President's Lecture Series
The President's Lecture Series (PLS) is a faculty initiative of the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences that is sponsored by the Office of the President. The lecture series is planned, organized, and administered by a committee of faculty volunteers who are guided by the PLS Mission Statement.
Mission Statement
PLS Mission Statement: By welcoming public intellectuals to a dynamic educational environment, The President's Lecture Series strives to provide a forum for critical discourse that is responsive to the interests of the Humber community. In fulfilling this goal, we commit to the values of free speech, diversity, and academic and social engagement.
Explore our archive!
We have a video archive of speakers going back to 2006 available as a resource to faculty, staff and students.
Get Involved!
Come to one of our upcoming talks. Here are the speakers for the Winter 2022 term:
Joel Bakan
The New Corporation: How 'Good' Corporations are Bad for Democracy
Tues, Sept 27th, 12:00 - 1:30 p.m., Q&A + Reception to Follow
Lakeshore Campus, BMO Innovation Commons (G bldg.)
Joel Bakan is an author, filmmaker and a professor of law at the University of British Columbia whose work examines the social, economic, and political dimensions of law. In his 2004 film The Corporation, he argued that corporations’ status as legal “persons” imbues them by law with psychopathic personalities. In his newest film, The New Corporation, he takes aim with co-director Jennifer Abbott at corporations’ new, and deceptive, claims to be conscientious.
Dr. Charmaine Nelson
Canadian Slavery and the Legacies of Anti-Black Racism
Thurs, Oct 13th, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Online virtual event, accessible from this page
Dr. Charmaine Nelson is a Professor of Art History and a Tier I Canada Research Chair in Transatlantic Black Diasporic Art and Community Engagement at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where she is also the founding director of the Institute for the Study of Canadian Slavery. An author of two books and five edited volumes, Dr. Nelson has made ground-breaking contributions to the fields of the Visual Culture of Slavery, Race and Representation, and Black Canadian Studies.
Dr. Maya Goldenberg
Vaccine Hesitancy: Is this a War on Science?
Thurs, Nov 10th, 1:00 - 2:30 p.m.
Lakeshore Campus, BMO Innovation Commons (G bldg.)
Dr. Maya Goldenberg is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Guelph who researches in the area of philosophy of science and medicine, focusing on questions about how knowledge is generated and how it comes to be accepted or rejected both within scientific communities and by the public. She is author of Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science which came out in 2021.
Suggest a Speaker
The PLS Committee strives to be responsive to the entire college community. To generate as much interest as possible, the committee looks for speakers who will have broad appeal among the great diversity of students who attend the college. We actively seek feedback and suggestions from faculty, staff, and students.
PLS speakers are chosen on the basis of five criteria. PLS speakers must be 1) high profile 2) intellectually accessible 3) thought-provoking 4) Canadian- and/or internationally-focused, and 5) must not be sitting or campaigning elected politicians nor have already appeared at the college within the past three years. Do you know of a suitable speaker? If so, please forward your suggestion(s) to pls@humber.ca. Be sure to let us know what topics the speaker could address, their areas of academic specialization, their publications, and especially send us any links to interviews or talks available online.