UNDERGRADUATE SEMESTER IN DIALOGUE
"DESIGNING THE FUTURE"

Are you an undergraduate at SFU looking for an exciting and
innovative way to learn? Are you interested in learning with students
in departments outside your own? Apply now for the spring 2009
semester:

Designing the Future

We will use MetroVancouver to explore the multiple dimensions of
sustainability as they relate to the city, region and the global
context. "Designing the Future" brings together writers, policy
makers, and leading thinkers, as well as designers, artists, business
and community leaders to examine how the decisions we are making
today are significantly altering the region. We will use a systems
approach to pose some fundamental questions examining urban
sustainability:
- Do we really know what sustainability is?
- What ideas shape the way we currently live?
- What ideas are the most important for living on the planet -
in and out of cities?
- What is sustainable urban development for the 21st Century?
- Do our conceptions of urban systems (water, energy,
transportation etc) predispose us to unsustainability?
- How do we understand and balance competing forces in order to
turn visions for the future into reality?
- How do we move forward with hope and optimism?

Plan to be excited, confused, mesmerized, optimistic, and
disenchanted while engaging deeply with leading experts in
sustainability, green design, community planning, cultural change and
social responsibility.

The course will be co-taught by Janet Moore and Duane Elverum. Janet
is a faculty member at the Centre for Dialogue at SFU, collaborator
with the SFU Centre for Sustainable Community Development and leader
of a social network of sustainability educators
(walkingthetalk.bc.ca). Duane Elverum is an Emily Carr faculty member
where he teaches in Design, Foundation, and Critical Studies as well
as develops coursework in sustainable systems. He sits on the
President's Sustainability Task Force at the university. He is
personally responsible for emitting 5.4 tonnes of CO2 per year into
the atmosphere. He has crossed the Pacific Ocean in a sailboat five
times.

Details: January-April 2009, full-time Monday-Friday, 15 credits
Extended Application Deadline: October 31, 2008

For further information visit our web site www.sfu.ca/dialogue/undergrad

Or contact Janet Moore (jlmoore@sfu.ca, phone