SFU Graduate Studies

Jordan Paterson, a graduate student in SFU’s Educational Technology Program, just produced and directed the award-winning documentary From C to C: Chinese Canadian Stories of Migration.

Filmed on location in BC and throughout China’s Guandong province, From C to C is a moving, and cinematic, tapestry of Chinese Canadian stories of migration. These stories outline the injustices faced by Chinese migrants during the last century, and the little known affects of migration on the families and communities of migrants. The film contrasts these histories with the views and experiences of contemporary Chinese Canadian youth, leading us to reflect on the meaning of exclusion for those who experienced it, as well as for those who did not. By calling attention to the diverse and transnational nature of contemporary Chinese Canadian identities, the film promotes an inclusive vision of Canada that values members of all communities as global—rather than solely national—citizens.

Made in partnership between SFU’s Teaching and Learning Centre and the SUCCESS Foundation, From C to C is a community-based documentary that is part of a larger educational project that aims to raise awareness about contemporary social justice issues by reflecting on, and comparing, the experiences of migrants between Canada and China since the early 20th century. It received a 2011 Leo award for best short documentary.

From C to C: Chinese Canadian Stories of Migration will air on July 16 at 5 pm on CBC (Channel 3) and Channel 308 on Starchoice.

• From C to C website
• SFU News release on Leo Award: TLC documentary wins Leo
• See also previous blog post: China adds SFU to scholarships preferred list

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The Organization of American States and Coimbra Group of Brazilian Universities are offering up to 50 scholarships for Master’s programs in participating universities in Brazil.

The scholarship includes a moving grant, monthly stipend and full tuition expenses for up to 24 months. Applicants must speak Portuguese or Spanish as a native language, or supply proof of an intermediate level of Portugese.

The application form (pdf) is due by August 31, 2011.

• Scholarship Announcement (pdf)
• Participating Universities (pdf)
• Application form (pdf)

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Congratulations to Michel Trottier-McDonald, who has received an Alexander Graham Bell Graduate Scholarship (NSERC) for $105,000 to support his PhD program in high energy physics at SFU’s Department of Physics.

Michel has been involved for the last three years in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. His work is aimed at finding experimental evidence of the mechanism that gives mass to the fundamental particles making all the matter in the Universe. The favorite explanation is called the Higgs mechanism, and particle physicists have been on the hunt for many decades to find its elusive manifestation: the Higgs boson.

With the ever increasing amount of data collected by the ATLAS detector, it is becoming clear that the hunt for the Higgs boson is coming close to an end. Within a year or so, particle physicists should be able to tell if the Higgs mechanism is real or not.

Michel works on developing new techniques in order to increase the sensitivity of the search for the Higgs boson. For this, he is testing the limit of what the ATLAS detector can see. There is a chance that such techniques enable him and the ATLAS collaboration to see the Higgs before anyone else.

• ATLAS collaboration
• Physics Department, SFU
• High Energy Physics Group
• Michel’s Facebook page
• Michel’s blog: The Large Idea Collider
• Michel’s musical project: Motionthink

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President Andrew Petter, on behalf of SFU, has just signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the China Scholarship Council which will enable top Chinese graduate students to receive scholarship funding to attend SFU.

The number of SFU graduate students from China has grown from 79 in 2001 to 238 in 2010. Of those 238, 64 are in the Applied Sciences, 54 are in Business, 47 are in Science and 45 are in Education, with the rest in SFU’s other Faculties.

SFU’s School of Computing Science has both a Master’s and a PhD dual degree program in partnership with Zhejiang University (ZU), China.

• SFU Press release: SFU becomes a preferred destination for Chinese graduate students

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SFU’s Faculty of Environment has just posted a call for collaborative courses or activities that “enhance teaching and associated environmental education in the broadly defined area of environment.”

