ship!), what marks O’Brian’s greatness is his gift for rich […]

Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness (Harcourt Inc., 2005)

October 17, 2011

A powerful and lyrical memoir by one of Israel and the world’s great novelists. Probably best known for My Michael and Black Box, Oz tells a story of growing up in the 1940s and 50s in Jerusalem. One experiences a sense of both claustrophobic rigidity and utter liberation. His silent father was also a great […]