Whether you’re an oenophile, cosmos geek, burgeoning songwriter or beekeeper, Quest University has something for you.
Last spring, Quest conducted a survey through community organizations in Squamish to figure out what sort of topics the community would be interested in. They received hundreds of responses and opted to run 10 varying courses this fall ranging from wine tasting to exploring democracy to understanding our own tenuous existence.
Quest University president David Helfand is the instructor of the How To Build A Habitable Planet course offered this fall as a part of the institution’s new continuing education program. Helfand, author of over 200 papers on astrophysics and as the president of the American Astronomical Society, has spent a fair amount of time looking at stars and considering space.
“The universe began as a very simple place. It was made of quarks and electrons,” he begins. “That’s about 13.7 billion years ago. Somehow, from that extremely simple mix of scattered radiation we’ve ended up with this beautiful planet here with all kinds of elements and liquid water and a comfortable temperature.”
“There’s a fairly narrow range of temperatures in which any complex structures can form in the universe,”
he explained.
The emphasis of the habitable planet course is on examining the conditions under which life can form and it will also address a human perspective: how altering the atmosphere by pumping methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides into it, will impact the planet.
Helfend tempers his instruction so that even newbies won’t feel lost in space, gently wielding his vast understanding
of the cosmos and giving straight-
forward explanations.
The courses, which run anywhere from single-day events to three or four weeks, are designed for personal enrichment and growth. Five of the instructors are based at Quest and five are guests.
“The goal of this program is to get better integration with the community,”
said Helfand.
“Our students are anxious for opportunities to link with the community and to do that, we need to get to know each other. Getting people up here onto campus has been challenging. We have lots of free lectures and free concerts and events that are just open to everybody and five people show up from the community. It’s frustrating.”
“We’re up on a hill, which is a generic problem with universities since the University of Bologna, which is the first university founded and which is up on a hill. It’s bad symbolism. It’s this thing with universities and it creates this barrier and here, it’s a physical barrier. It’s a pretty steep hill if you’re riding a bike,” he acknowledged.
Total registration for the fall continuing education courses is approaching 100 people. There are still spots available in most courses. More information can be found at www.questu.ca.
