Summer 2020 Newsletter

Welcome

Welcome to the Summer 2020 issue of Letter from Santa, a regular communication to the UBC community. In this newsletter I will give a brief summary of the most significant COVID-19 developments, as well as other news from UBC.

Highlights

• COVID-19 and UBC
• New Board Chair
• Systemic Racism
• Audain Chair in Historical Indigenous Art
• Connecting With Compassion
• Freda Miller joins UBC
• News from around UBC

COVID-19 and UBC

• Preparations are underway for the Fall term, which begins in just over a month. It will be a very different September than we are used to. Traditional events such as Imagine, Create, Homecoming and welcome back events for faculty, staff and students will either be offered in different formats or not offered at all. However, we will find a way to welcome our returning students, faculty and staff, and to welcome first year students to UBC.
• As we prepare for September, we have begun to implement a robust process for the resumption of academic, administrative and ancillary services, based on guiding principles focused on the health, safety and wellbeing of students, faculty, staff and the public. Individual faculties, departments and units will be adopting different procedures, depending on their circumstances. It is expected that many faculty and staff will continue to work from home. Faculty and staff who do need to come to campus for their work must complete mandatory COVID-19 training.

New Board Chair

I was thrilled to learn that the Board of Governors has appointed Nancy McKenzie as Chair of the Board.

Nancy was first appointed to the UBC board of governors in 2017 and was previously chair of the finance committee. She has been a tremendous asset to the board since her appointment and I look forward to working with her as we strive towards the university’s vision as set out in the UBC Strategic Plan—inspiring people, ideas and actions for a better world.

You can learn more about Nancy and her appointment here.

Systemic Racism

As I promised in my Letter to the Community last month, over the last few weeks, I have been meeting with faculty, staff, and students on both campuses who identify as Indigenous, Black, or a Person of Colour (IBPOC). I am learning from their experiences of racism on our campuses and understanding ways to address this.  An advisory committee on systemic racism is just a first step to firmly embedding appropriate consultation, representation, and compensation for the emotional labour of our IBPOC community members.

Announcing the Audain Chair in Historical Indigenous Art at UBC

I’m pleased to announce the Audain Endowed Chair in Historical Indigenous Art at UBC – Museum of Anthropology at UBC. As part of the President’s Academic Excellence Initiative. The Chair has been created thanks to a donation of $3 million from alumnus Michael Audain, OC, OBC, one of B.C.’s most ardent champions of the visual arts. The new position within the UBC department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory will focus their study on works from the 18^th to early 20^th centuries, and lead research on Northwest Coast Indigenous art in the context of Indigenous and global art history.

Connecting With Compassion

Over the past few months, UBC News has been highlighting stories of the many ways—both big and small—that UBC community members are helping with the response to COVID-19. You can read these inspiring stories here – https://news.ubc.ca/ubc-covid-19-response/. Today, I’d like to focus on one of these initiatives – Connecting With Compassion.

Co-led by Dr. Roger Wong, clinical professor of geriatric medicine in the Faculty of Medicine, Connecting with Compassion is using technology to help families stay connected with their loved ones and combat the social isolation being felt by seniors living in long-term care homes across B.C. The Connecting with Compassion team is delivering new iPads to long-term care homes across the province in hopes of facilitating virtual visits and connections among family and friends. The iPads arrive pre-loaded with videoconferencing programs, like FaceTime, Zoom and Skype, as well as a host of other apps designed to keep seniors engaged. You can read more about Connecting With Compassion at https://news.ubc.ca/2020/06/01/helping-seniors-in-long-term-care-combat-social-isolation-during-covid-19/

World-renowned neurobiologist Dr. Freda Miller joins UBC

I was thrilled to learn that renowned stem cell and developmental neurobiologist Dr. Freda Miller is coming to UBC this fall. Dr. Miller joins UBC, under the auspices of the President’s Academic Excellence Initiative, from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, where she has been a Senior Scientist and Professor at the University of Toronto. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and at the Hospital for Sick Children she was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Research Scholar and the Canada Research Chair in Developmental Neurobiology.

Dr. Miller has made seminal scientific discoveries over the course of her career. Her discovery of stem cells in the second layer of the skin has provided the conceptual basis for using skin as a major source for genesis of human stem cells. The stem cells she discovered are critical for the repair of injured skin. She has also discovered new mechanisms determining whether nerve cells live or die, findings that initiated new fields of research and that have major implications for our understanding of neurodegenerative disorders.

News from around UBC

AMS: The AMS is launching AMS CampusBase – an online campus activities hub where students can engage with their favourite student groups, explore their interests and discover new ones. At the heart of CampusBase are the 350 AMS clubs that all students can check out. From academic and political clubs, to pottery, dance and everything in between, clubs represent the diverse interests of UBC students from all walks of life. AMS CampusBase, which is set to launch in early September, makes it easier than ever to explore clubs, to connect with club leaders, find club events to attend and much more. Keep watch on the AMS website (ams.ubc.ca) and AMS Instagram account (@ams_ubc) for more details.

