VIU News & Experts: September 5, 2024

The Weekly Rundown: AI, elections and sustainable farming 🍅

In this issue of VIU news & experts: 

• What worries young users about AI? 
• Mobilizing the next generation of voters
• VIU Fest is back! 
• Expanded gathering place re-opens

Featured experts

Investigating AI privacy concerns among young users

Dr. Ajay Shrestha, a VIU Computer Science Professor, is researching AI’s privacy impacts with the focus on understanding the perspectives of young digital users and protecting children’s privacy rights. He recently received a $86,601 grant from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. 
 
Shrestha and his research team are looking for participants for their research study. Educators, parents, AI developers, researchers and young digital citizens aged 16 to 19 are invited to take the survey. Also, educators, parents, AI developers and researchers are invited to sign up to participate in in-depth individual interviews and focus group studies. Learn how to participate.

Mobilizing the next generation of voters

Some are calling 2024 the Year of Elections as 80 countries – more than half the population of the world – have elections this year. VIU Education Professor Dr. Paula Waatainen is the BC rep on Elections Canada’s Advisory Circle of Educators and has spent a lot of time getting her students actively engaged in elections and teaching them about political data literacy, looking for the complexity in public policy options, analyzing political messaging and productive communication. She has some best practices to share when it comes to talking to students about elections.

Looking for an expert for another story? Connect with VIU Experts

VIU news

Expanded gathering place re-opens

Indigenous students at VIU now have access to more space for ceremonial and support services with the re-opening of the newly expanded Shq’apthut (a gathering place) building on campus. Read more.  

Sustainable farming and gardening practices

New courses on offer through VIU’s professional development and training program will offer working or new farmers science-based education opportunities. The courses include sustainable soils management, agroecology and organic vegetable seed production and are eligible for a grant that covers tuition and fees. They are also offered online with two in-person field days on weekends to allow people to build the training around their workdays. Read more.  

VIU in the news

Dr Greg Arkos, a VIU Astronomy professor, captured an unusual aurora borealis at the end of August. Arkos spoke to the Nanaimo News Bulletin about the phenomenon known STEVE (strong thermal emission velocity enhancement). Read the article.
 
VIU student researcher Chloe McLaughlin and Dr. Tim Green, VIU’s Canada Research Chair in Shellfish Health and Genomics, spoke to The Tyee about a collaboration between the university and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to improve testing shellfish and sea urchins for biotoxins. This project aims to improve food security and sovereignty for remote and Indigenous communities along the coast. Read The Tyee article.
 
Indigenous students attending VIU this fall will have access to more space for ceremonial and support services in the expanded Shq’apthut – a gathering place – building. Read more in the Times Colonist and also in this Nanaimo News Now article.
 
The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and VIU have partnered to bring the Indigenous Student Success Program to Alberta. VIU offers an Indigenous Intern Leadership Program that the student success program is based on. Read more in Academica.
 
Vancouver Island University’s fall semester is getting underway and for new student-athletes, they'll be getting used to a new school and a new team. The Nanaimo Bulletin profiled Jordyn Exner, a second-year transfer from Saskatchewan who is playing for the VIU Mariners’ women’s volleyball team.

Happening at VIU

Save the date: VIU Fest

VIU’s biggest, free community festival is back on Saturday, October 5! Activities include live music, a pumpkin patch, hands-on science demos, food trucks and expert talks. Stay tuned to the VIU Fest website to learn more.

Threadbare exhibit at View Gallery

VIU’s View Gallery presents Threadbare, an exhibit by Connie Michele Morey. The exhibit runs until November 1. Opening reception and performance is on September 20 from 4 to 6 pm at the gallery. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday from 10 am to 4 pm during exhibits.

Colloquium series

The Arts and Humanities Colloquium Series kicks off with a talk by Sarah Crover, a VIU English Professor. In the talk Shakespearean Neverwheres: Victoria (BC), Ann Hathaway’s Cottage, and Nostalgia for "Merry Olde England” Crover discusses how since colonization Victoria has embraced a romanticized version of Old England, particularly through its adoration of Shakespeare. This talk explores how, rather than engage with its own violent colonial past and attempt meaningful social reparations, citizens mobilized Shakespeare and a sanitized vision of Merry Olde England, to paper over the fault lines between white settler, "foreigner," and Indigenous communities, and imagine a venerable, harmonious English city. Learn more.