The core of academic programming at the College consists of the interdisciplinary lecture series. Most series host events once a month during the academic year (September to April). Some address broad fields of interdisciplinary interest and run for several years. Others address more particular interdisciplinary problems and themes and run for just a term or a year. The balance of series and subjects from year to year is monitored by the College’s Academic Committee, which advises the Principal. From time to time, a call is put out for proposals for new series. UBC faculty members who see the potential to mount new series that would involve faculty and graduate students across disciplines are invited to discuss their ideas with the Principal at any time.
These offerings are complemented by the lectures and more informal talks or seminars given both at the College and around campus by distinguished visitors under the Cecil H. and Ida Green Visiting Professorships Program, the Writer in Residence Program, and the Richard V. Ericson Lectures.
The talks-series, panels, workshops, conferences, special lectures, and other events hosted by and at the College—often in partnership with other academic units at UBC—are at once extracurricular and interdisciplinary. That does not mean that the conventions and insights of existing academic disciplines are discounted; rather, energies are channeled into the creation of bridges, first between disciplines and then, more adventurously, towards new unities of understanding. The College’s programs are intended to maximize the yield of disciplinary learning in the interests of the newly emergent modes of inquiry that become possible, in unpredictable ways, when scholars with different kinds of expertise meet in the same place at the same time. The College exists to facilitate breakthrough moments of interdisciplinary encounter, and to transmit their excitement to a wider community of interested and engaged individuals.
The academic, cultural, and artistic programs of Green College are, as a rule, neither designed to provide credit towards a degree nor subject to the requirements of any existing university department or program. As a rule, they are also free of charge to those attending. A partial exception that proves the rule is the programming for the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program (ISGP), a program that has its home at the College precisely because its students are combining resources from diverse areas of the University and beyond. Another is the College’s partnership with UBC Continuing Studies in the Certificate in Liberal Studies, for which all formal academic assessment takes place outside the College.
To stay informed on the timing of upcoming talks and series, consult our Calendar of Events.
