Coming up next week at SFU Vancouver:

Saturday, February 21: Making Values Matter: Popular Culture to the Rescue!
Time: 1:30pm   Place: Rm. 1900, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free with registration

We think of values such as justice, equality, empathy and solidarity as “human,” and hence as “universal.” Whether secular or religious, these values are seen as rising above ordinary, everyday concerns. The champions and fans of these essential values are found in what might consider an unlikely place: popular culture. Music, books and magazines, cinema, dance, art and social media are the spaces that matter. We will explore how what we regard as our most universal values come to fruition at the most local, everyday level of our lives.

Sunday, February 22: Talking Stick Festival 2015
Time: 12pm   Place: Djavad Mowafahian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.   Cost: By donation.

The Exchange Experience Validating 500 Years Of First Nation History

This interactive performance piece thrives on the many layered Teachings of the Medicine Wheel in concept, structure, content, and as the facilitator’s/director’s tool. Audience/Participants learn about sacred teachings and concepts while guided through the interactive theatre process. Through a distinctly creative procedure, participants craft original theatre with – and for – each other. They become the creative collaborators exploring, in this case, First Nation historical, political, and social, issues, and work together to validate the Indigenous experience while sensitizing mainstream Canadians’ (and visitors’) - understandings of our Aboriginal history and worldview.

Monday, February 23: The Wall Street Cartel – Banks, Narcotraffic, and the Lie of Legality
Time: 6pm   Place: Rm. 7000, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free with registration

The Stravros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies together with the School for International Studies and the School of Criminology present a free public lecture with Ed Vulliamy on his latest book Amexica: War Along the Borderline.

Tuesday, February 24: Judith Barry – Audain Visual Artist in Residence
Time: 1pm   Place: Djavad Mowafahian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.   Cost: Free

Judith Barry is an artist and writer trained in architecture, art, literature, film theory and computer graphics and whose work crosses a number of disciplines: performance, installation, sculpture, architecture, photography and new media.

Tuesday, February 24: Information Session: SFU's Dialogue and Civic Engagement Certificate
Time: 6pm   Place: Rm. 1500, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free with registration

Learn concepts and emerging best practices for creating effective, strength-based community engagement processes in your organization or community. With a cohort of other civic engagement professionals, you’ll learn a range of possible models for improving policy, programs, and services. You'll also discover how and when to use these models to create real and lasting change.

Tuesday, February 24: What Works, What Doesn’t – Transport Lessons Learned from other Places and Regions
Time: 7pm   Place: Rm. 1200, Segal Building, 500 Granville St.   Cost: Free with registration

San Francisco transportation planner Jeffrey Tumlin can challenge and inspire with a career's worth of great stories and lessons gleaned from his experience as a principal with Nelson\Nygaard, one of North America's most innovative consultants. Given this critical moment of decision in Metro Vancouver, what do we need to know about the experience of other places and regions?

Tuesday, February 24: Speaking of Dance
Time: 7pm   Place: Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.   Cost: Free, first come first serve basis.

Dance Artists Martha Carter and Andrea Keevil share personal anecdotes of their experiences working with the company Marie Chouinard in their roles as Rehearsal Director (Carter) and Dancer (Keevil).

Wednesday, February 25: Building State Capability for Implementation: The Role (and Limits) of Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)
Time: 12:30pm   Place: Rm. 2270, Sauder Industries Policy Room, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free

Building the capability of states to implement increasingly complex and contentious tasks will be a central development issue in the coming decades. Much of the initial work of providing basic infrastructure and inputs has been attained – school buildings and health clinics are to be found throughout most developing countries. The challenge now is to improve the quality of services and to acquire the capability to implement, at scale, the more difficult tasks for which modern states are responsible (such as effective regulation, taxation and justice). Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA), which builds on a distinguished history of previous efforts by applied scholars and reflective practitioners, is one pragmatic strategy for responding to these challenges.

Wednesday, February 25: Roundtable on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
Time: 2pm   Place: Rm. 1700, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free with registration

Keynote Speakers: Peter Grant, McCarthy Tetrault and Scott McIntyre, Creative BC Board. Join 12 national and local experts on the UNESCO 2005 Convention and Trade and Copyright, Internet, and strengthening minority expressions in BC.

Wednesday, February 25: Clean as Water – Revisiting the Potential of Hydrogen Energy
Time: 5pm   Place: Rm. 1400, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free with registration

Energy is a critical driver of modern society and demand for clean power is on the rise. There is global interest in public and private sectors on sustainable energy initiatives to reduce emissions, combat climate change, and wean off heavy dependence on fossil fuels. Hydrogen, a simple and abundant element on Earth, presents an attractive option as it is high in energy and its by-product of combustion is water. Major strides have been made in the conversion of hydrogen into electricity and the hydrogen fuel cell is also a topic of discussion in some circles. The February GTEx Forum will focus on hydrogen and feature two local companies developing innovative technologies and solutions that can efficiently exploit the potential of hydrogen energy.

Wednesday, February 25: Applied Business Analysis Certificate Information Session
Time: 6pm   Place: Rm. 7000, Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free with registration

SFU's Applied Business Analysis Certificate presented by Management and Professional Programs, Continuing Studies. If you're pursuing or wish to pursue a career in business analysis, this program will provide a solid foundation. Likewise, it will appeal to experienced business analysts requiring formal recognition through certification.

