LFS Today July 14, 2021

LFS Virtual Townhall – Today

All faculty and staff are invited to join today’s Townhall at 1:00pm.

Agenda

• 1:00-1:05 pm – Welcome and land acknowledgement by Rickey
• 1:05-1:20 pm – Guest speakers: EDI in Applied Animal Biology directed studies, with Nadia Xenakis and Will Valley
• 1:20-1:30 pm – Welcome new people
• 1:30-1:55 pm – Roundtable Updates – from Rickey, Associate Dean, Directors
• 1:55-2:00 pm – Questions and Answers
• 2:00pm – Wrap up

To submit questions in advance or during the Townhall, please use Slido:

1. Go to the website www.sli.do;
2. Enter event code ‘LFS’ to post a question or vote for an existing one.

If you need the Zoom meeting link for today, contact Rebecca Lee at lfs.dean@ubc.ca.

Welcome Xinyan Fan to the Dietetics Program!

We are excited to announce that Xinyan Fan will be joining us as our new Dietetics Program Assistant, where he will be supporting the administrative, financial, human resources and communications aspect of the Dietetics Program as well as provide senior administrative support to the other members of the Dietetics team. Xinyan brings extensive UBC experience having worked previously at the Department of Educational Studies as an Event Coordinator and the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy as a Graduate Student Peer Advisor. Most recently, he has been working as a Student Information Services Officer in the Registrar’s office at Capilano University. Xinyan holds a B.Ed in Early Childhood Education from Shanghai Normal University, Masters in Educational Studies from UVic and was a Doctoral student in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at UBC. Please join us as we welcome Xinyan to the Faculty! His first day will be Monday, July 19^th so please feel free to virtually introduce yourself!

New Face in FNH Program!

We are happy to announce that Clera Lobo will be joining us as our new FNH Administrative Clerk, where she will be working closely with Lisa Palmer and the FNH support staff in providing administrative, front counter, and financial support to the Program. Clera brings with her extensive UBC experience having worked most recently at Financial Operations as a Customer Support Agent and manned the front counter for the Department of Civil Engineering. She’s held various roles in Psychiatry, Sauder School of Business and MOA. We are excited to have her join the Faculty! Her first day will be today, July 14^tt so please feel free to introduce yourself (virtually and in-person)!

LFS in the News

Frederik Noack was featured in a column in Trek Magazine on how pandemic lockdown measures affected air quality around the world, where some countries saw air pollution decrease and others saw it increase. On these differences, Frederik states: “Lockdowns don’t automatically mean air quality improves, because in less industrialized countries you might see more biomass burnings, [and] increased agricultural activities and residential energy use.” Trek Magazine (page 45)

Wellness Wednesdays

Your Mental Health Tip of the Week:
 

Schedule a coffee over video chats.
Getting to know your colleagues beyond the to-do list helps build understanding.

UBC Farm Webinar Series

The webinar series Farm to Globe: Transforming Our Food Systems presents Order Up: How Restaurants Adapted to the Pandemic – Thursday, July 15th 11:00 am -12:30 pm PST

As everyone stayed home, no one was dining out. It is fair to say that the restaurant industry was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic and all its consequences. As revenue plummeted and businesses tried to stay afloat, owners and operators put their thinking hats on and showed a capability to adapt like never before. Join Shira Blustein, Chef Robert Clark and Justin Tisdall as they speak about their experiences in the restaurant industry from the past year, the challenges and the successes, and what the pandemic has changed about their businesses forever. This panel will focus on the incredibly fast-paced and equally impressive pivoting that these businesses had to perform and the struggles they had to contend with, all while maintaining operations that focus on sustainability and authenticity. 

This webinar is part of the “Farm to Globe: Transforming Our Food Systems” series and is presented by the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the UBC Farm, generously sponsored by RBC Royal Bank, and in partnership with the UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems and the BC Food Web. Join us for discussions that we hope will drive action and discover what steps we need to take to transform our food systems – from farm to globe.

Register now

Conference: Sustainable Agriculture Education Association

Refusing “Back-to-Normal” Centering Land, Justice, and Action in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Education

Friday, July 23, 2021
2:00 – 5:00 pm (EST)

As parts of the world emerge from the global pandemic amid the heightened confluence of economic uncertainty, severe heat waves, racial inequities, and the ongoing colonialism that produces these violences, the call to “get back to normal” is stronger than ever. But what if our pre-pandemic “normal” is at the root of the global patterns of harm that we are experiencing today? We are excited and honoured to welcome Chief Ninawa Huni Kui as keynote speaker and Dr. Vanessa Andreotti as discussant on the intersections of Indigenous and decolonial perspectives on centering land, justice, and action, and implications for instructors and practitioners in sustainable agriculture and food systems education programs in post-secondary institutions in North America. Their collective teachings will provide a valuable opportunity to expand frames of reference for what is possible in sustainable agriculture and food system education classrooms and programs as we transition out of the pandemic and work towards refusing “normal”.

Register here