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President's Dream Colloquium

In 2011, President Andrew Petter announced the President's Dream Colloquium, an initiative to bring leading thinkers to SFU and provide an annual forum for intensive interdisciplinary exchange amongst faculty and students.

Each colloquium will provide an opportunity for approved SFU graduate students and possibly senior undergraduate students to gain course credits for attending colloquium seminars, participating in pre-seminars and completing supervised research papers relating to the colloquium’s subject/theme.

Each colloquium will be set up as bi-weekly seminars led by six different renowned experts in their field. Each topic will have a two-week focus: In the first week, the group will meet to discuss materials relevant to the following week's seminar which will be led by the guest speaker. There will be a final student presentation or collaborative project.

The seminars led by the guest speakers will be open to the entire community.

Enrolment in the colloquium course will be capped at 20 registrants, and admission will be will be by application only.

The following two Dream Colloquia will take place at Simon Fraser University in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013.

Learn More

If you'd like to be notified when there's more information on how to register in the upcoming Dream Colloquia, please let us know via websurvey.

Colloquium Proposals

If you're an SFU faculty member who would like to put together a colloquium proposal for the 2013–14 academic year, please see the call for proposals. The application deadline is November 1 of each year.

Fall 2012: Emergence and Complexity of Life

Where did we come from? What is consciousness? Are we alone in the universe?

These profound questions have broad significance to all members of our community. From a scientific and philosophical perspective the origin of life and the evolutionary progression leading to the emergence of human intelligence represents one of the most fundamental questions of our time.

See full information on the Emergence and Complexity of Life Colloquium.

Registration

Registration for the Fall Colloquium will open in the Summer term. If you'd like to be notified when there's more information on the guest speakers and on how to register, please let us know via websurvey.

Organizers: Nancy Forde, Associate Professor, Physics and Peter Unrau, Associate Professor, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

Spring 2013: Justice Beyond National Boundaries

Over the last forty years, beliefs about the significance of national boundaries for justice have transformed. Attitudes about the system of sovereign states that have held sway since the seventeenth century are being displaced, and the moral and legal significance of national boundaries is increasingly called into question.

See full information on the Justice Beyond National Boundaries Colloquium.

Registration

Registration for the Spring 2013 Colloquium will open in Fall 2012. If you'd like to be notified when there's more information on the guest speakers and on how to register, please let us know via websurvey.

Organizer: Sam Black, Associate Professor, Philosophy