LFS Today Sept 12, 2022

News

Acting Dean

David Kitts will be Acting Dean while Rickey is away today and tomorrow.

Post-Secondary Public Health Guidance for COVID-19

The province’s updated Post-Secondary Public Health Guidance are online, and we encourage program directors to share the document with their teams. Visit the LFS intranet:

https://my.landfood.ubc.ca/operations/lfs-covid-19-reoccupancy-information/

The Guidelines outline the current prevention measures recommended by public health for post-secondary institutions in B.C. to reduce the spread of COVID-19. These Guidelines were developed by a team of experts from B.C.’s post-secondary sector, the Office of the Provincial Health Officer, regional health authorities and the BC Centre for Disease Control (BC CDC).

With health and safety measures in place, institutions are encouraged to prioritize on-campus instruction whenever possible. The BC CDC notes that campuses have high vaccination rates and the risk of COVID-19 transmission in structured settings like classrooms is low.

Enabling youth to return to regular learning and social activities is important for pandemic recovery. The prevention measures outlined will help balance the benefits of on-campus learning while reducing the risk of communicable diseases, including COVID-19, on campus.

New Micro-certificate programs in LFS

UBC’s Continuous Learning Advancement Fund is funding two new micro-certificate programs in LFS. These are non-credit programs that serve continuous learners seeking to change (reskill) or advance (upskill) their careers in high-demand sectors.

• Virtual Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture has been awarded Year 1 project funding of $45,950 (led by Clare Cullen). This project is timely as it helps address current workforce shortages facing agriculture. It also aligns with the Faculty’s Strategic Plan by addressing two of our five priority areas: Enhancing Regional Agriculture for Sustainable Cities, and Improving Food Security.
• Environmental Metrics for Sustainability has been funded at $53,170 (led by Kelleen Wiseman). The projects aims to train working professionals and new graduates in designing and setting up environmental metrics to track and assess the environmental impact of an organization’s activity and sustainability management practices.

Also, the Food Safety Management Micro-Certificate will be making a second offering starting this September – this program is jointly offered with BCIT and will be expanding its online courses to better meet industry needs. This micro-certificate is led by Anubhav Pratap-Singh and was funded through the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

Remote Access to Office and Lab Computers in LFS

Beginning on Sep 13, 2022, users who access their office or lab computers from off campus will require a connection to the LFS VPN. Access from the general UBC VPN pool will no longer be supported. This change is necessary to improve the security of the LFS networks. We encourage users to switch over to the LFS VPN ahead of the transition date of Sep 13, 2022.

Detailed instructions on connecting to the LFS VPN can be found on the Learning Centre’s website.

<https://lc.landfood.ubc.ca/connecting-to-the-lfs-vpn/>

Reminder: faculty and staff users will need to use 2 factor authentication when connecting to the LFS VPN. This DOES NOT apply for graduate student users who are connecting to the LFS GRADS VPN pool.

If you are unable to connect to the LFS VPN after following the instructions, have questions or issues, please contact us at it@landfood.ubc.ca.

The Learning Centre

Events

TODAY – Alumni Webinar to celebrate the Animal Welfare Program’s 25th Anniversary

The Animal Welfare Program is turning 25! Faculty and staff in the AWP are putting together a number of webinars and in-person events to celebrate this milestone. Tune into their upcoming webinar series where all aspects of animal welfare will be discussed by AWP alumni. The launch is Sept. 12 on the topic Achieving Change in Academia. Speakers include alumni now working in academia:

• Cassandra Tucker, Professor and Director of the Center for Animal Welfare, Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis
• Kathryn Proudfoot, Associate Professor, Director of the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre
• Becca Franks, Research Scientist Department of Environmental Studies New York University

Webinar details:

Topic: Achieving Change in Academia

Sept. 12, 2022

12 pm PT

For more information and to sign-up visit: https://awp.landfood.ubc.ca/webinars/

Sept. 13 – Seminar with Oliver Fiehn, UC Davis

Dr. Oliver Fiehn from UC Davis (https://fiehnlab.ucdavis.edu/staff/fiehn) will be visiting UBC Chemistry on Tuesday, September 13^th. He will give a talk as part of the Lectures in Modern Chemistry series, in the Chemistry Building Room B250, Tuesday, September 13, 12:45-2pm. Dr. Oliver Fiehn is one of the top scientist in metabolomics with many fundamental analytical and bioinformatic contributions. If you are interested to schedule a meeting with Dr Fiehn, please contact Assistant Professor Tao Huan (tao.huan@ubc.ca), who is coordinating his visit.

Deadlines

Sept. 15 – LFS Internal Research Grant Program (IRGP) 2022 Application

The Faculty of Land and Food Systems Internal Research Grant Program (IRGP) provides short-term support for the development of innovative, multidisciplinary research that will eventually form the basis of a research proposal submitted to one of the Tri-Agency funding organizations (i.e. NSERC, CIHR, SSHRC) or the UBC TLEF program. The overall aim of the IRGP is to identify and support innovative, early-stage research within LFS which will enable preliminary data to be gathered for the purpose of strengthening the calibre and competitiveness of research proposals submitted to the Tri-Agency and TLEF funding competitions from LFS.

The LFS IRGP encourages collaborative multidisciplinary submissions: this year’s IRGP also aims to spark new collaborations with units and faculties external to LFS, hence applicant teams must be comprised of a lead PI from LFS and at least one other co-applicant from outside LFS with whom the PI has never worked before. The lead, and at least one other co-applicant, must be full-time LFS faculty members with a minimum of 12-month appointments.

This year’s IRGP applications must address one or more of the five priority areas from the current LFS Action Plan, Navigating Change: Addressing climate change and resilient food systems; Ending hunger and improving food security; Enhancing regional agriculture for sustainable cities; Promoting nutrition and wellbeing for healthier communities; Ensuring the health and welfare of animals in society.

Support will only be provided for the direct costs of research that are essential to the completion of the proposed research, including: stipend and salary support for undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, research-related travel, and material supplies or consumables. This year’s IRGP applications must include support for at least one undergraduate student.

Applications (application form plus all attachments submitted as a single PDF file) for this funding call should be sent to lfs.research@ubc.ca by Thursday, September 15 at 5pm.

Full details on the IRGP program including the Application Form can be found here.