Global Awareness Week - Bishop's University

Each year for the last decade, the Department of Politics and International Studies organizes a Global Awareness Week (GAW) as a series of events. Each Global Awareness Week is organized through a joint effort involving faculty, staff, and students around a particular theme that is of interest to the organizing committee.

Global Awareness Week 2019

GAW 2019: SECURING AND SUSTAINING OUR FOOD AND WATER marked the 10^th annual Global Awareness Week. The series of events focused on how on a changing climate, growing global population, rising food prices, human rights violations, and environmental threats have significant impacts on global food and water security.

2019 Full Schedule (PDF)

Global Awareness Week 2018

GAW 2018: THE EVER-SIGNIFICANT IMPORTANCE OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs) examined the 17 SDGs within the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015. This year’s events focused on the growing need to end poverty and inequalities in order to improve health and education, and boost economic growth, all while addressing climate change.

2018 Full Schedule (PDF)

Global Awareness Week 2017

GAW 2017: TECH LIFE: EXPLORING THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON SOCIETYexamined the positive and negative impacts of tech on society. The series of events focused on technology and democracy, open data, algorithms, storing digital information, trading technologies, and more.

2017 Full Schedule (PDF)

Global Awareness Week 2016

GAW 2016: GLOBAL HEALTH: TACKLING WICKED PROBLEMS examined the ever-present and complicated issues surrounding global health. The series of events focusing on mental health in both the local and global context, the impact of hunger and food security on health, the provision of medical care in the Global South, and public health initiatives in Canada.

2016 Full Schedule (PDF)

Global Awareness Week 2015

GAW 2015: BREAKING THE BISHOP’S BUBBLE: OUR WORLD BEYOND THE HEADLINES focused on examining highly topical but complex events with more nuance including public presentations and documentaries on the Black Lives Matter movement in the US, the refugee crisis in southern Europe, and the role of waste reduction in environmental preservation. During this year’s week, the University also held a Donald Lecture with Edward Snowden about mass surveillance, secrecy and democracy in the digital age.

2015 Full Schedule (PDF)

Global Awareness Week 2014

GAW 2014: Identity (4 days, 4 takes) each night featured an event that looked at an issue of identity from one of four perspectives: preserving cultural diversity, demystifying the Islamic State, aboriginal identity and the Canadian arctic, and national identity in complex political systems.

2014 Full Schedule (PDF)