2018 Opening and Closing Keynotes

OPENING KEYNOTE: DAVE EVANS "DESIGNING YOUR LIFE"

What do our students want to do with the rest of their life? Whether a first year undergraduate or a soon to be PhD, this is the question that most students agonize, worry, and speculate about, often leaving them stuck. 

For the past 10 years, Dave Evans has been teaching a set of courses at Stanford which introduce the innovative ideas and tools of design thinking to help students address the wicked problem of designing their life after university. These courses inspire students to view life not as a problem to be solved but as a creative adventure and have become some of the most popular electives at Stanford. Using the design thinking process to think about one’s future career helps address students’ anxiety about life after university and lets them thoroughly examine the different possibilities in front of them. 

Evans has also co-authored a NY Times #1 bestselling book based on this work, called DESIGNING YOUR LIFE:  How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life (Knopf, 2016). His goal is to leverage a renewed university culture to rewrite the default perception of young adulthood in the culture at large – shifting it from a “failure to launch” critique toward a supportive nurturing productive exploration. He calls on universities to renew their investment in the formation of a student’s whole life and forming them into people who will go out into the world, effect change and be leaders. 

Dave will share his vision and work with us and explore the practical applications of the design mindset for advisors and their students at UBC.

ABOUT DAVE EVANS

From saving the seals to solving the energy crisis, from imagining mice to redefining software — Dave’s been on a mission, including helping others to find theirs. Starting at Stanford with dreams of following Jacques Cousteau as a marine biologist, Dave realized (a bit late) that he was lousy at it and shifted to mechanical engineering with an eye on the energy problem.

After 4 years in alternative energy in the late 70s, it was clear that that idea's time hadn’t come yet. So while en route to biomedical engineering, Dave accepted an invitation to work for Apple, where he led the mouse team and introduced laser printing to the masses. When Dave’s boss at Apple left to start Electronic Arts, Dave joined as the company’s first VP of Talent, dedicated to making “software worthy of the minds that use it.”

After 15 years as tech exec, including two more “real jobs” in telecommunications, Dave decided his real mission was to help others find and pursue theirs. So he went out on his own working with start-up executive teams, some large corporate clients, but also with countless young adults.

They were all asking the same question: “What should I do with my life and why?” Helping people get traction on that question continues to be Dave’s real work, which he finds is most enjoyable and effectively done in the university setting. Dave taught a course for 8 years at UC Berkeley called How to Find Your Vocation (aka: Is Your Calling Calling?) and has been a Lecturer in the Stanford Program in Design since 2007, where he co-teaches the popular course, Designing Your Life.

Dave holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and a graduate diploma in Contemplative Spirituality from San Francisco Theological Seminary. He is the co-author, with Bill Burnett, of Designing your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life (Knopf, 2016.) 

CLOSING FACULTY MEMBER PANEL: CHALLENGING & SUPPORTING UBC STUDENTS

As front-line guides in the formation of new scholars, faculty members play a crucial role in helping students expand their expertise within their discipline of study. A process which requires challenge and care, stimulation and support, often within the confines of a single course over a defined period of time. 

We'll hear from a range of faculty members who will share their experience of attending to the “whole student” and striving to achieve a balance. 

Some questions we’ll explore:

• How do we balance the learning potential we see in our students with the responsibility to uphold academic rigour and standards of the discipline?  
• How do the standards of an academic discipline show up in this process? 
• What are some parallels and implications for those who work with students outside of the classroom?

Panel moderator: Kari Marken

Educational Designer, Centre for Student Involvement & Careers
PhD Student, Department of Curriculum & Pedagogy