Projects must:

• involve tenured/tenured-track faculty or lecturers individually or in teams (may include staff)
• focus on the broadly defined area of environment including humanities, social sciences and natural sciences as well as sustainability
• support teaching or associated activities at either the undergraduate or graduate levels
• involve collaboration with FENV or FENV collaboration with other Faculties

Funding can include graduate student support and faculty buy-out/overload, and projects can be single-term or extended over multiple terms.

Projects will be accepted each term. The first proposal deadline is July 14, 2011. For more information, contact Dan Burns in FENV at dburns@sfu.ca or 778-782-9225.

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David Beckham’s soccer team, the LA Galaxy, will be playing against the Vancouver Whitecaps on Saturday, July 30.

And SFU’s Graduate Student Society has organized a social event to take place at the game!

Graduate students should register with a $10 contribution to the cost of the tickets (regularly $27) at the GSS Office. Space is limited — please submit your Registration Form and payment before July 18 2011.

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The eligibility and exemption requirements for the U-Pass BC program have been changed for the Fall 2011 semester.

In a nutshell: You will only be exempted from the U-Pass BC fee if you:

• have a mailing address which is not in Metro Vancouver AND
• are registered in an off-campus section for your course
• OR qualify in one of the individual exemption categories

If you are planning to be out of town while working on your thesis, field study, directed studies, or co-op term, we recommend that you update your mailing address in SIMS and contact your graduate program to register in an off-campus section for the fall semester. Registration opens on July 11.

In addition, the new U-Pass BC machines will require that you get your student card’s magnetic strip activated. For current students, the activation can be done during office hours at the three SFU campuses, beginning in August. Please see SFU’s U-Pass website for further details.

We strongly recommend that all current graduate students get their cards activated before the Labour Day weekend. (SFU Surrey students should pick up their new cards at the Surrey campus, as those cards also act as door passes.)

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The SFU library offers a number of e-books which can be read on your computer or downloaded to your e-book reader. Most are in PDF format They’ve put together a help page for your reference.

How to find downloadable e-books
To find downloadable e-books, search the Library Catalogue, limiting your search to eResources and include one of the following e-book publisher names as keywords in your search:

• springerlink – for access to e-books from the publisher Springer
• sciencedirect – for access to Elsevier e-books
• crc – for access to CRC Press (CRCnetBase) e-books
• “palgrave connect” – for access to Palgrave e-books

For all e-books you will be asked to log in with your SFU computing ID and password if you are working from off-campus.

Republished with permission from the SFU Library. See also other SFU Library Services for Graduate Students.

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The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) has opened the 2011 Canada-Latin America and the Caribbean Research Exchange Grants (LACREG) program, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Projects must address one or more of the Centre’s following research themes:

• agriculture and the environment
• science, technology, and innovation
• social and economic policy
• health and health systems

The LACREG program applies to collaborative research between Canada and the following LAC countries: Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago , Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Value: Support through this program will be cost-shared on a 2:1 ratio by the program and the partner institutions, respectively. The maximum value of each grant under this program will be $15,000 CDN.

Download the application guidelines and forms. Applications are due by Thursday, October 6, 2011.

For additional information please email lac@aucc.ca

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Jesse Cale (fourth from right) received his PhD and the Governor General’s Gold Medal award at Convocation on Thursday afternoon. This award is granted to the two SFU graduate students who achieve the highest academic standing upon graduation from a master’s or doctoral degree program.

His thesis, in SFU’s School of Criminology, was entitled The antisocial trajectories in youth of adult sexual aggressors of women: A developmental framework for examining offending, motivation, and risk of recidivism in adulthood.

Also convocating at this ceremony were Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal award winners Caroline Greaves, PhD, Department of Psychology (thesis: Progression towards sexual re-offence: Detailing the offence cycle and contributing factors in high-risk sexual offenders) and Hayley Jones, MA, School for International Studies (thesis: Conditional cash transfers, labour markets, and poverty reduction: A pilot study of Brazil’s Bolsa Família).

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