LFS Today Nov 26, 2020

LFS Family Care Assistance Program Funds

The Faculty recognizes the many profound challenges our community is facing with respect to COVID-19, in particular, for those providing care for family members – be it child-care, elder-care or other dependents. The LFS senior management team and the LFS ad hoc TLEF Block Funding Committee have recently unanimously approved the LFS Family Care Assistance Program (FCAP) to help alleviate some of the costs associated with family care that may occur as a result of the pandemic and/or the need to work from home.

FCAP will be collectively funded by the LFS’s TLEF Block Funding and the funds repurposed through spending reprioritization. These funds have been used to help pay for expenses incurred for sustaining online teaching and learning by our Graduate Academic Assistants (GAAs) / Undergraduate Academic Assistants (UAAs) and additional Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs). While these funds have been extremely useful in the transition to online teaching and learning, the family care situation is still so challenging for many of us that the Faculty will use some of these funds to support the LFS FCAP.

The LFS FCAP Faculty of Land and Food System Family Care Assistance Program is available to all staff, faculty, GAAs, UAAs, and GTAs. If you have (or have had) any family care expenses arising from the pandemic (either ongoing, unexpected, or one-time expenses – retroactive to March 15, 2020), you are eligible to apply for these funds up to $500 per individual.

To apply for funds, please use one of these ways:

For faculty members, apply for the LFS FCAP by filling out the form, which can be found on the intranet. Then submit the form to:

• Vicky Zhang (zhang@ubc.ca) for faculty members in APBI;
• Shinko Terencio (terencio@ubc.ca) for faculty members in FNH.

For staff members, GAAs, UAAs and GTAs:

• Please make your claims directly in Workday with a completed form. Please choose “Professional Development and Training” as the expense item and enter “PM010220” as the program.

Assistant Professor (Indigenous Scholar) in Land and Food Systems

We invite you to attend our next two candidates’ research and teaching seminars, and would appreciate your feedback using the Assessment forms below.  A copy of the advertisement is included here.
 
Hughie Jones received a PhD in Soil Science in LFS in 2019 under the supervision of Dr. Andy Black.  He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in IRES (Ecohydrology Group) at UBC, where he uses soil, plant, water and meteorological techniques to understand the impact of climate change and land/resource management on the sustainability of agricultural and aquatic ecosystems.
 
Research Seminar: The need to eat and the water we drink: agriculture’s impact on energy, greenhouse gas and water balances
November 26, 1:00-2:30pm
Register in advance:
https://ubc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Ivc-CtqzMsHtNlOowIAecVT4qGDk6Db9F2
 
Teaching Seminar: Soil moisture: theory, measurement and applications
November 27, 1:00-2:15pm
Register in advance:
https://ubc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5IpcuGopjIiEtwHIfzHwDBz_DilpME2LT0z
 
Assessment Form (Hughie Jones):
https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eyDk2Chbt4lePRP
 
 
Jennifer Grenz completed her PhD in Integrated Studies in LFS in October 2020 under the supervision of Dr. Carol McAusland.  She is currently a Sessional Lecturer in our Faculty.  Her expertise incorporates (but is not limited to) food security and sovereignty, plant science and sustainable agriculture, and includes scholarly approaches to the intersection of food systems and indigenous issues.
 
Research Seminar: It’s Time for the Academic Time of the Eagle
December 3, 1:00-2:30pm
Register in advance:
https://ubc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5Urc–vqT4uGNaNlL7-P-dF3Mn2XBYUrQBu
 
Teaching Seminar: Reclaiming an Indigenous Ecology
December 4, 1:00-2:15pm
Register in advance:
https://ubc.zoom.us/meeting/register/u5UrdO-gqTkpEta5V9Nz2ZR7H4Nx9h7pmjkj
 
Assessment Form (Jennifer Grenz):
https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eqyFXJ4pxePJHmJ

CTLT Winter Institute: Dec 14-17

UBC educators! Explore the changing landscape of online teaching and learning techniques with a week of free professional development workshops on teaching, learning and technology! Registration for the 2020 CTLT Winter Institute is now open.

The CTLT Winter Institute takes place online from December 14 – 17, 2020. View the full schedule of events and learn more at https://institute.ctlt.ubc.ca/winter-institute-2/.

Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF) Seminar

Topic: Effects of environmental parameters on early life stages of commercial fishes and the implications for aquaculture
Speaker: Andrea Frommel, Postdoctoral Fellow, Pelagic Ecosystems Lab
When: Friday, November 27, 11:00am
RSVP: https://oceans.ubc.ca/rsvp-iof-seminars/
More info.

Canada’s Food Waste Reduction Challenge

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has launched the $20M Food Waste Reduction Challenge to accelerate the development and deployment of innovative solutions that can tackle food waste at any point from farm-to-plate.

The challenge has four innovation Streams. The first two Streams (A and B) are now accepting applications for business models that prevent or divert food waste!

To receive funding, solutions will need to be innovative, high-impact and transformative and have the potential to make a dramatic and measurable reduction to food waste. Apply by January 18, 2021.