The Mustard Seed is a nonprofit organization with a vision to eliminate homelessness in the communities it serves. Operating for 40 years in 7 cities in Western Canada, the Mustard Seed leads this vision by providing hope and well-being to the most vulnerable in our city. In this presentation, we discuss the complex causes of homelessness and why people in our community experience poverty. We also discuss what the Mustard Seed is doing and the programs we offer. This presentation is information-based, with a short experiential learning piece.

Understanding political populism helps us recognize how leaders appeal to “the people” instead of the elites, often using emotional language and simple solutions. It is useful for identifying potential threats to democracy, media manipulation, and polarization—making us more informed citizens in an age of political upheaval and misinformation. In this interactive seminar, we will watch, and discuss, a number of videos and other sources of information through which you will be introduced to the causes, characteristics, and consequences of political populism.

We will provide a tour of the ALS Metallurgy Kamloops laboratory. We will demonstrate how we run testing programs to determine appropriate processes to recover metal out of rock, and provide engineering groups with data to determine if such processes would be economically feasible. We will also tour the comminution laboratory where we do tests that determine the amount of power required to break rock ahead of metal recovery, which is a key parameter to determine mine capital and operating costs. The tour will also include the mineralogy laboratory, where we use powerful microscopes to examine what mineral forms the metals are in, and how much breakage is required to physically separate the minerals of economic interest. We will also tour the sample preparation laboratory, where rocks and test products are prepared and then the assay laboratory where the content of metal in rock and test products is determined. Finally, we will visit the pilot plant where processes can be tested on a continuous basis. Wear closed-toe shoes, long sleeve shirts, and long pants. Please plan to arrive a few minutes before 10 to ensure we begin on time.

Solutions journalism is considered a newer practice with a focus on solutions. “Solutions journalism investigates and explains, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems,” the Solutions Journalism network states. In the class we will explore more about what it is and why it is important by examining various examples of ways of reporting and comparing and contrasting their differences with traditional media.

Every two years, Luminocity presents a selection of artworks that respond to the current state of the world through diverse perspectives. With each iteration, the global context seems to be increasingly in flux with the entrenchment of power systems. At the same time, the environmental emergency becomes harder to ignore. Luminocity lets in the light, offering insight into the world around us through artworks that open up networks of cultural exchange and transport us to other realms. We will meet at Rotary Bandshell in Riverside Park. The tour will begin promptly at 7:00pm and will be approximately 90 minutes long. Comfortable walking shoes, weather appropriate clothing and water are recommended.

We will visit the Centre for Wildfire Research, Education, Training and Innovation – a hub dedicated to advancing knowledge and practices in wildfire management amid the growing challenges of extreme fire behaviour and its impacts.

My presentation will be on the  growing independent news ecosystem in B.C. and what we’re learning in Kamloops since launching The Wren in 2022. The Wren is an online publication devoted to intensive coverage of local issues.

There is much confusion and concern about viral infections, their origins, transmission, treatment and prevention.  With the recent increase in measles cases, avian flu, RSV, HPV, as well as Covid, understanding viruses is key to managing our health.

Join us to learn about a way of responding to harm and conflict that focuses on justice as healing.  Restorative justice principles and practices can be applied in criminal, family, community and school settings. It is shown to have tremendous benefit for people and relationships.

This one-hour talk will cover a variety of topics that the TRU Sustainability Office is currently working on to retain its position as a sustainability leader in the post-secondary sector in Canada. Topics will include everything from energy, transportation, waste, and biodiversity initiatives to trying to influence everyday behaviours and decisions on academic programming and research to the biggest sustainability project the university has ever undertaken.

This research looks at how small private forests near Wells Grey Provincial Park could help fight climate change through conservation and carbon offset projects.  Using field data, satellite imagery and community interviews, we explore the carbon storage potential, economic value, community perspective, and policy suitability of these lands and what it would take to make them part of a climate solution.

“The poetry of earth is never dead.” That was the opinion of English poet John Keats. If what he says startles you, puzzles you, or intrigues you, and you begin to wonder what others think of his idea, then this course is the place to be for the next six weeks. You read, discussed and enjoyed poems in school a few years ago – but then poetry dropped out of sight as life took over. This class is an opportunity to reconnect with the expressive power of poetry that Keats also asserts “is ceasing never.” As a group of like-minded colleagues we will bring our life experience, our language knowledge and our critical enthusiasms to help unlock the subtlety and rich complexity of meaning in the poems we examine.