窪蹋勛圖厙

 

Working for a greener tomorrow

- September 14, 2009

claire campbell
Professor Claire Campbell is coordinating the MacKay lecture series this year. (Nick Pearce Photo)

With the new College of Sustainability launched this past spring and the first undergraduate classes in Environment, Sustainability and Society starting this month, it seems more than timely for this years MacKay lecture series to focus on the theme of sustainability.

The MacKay Lectures are supposed to be an academic series, but with wide public appeal Not only is sustainability ubiquitous in public discussion right now, says history professor Claire Campbell, coordinator of the series, but its got peoples attention at the university level, so we thought it would be the perfect topic.

What I love about environmental history, muses Dr. Campbell, is that its a day-to-day thing. My academic work isnt disassociated from my citizenship or from my life on the planet.

Dr. Campbell is a part of the College of Sustainability, and one of the professors for the first-year class. This lecture series is also doubling as an instalment of the mandatory weekly evening lectures for the first-year Sustainability 1000 class, which is exciting for many reasons.

The students will be exposed to speakers from across North America, as well as to the diversity of how people in the arts and social sciences can apply their work in ways that have real presence and relevance for the community outside of academia. The three sustainability lectures focus on geography and environmental history; ethics, equity and human rights in the field of environmental justice; and the politics of agriculture, specifically food security and international trade. The speakers Graeme Wynn, Robert Melchior Figueroa, and Kathy McAfee will be talking about sustainability with an eye to the past, present, and future, covering a range of disciplines and perspectives.

Dr. Campbell wants to get the community at large involved: If we can draw audiences for this kind of information and event, she says, then were doing a public service. We should be doing things that make the community feel invested in us and feel like they can be participating in our activities.

The MacKay lectures are named for Gladys and Rev. Malcolm Ross MacKay. Mrs. MacKay donated generously to show her appreciation of the education that her husband received at 窪蹋勛圖厙in 1927. This funded the lecture series, and influences the choice of topic for the lecture series: his degree was in history, so every year the organizers ensure that there is some historical component to the lectures.

For more information, contact Claire Campbell of the Department of History/College of Sustainability at 494-3668.

2009 MacKay Lecture Series

Lecture One
Sustainability and Resilience in Atlantic Canada: A Long View by Graeme Wynn, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia. Thursday, Sept. 17, 7:30 p.m. in the Potter Auditorium, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building.

Lecture Two
Extending Environmental Justice over the Warming Planet: Climate Refugees, Cultural Sustainability and Reconciliation by Robert Melchior Figueroa, Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies, University of North Texas. Thursday, Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m. in Ondaatje Hall, Marion McCain Building.

Lecture Three
Stopping Global Warming and Relieving World Hunger: Must We Choose Between Them? by Kathy McAfee, Department of International Relations, San Francisco State University. Nov. 26, 7:30 p.m., Potter Auditorium, Kenneth C. Rowe Management Building.

There is a fourth lecture in the series specifically dedicated to an historical topic. Taking place on Oct. 15, it is entitled Mapping Identities: Food and the Creation of Boundaries with Sami Zubaida, Professor Emeritus of Politics and Sociology, Birbeck College, London.