Gandhi, borders, education, housing
Document Tools
Miki honored with Gandhi awards
Border guards walk off: a dangerous precedent?
Trading school books for a punch card
Building healthy homes
Miki honored with Gandhi awards
Roy Miki, Governor-General award-winning poet and SFU English professor, will receive the 20th annual Gandhi Peace Award and the 16th annual Thakore Visiting Scholar award for his contributions to the Japanese-Canadian redress movement, at a ceremony on Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the Images Theatre at SFU Burnaby. The awards, part of the annual Gandhi commemorative program sponsored by SFU's institute for the humanities, in co-operation with the India Club and the Thakore Charitable Foundation, salute Mahatma Gandhi's memory and his ideals of truth, justice, human rights and non-violence. The event is free and open to the public. Check www.sfu.ca/humanities-institute.
Trish Graham, 604.291.5855; patricia_a_graham@sfu.ca
Border guards walk off: a dangerous precedent?
Should border guards have the right to flee their posts if they have reason to fear for their lives? Does walking off the job, as border guards at border crossings did after learning an armed man was potentially heading for the border, set a dangerous precedent? SFU political scientist Alex Moens and SFU criminologist Neil Boyd are available to comment. Political scientist Anil Hira, co-author of a forthcoming study on Canadian security responses to 9/11, can also look at the issue.
Alex Moens, 604.291.4361, moens@sfu.ca
Neil Boyd, 604.291.3324, 604.947.9569, neil_boyd@sfu.ca
Anil Hira, 604.291.3286; ahira@sfu.ca (available Tuesday, Sept.26, then away until Monday, Oct. 2)
Trading school books for a punch card
A noticeable decline in enrolment at B.C. universities and colleges is leading many post-secondary school administrators to speculate that, in good economic times such as now, young people would rather work than study. SFU dean of education Paul Shaker and John LaBrie, dean of continuing studies, can look at the situation.
Paul Shaker, 604.291.6796, pshaker@sfu.ca
John LaBrie, 604.291.5138; jlabrie@sfu.ca
Building healthy homes
Dust mites, roaches, molds, mouse droppings — such environmental trouble makers can make life miserable for asthma sufferers. Tim Takaro, an associate professor in health sciences at SFU, develops strategies to reduce environmental hazards for people suffering chronic respiratory conditions. The medically trained researcher recently helped Seattle's housing authority turn 35 residences for low-income families into breathe-easy dwellings. Equipped with air filtration heat exchangers to recycle air and other add-ons, the homes were on display at a recent environmental expo in Seattle. Takaro can talk about the homes' features and his two-year study evaluating their success in improving the respiratory health of occupants, many of them asthmatic children.
Tim Takaro, 604.268.7186, ttakaro@sfu.ca