The Ring

City Talks is a six-part downtown lecture series presented by the University of Victoria, and focusing on what our cities mean to us.

An initiative of faculty across campus, City Talks was launched in 2010 by UVic's Committee for Urban Studies, under the guidance of UVic historian Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross, and is now offering the last two lectures of this second season: Feb. 23 and March 15, 2012.

The free public lectures take place at 7:30 p.m. on the third Thursday of every month from September through March each year at UVic's Legacy Art Gallery on Yates Street in downtown Victoria.

For more info, visit the previous Ring.ca articles (Oct.2011 "Viewpoint from centre stage" and Aug.2011 "Talking up the city") or click on City Talks.
 

Canada’s military may have left Afghanistan, but the toll of their tours of duty is still having an impact. According to Judy Jackson’s new documentary War in the Mind, 15 per cent of the country’s soldiers are affected by post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There will be a free public showing of the film on March 14 at 7 p.m. in MacLaurin A144 (David Lam Auditorium). 

The documentary includes enactments where veterans relive dark and painful moments from their military lives under the guidance of psychologists Drs. Marvin Westwood and David Kuhl, who developed their therapeutic program with UVic counseling psychologist Dr. Timothy Black.

Jackson’s documentary includes testimony from veterans of many wars, including World War II, who say the pain “never goes away.” Canadian veteran, author and now senator Romeo Dallaire shares his thoughts of his own high-profile battle with PTSD in the documentaty narrated by Canadian actor Paul Gross.

Following the film showing, Black will host a panel that includes soldiers who appear in the film to discuss their experiences in therapy, the Canadian military’s reaction and response to PTSD and the soldiers’ attempts to move forward in their lives.
 

UVic President David Turpin has joined with his counterparts at BC's three other research-intensive universities in recommending that the BC government make changes in student financial assistance. BC has the nation's highest interest rate on student loans at 2.5 per cent above prime. The presidents point out that changes in student aid programs are necessary in order to reach out to groups of potential student that have traditionally been under-represented in post-secondary education. Vancouver Sun article

Post-secondary teaching staff suffer burnout at levels approximating that of health professionals, according to an international literature review published in the journal Educational Research and reported in THE (Times Higher Education). Based on 12 peer-reviewed studies in the United States, Britain, Canada, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands, the authors found that those suffering from greater emotional exhaustion included younger staff and women.