Dear Faculty of Arts, 

Whether you have enjoyed outdoor romps with the puppy at your feet or cuddles with the cool cat lounging across your keyboard, these four-legged companions have been indispensable throughout the pandemic. But many in the Faculty of Arts have also sought joy and solace through their tentacled, shelled, or finned friends. These miniature underwater worlds are delicate balancing acts that involve keeping the various residents as stress-free as possible with sufficient space for health and comfort. Which, when you think of it, is kind of like what many of us have experienced this past year and a half with Covid, living inside our separate ‘fishbowls,’ trying to keep everyone healthy and safe.  As Covid restrictions continue to lift, many of us may feel like fish out of water, so please be gentle with yourselves and each other as we test the waters of a larger pool.  

Naomi Ben-Yehuda (Arts Degree Advisor) shares a photo of her beloved “Fred” (an albino catfish) and “Silvy” (a blue dwarf gourami) chilling amid the vibrant colours of their aquarium home.  

TIME-SENSITIVE ITEMS 

A School of Scholars: It’s not too late to send in a proposal for the Arts Research courses. If you have a research project underway and would like to involve a KPU student, the Arts Research courses offer students invaluable hands-on experience, for credit. For more info, please email  wade.deisman@kpu.ca 

Nautical (Laptop) Disasters and Going Phishing: With everyone still working and teaching remotely, and with KPU sailing closer to its “mobile workforce” destination, it is more important than ever to keep up to date with Information Security Awareness.  Remember to check out KPU’s training modules and videos for faculty and staff, so you are attuned to Phishing attempts as well as other critical elements, such as securely storing and backing up sensitive teaching and work files. If you haven’t recently reviewed the modules, consider making them a priority now, and save yourself time and grief later by safeguarding your precious digital cargo from running aground.  Information Security Awareness – Home (kpu.ca) 

SUMMER SEMESTER REMINDERS 

Casting the Net – Encouraging Meetings for Student Success:  With the final weeks of the semester rolling in, we’ve noticed a slight swell in the number of students contacting the Dean’s Office with course-related concerns and anxieties. While many have been emailing their instructors, far fewer seem to be requesting meetings to seek advice and feedback. This tendency of students to communicate solely through email, instead of using online office hours or seeking virtual meetings, may be pandemic-related, but it also seems unfortunate. Perhaps the pattern could be changed by sending gentle reminders to classes about office hours, or making a point of inviting individual students, when they email about their progress, to meet. In the Dean’s Office, we will continue to suggest to students that they reach out to their instructors for one-on-one conversations about their learning. 

Farhad Dastur’s (PSYCH) “Toffee” (a Powder Brown Tang) seeks out a comfy coral for his afternoon Teams meeting alongside his colleague “24K Golden” (a Coral Beauty Anglefish). 

LOOKING AHEAD TO FALL 

Floating a “Brown Bag Lunch” Idea: Do you have a new research or creative project underway and would welcome some input?  Then the Arts “Brown Bag Lunch” series is for you! This series is intended to provide a space for faculty to discuss provisional ideas for projects — to test the waters, so to speak — before you dive in and immerse yourself in the project! If you are interested in participating as a “Brown Bag Lunch” presenter, please e-mail greg.millard@kpu.ca. 

Farhad Dastur’s (PSYCH) beautiful sea anemone “Closer” — whose name is “an homage to Sun Tzu’s, ‘Keep your friends close; keep your (an)enemies closer’” — takes center stage. Meanwhile, “Shrimpy” (a banded coral shrimp) boldly waves to the camera when searching for his next meal.  For additional underwater frights and thrills, check out Farhad’s fabulous fish tank movie trailer, entitled What Lies Beneath.

KUDOS 

Open Seas: POLI superstar Valerie Vezina — working with Pressbooks, KPU Open Education, and a host of faculty from Political Science and Indigenous Studies — has just rolled out a major new open textbook. Political Ideologies and Worldviews: An Introduction takes a “pluralist” approach and, in addition to being the first open textbook on its subject, also pushes back against the Eurocentric tendencies of standard texts by including chapters on Indigenous worldviews and on Confucianism. Valerie did a stellar job of editing this important resource. Kudos to all involved! 

Many thanks to Sabine Stratton (ANTH) for sending us her request for this aquarium theme!  As always, we welcome your feedback, suggestions, and information items for the Arts Updates.   

Go Fish!  And enjoy the weekend! 

Diane, Wade, Greg, and Shelley