The Planetary University As A Catalyst For Local/Regional Sustainability
A lecture by Michael M'Gonigle
Hosted by the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University
SFU Burnaby Campus
SFU Burnaby Campus
Thursday, January 18, 2007 from 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
RCB (Room Robert C. Brown Hall) 6152
SFU Surrey Campus
Thursday, January 18, 2007 from 2:30 p.m. - 4:20 p.m.
Galleria, Room 3090
In the era of global warming, and calls for urgent action, citizens need new strategies to help break the political and economic gridlock that prevents such action. One institution that has so far escaped attention in this quest is one that is right in front of us, the university. Drawing on his recent book, Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University, Dr. M'Gonigle will consider this historic institution in terms of its potential to become a model of transformative change at the community level where we live. The challenge will be to harness the power of the "higher education industry," in conjunction with new emerging processes of social change, and to open the postmodern university to a new mission that will be of local and global significance.
MICHAEL M'GONIGLE is the EcoResearch Professor in Environmental Law and Policy in the Faculty of Law at the University of Victoria. A lawyer and political ecologist, his work with Greenpeace in the 1970s led to the international moratorium on commercial whaling. During this time he co-founded Greenpeace International. In the 1980s, he worked on wilderness conservation and forestry reform in British Columbia, including leading the successful struggle to protect the Stein River Valley from industrial logging. As Chair of the Board of Greenpeace Canada, he initiated its forests campaign in 1990. A cofounder in the late 1990s of SmartGrowth BC and Forest Futures (Dogwood Initiative), he recently founded the POLIS Project on Ecological Governance at UVic. He is author, most recently, of Planet U: Sustaining the World, Reinventing the University (with Justine Starke) (New Society Publishers) (2006).
These lectures are free and open to the public. Registration is not necessary.
