The Sharron Simpson Family Community Engagement Endowment Fund supports experiential learning opportunities at UBC Okanagan Library that establish and enhance impactful university-community relationships with an emphasis on raising awareness of public history and regional identity. Successful applicants work with community partners and university mentors on their proposed project while gaining valuable skills in collaboration, secondary research, project management, and knowledge dissemination.
This year, Mari Noble’s project, “Metaphors of Beauty and Power in the Okanagan: Human-Centric Transfer of Knowledge through Metaphoric Language,” was awarded funding. With this funding and by working closely with Coralee Miller of the Sncewips Heritage Museum in West Kelowna, Mari will explore how metaphoric language stands in contrast with the ways knowledge is transferred through artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs). She is particularly interested in how metaphoric language might reframe contemporary issues such as social trust in a digital age of misinformation.
“Many of our metaphors arise from the awe and wonder we experience when we connect with nature. With this funding, I hope to further explore the relationship between metaphoric language, nature, and the potential to reframe contemporary issues such as social trust in the age of misinformation and cynicism.”
Mari Noble is completing a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy at UBC Okanagan. She will begin her Master’s in Philosophy at the University of Guelph this fall.
Learn more about the Sharron Simpson Family Community Engagement Endowment Fund and the projects funded in the past.