Wednesday, February 25: Live Twitter chat with Sacha DeVoretz
Time: 8pm   Place: Twitter   Cost: Free

Log on to Twitter at 8 p.m. and search for the hashtag #SFUTWchat to follow along. If you want Sacha to see your question, just attach the hashtag #SFUTWchat to your tweet. Alternatively, you can tweet directly to Sacha at @SDeVoretz or SFU Continuing Studies at @CS_SFU. We'll make sure your question gets answered!  

Thursday, February 26: Bike Café – Cycling and Automated Vehicles
Time: 6pm   Place: Tandem Bike Café, 3195 Heather St.   Cost: Free

By most accounts, automated vehicles will be on our streets sooner or later. Will people use automated vehicles instead of active transportation? What policies are needed to ensure that automated vehicles will enable and encourage more walking and cycling?

Thursday, February 26: Building a Low Carbon Economy – the Role of Investors
Time: 6:30pm   Place: Segal Graduate School of Business, 500 Granville St.   Cost: Free with registration

This public event features Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), alongside Pat Hibbitts, Vice President of Finance and Administration at Simon Fraser University, Andrea Reimer, Deputy Mayor of the City of Vancouver and Sagarika Chatterjee, Associate Director of Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), who will all share their perspectives on the challenge of climate change and the role trade unions, pension plans, city government, business and multilateral institutions can play in building and sustaining a green economy.

Thursday, February 26: Jim Green Memorial
Time: 7pm   Place: Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.   Cost: Free

Jim Green's personal legacy of nearly 1,000 social and affordable housing units in the city's Downtown Eastside stands as an enduring challenge to today's housing advocates. How does Green's record look from the perspective of those who live in the buildings he was involved in developing? How important was his philosophy of affordable housing, with planning led and directed by future residents?

Friday, February 27: Geometry of Knowing Exhibition Tour
Time: 5pm   Place: Audain Gallery, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.  Cost:

Join Denise Ryner for a tour of Geometry of Knowing, Part 2.

Friday, February 27: Shaping Vancouver | Are Heritage Conservation Areas Right For Vancouver?
Time: 7pm   Place: Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.   Cost: Free with registration

A panel of experts address what Heritage Conservation Areas are, how they are established and work in other cities, and the consequences of forming such areas. Panel members will discuss areas in Vancouver which retain distinctive heritage character, consider whether such areas should be considered for Heritage Conservation Area status by the City, and debate how sensitive to heritage character new developments should be.

February 26-28: Twelve – Student Choreography Showcase
Time: 8pm   Place: Studio D, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.   Cost: $15

Presented by School for the Contemporary Arts, this show highlights 12 unique performances, utilizing dynamics and space.

February 26 – March 7: The Unnatural and Accidental Women by Marie Clements
Time: 8pm   Place: Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.   Cost: Tickets $15

Presented by SFU's School for the Contemporary Arts, with special thanks to SFU First Nations Studies, SFU English Department, UBC First Nations Studies, SFU's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, and those involved throughout the encountering process.

February 5 - July 23: Woodward's Community Singers 2015 Workshops
Time: 6pm, every Thursday evening   Place: 131 West Hastings St. at PHS Woodward's, 10th floor, entrance is two doors east; Goldcorp Centre for the Arts entrance at 149 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free. No experience or auditions required, no cost, no obligation, drop-ins welcomed.

This is a free, drop-in, non-auditioned community choir.  All voices are invited to join us in song. Together we sing music from gospel, folk, popular, and contemporary traditions. It's informal, fun, playful and profound. We're a friendly gang of welcoming people who live or work in the area, go to school at SFU or come from around the city to gather here and enjoy the community we build through music. There are usually 25 to 35 singers each week and always a handful of new singers joining us for the first time. Participants are also welcome to come, drink a cup of tea and just listen.

February 19-20: The Nymph
Time: 7pm   Place: Studio T, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free

Presented by the School for the Contemporary Arts.Directed by Kassandra Tomczyk. Assistant director: Madisen Steele. Actors: Gabriel Orrego, Madisen Steele, Catherine Saul, Lily Cryan, Danielle Lavallée, Dominique Samuels and Meghan Trevor.

January 21-February 27: Pulling Through – Office Exhibit
Time: SCA Office hours   Place: Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Lobby, 149 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free

Pulling Through is a series of paintings inspired by a summer spent road tripping and camping in BC.

January 15-May 15: Geometry of Knowing
Time: Audain Gallery hours   Place: Audain Gallery, 149 West Hastings St.   Cost: Free

Geometry of Knowing is a group exhibition that investigates approaches to the acquisition of knowledge in the full mind-body-spirit sense of intelligence. Organized in four parts and presented across two galleries located in a post-secondary pedagogical institution, the objective of the project is to investigate the way in which artists engage tactics of fieldwork, embodiment and materiality in a manner that reveals or instigates a process of knowing.

Philosopher’s Cafes

Friday, February 20: Are You Spiritual? Religious? Both? Neither? One But Not The Other?

Monday, February 23: Life Imitating Art – Examining the Ways Everyday Actions Become Dancing

Tuesday, February 24: Perils and Promise of Social Media

Friday, February 27: Vancouver Never Plays Itself: Our City’s Role in Film