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Dr. Shimi Kang, Award-Winning Harvard-Trained Physician | Author of #1 Bestseller The Dolphin Way
Keynote Presentation: Understanding Generation Z and Empowering Our Teams and Students towards the key 21st Century Skills
Dr. Shimi Kang is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, mental health and motivational expert, celebrated author, and engaging presenter. Her best-selling book, “The Dolphin Way,” shares evidence based strategies with parents and educators to help cultivate health, happiness, and motivation in youth. Adapting this concept for our Advising community, Dr. Kang inspired us to see the value in finding balance and motivation in our own work, so that we can empower our teams and support students towards the four skills of the 21st century; creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication. Dr. Kang shared her extensive research on Generation Z and her motivation to help us better understand how to adapt to change, what motivates us, and how our vision of the future and expectations of experience can influence education and societal change.
Concurrent Session: Leveraging Your Strengths to Help Students Find Their Way
In this session, participants had a more in-depth look of the skills and techniques Dr. Shimi Kang explores in her research and best-selling book, “The Dolphin Way.” This informative and interactive breakout session enhanced skills for both personal and professional lives. Participants further explored how to leverage your strengths as an Advisor to help students find balance and motivation, as well as better adapt to the stresses and challenges of the university experience.
About Dr. Kang
An award-winning Harvard-trained doctor, researcher, and expert on human motivation, Dr. Shimi Kang offers the tools people of all ages need to succeed in the workplace and at home. With over fifteen years of clinical experience and extensive training in the science that lies behind motivation and wellness, Dr. Kang helps cultivate the skills needed to flourish both professionally and personally.
Dr. Kang is the author of the #1 Canadian Bestseller, The Dolphin Way: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Healthy, Happy, and Motivated Kids Without Turning Into A Tiger (Penguin Books 2014) and a writer with articles featured in the Huffington Post, Psychology Today and TIME Magazine. She is frequently called by major media outlets with numerous appearances on Breakfast Television, Global News, Al Jazeera, & CBC National News.
Dr. Kang is the current Medical Director of Child and Youth Mental Health for Vancouver and a Clinical Associate Professor at UBC.
She is most proud of receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her years of outstanding community service and being a mother of three “awesome” children.
Michael Griffin, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy | Professor in Residence
We’re used to thinking of the undergraduate classroom and co-curricular support as two different things. But that’s actually a new idea: until the last century, they were deeply intertwined. In this talk, we explored how the UBC Professor-in-Residence program is working to bring academics and residence life closer together, focusing on the promise of student-faculty collaboration (with a live-in research professor), new communication media, and lessons learned so far. We closed by considering the interplay of research, teaching, and advising in graduating imaginative citizens with a creative and empathetic vision of the future.
About Michael Griffin
Michael Griffin is Assistant Professor in Classics and Philosophy, and Professor-in-Residence at UBC’s Totem Park undergraduate residence. A graduate of UBC (B.A. 2004) and the University of Oxford (D.Phil. 2009), his research focuses on the evolution of higher education and philosophy in the ancient Greek and Roman world. He is also interested in the use of new media and flexible learning methods in the university, and oversees a series of video podcasts and an educational app for the iPad. Read more about Michael’s projects at www.michaeljamesgriffin.com.
Photo credit: Carter Brundage