Faculty of Applied Science: A new app co-developed by researchers at the Faculty of Applied Science and colleagues at Western University and the University of New Brunswick could help guide women who are experiencing intimate partner violence to a position of better health and security. Known as myPlan Canada, the free tool offers users a personalized safety plan based on factors such as their location, their employment and family status and their proximity to their abuser. The app is intended to complement, not replace, existing health and social services.  • Applied Science researchers at UBC Okanagan are collaborating with Kelowna-based Care Health Meditech to develop a new device that isolates and eliminates airborne droplets and germs associated with COVID-19 and other illnesses. • Helen Brown and her team have launched an art initiative to promote mental health of men in prison. The kits contain beautifully crafted journals, sketchpads and other art and writing supplies, along with messages of support, Indigenous teachings, and writing and art prompts for creative activity.

Faculty of Arts: Dana Claxton was awarded the 2020 Scotiabank Photography Award, Canada’s largest and most prestigious peer-nominated and peer-reviewed award for outstanding contributions in contemporary art and photography. • Allison Macfarlane officially began her appointment as the new Director of the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs on July 1. • Researchers from the UBC iSchool and the Department of Linguistics developed Mega-COV, a longitudinal, publicly available dataset of 1.5 billion tweets in 104 languages. The dataset allows researchers from across disciplines to compare the impact of the pandemic across time.

Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies: This year, twenty-one doctoral students across UBC been awarded the Vanier Canada Graduate Fellowship, and three postdoctoral fellows have received a prestigious Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship. Over the last five years, 107 graduate students at UBC have been awarded the Vanier Fellowship, and postdocs have been awarded 28 Banting Fellowships. These young researchers have been working on subjects that span the health sciences, the natural sciences and engineering, and the social sciences and humanities, from Ashli Akins’s research on the role of the arts in securing voice and opportunity for oppressed populations, to Karl Zimmerman’s investigation on the power of biological water filters, to Ketty Anyeko’s work on reparations and justice after wartime sexual violence in Uganda.

Faculty of Land and Food Systems: Alexandra (Sasha) Protopopova is the inaugural NSERC/BC SPCA Industrial Research Chair in Animal Welfare, leading research between UBC and BC SPCA over the next five years. Sasha will collaborate with the scientific community, professionals in non-profit organizations, and those in the companion animal industry. • UBC Farm’s Centre for Sustainable Food Systems is seeing strong interest from the community in its biweekly webinars Future of Food Global Dialogue Series, focusing on building resilient food systems during COVID-19 and beyond.

Faculty of Medicine: Two Faculty of Medicine researchers have launched COVID-19 related studies: Dr. Lori Brotto is leading a national survey to measure changes in sexual health and the prevalence of gender-based violence during COVID-19, while Dr. Deborah Money is leading a national study examining maternal and infant outcomes among pregnant women with COVID-19. • In non-COVID related research news, a new research network, co-led by Dr. Judy Iles, will advance brain research to improve the quality of life for Canadians with brain illnesses. A new study led by Faculty of Medicine researchers finds falling childhood asthma rates are linked to the declining use of unnecessary antibiotics.

Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences: Each year the Faculty publishes a Year in Review, to highlight key accomplishments from the previous year in our four priority areas of focus: Education, Research, Practice, and People and Place: https://pharmsci.ubc.ca/stories/year-in-review-2019-2020.

Sauder School of Business: Dr. Lisa Cavanaugh, from UBC Sauder’s Marketing & Behavioural Science Division, has been named the Academic Director of the Robert H. Lee Graduate School (RHL). Since joining UBC Sauder, Cavanaugh has taught the entire spectrum of students: undergrads, MBAs, PhDs and executives. Her work with the RHL and Masters students began early in her tenure through UBC Sauder’s signature Global Immersion Experience (GIE), and in the past three years, she has served as the faculty lead for three exciting and unique GIE destinations: Tokyo, Japan; Santiago, Chile; and Berlin, Germany. • UBC Sauder School of Business has affirmed its commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion and is establishing an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee led by Senior Associate Dean Kai Li. The broad mandate of the committee is to develop initiatives that promote a diverse and inclusive community of faculty, staff and students.

UBC Okanagan: On July 1, the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences (IKBSAS) transitioned into two autonomous faculties. Those faculties are now the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science. • Adrienne Vedan, UBC Okanagan Director of Aboriginal Programs and Services, began her new role as Senior Advisor to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor on Indigenous Affairs on July 1. The senior advisor role was created as part of UBCO’s commitments to truth and reconciliation. The inaugural advisor, Ian Cull, retired at the end of June.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments on this newsletter. I wish you all the best for the rest of the summer.

Santa J. Ono
President and Vice-Chancellor