Patrick Hayden: McGill's newest Rhodes Scholar

For Patrick Hayden, collecting prizes is nothing new. In high school he won proficiency awards in six subjects, and graduated as valedictorian with a Governor General's medal, among other honours. As a McGill student he's amassed three scholarships, two physics prizes and there will soon be a software patent with his name on it.

So it's perhaps not surprising to learn that Hayden has just been awarded the big one  a Rhodes Scholarship to cover two years' study at Oxford.

Though he's not exactly in unfamiliar territory, Hayden is by no means blasé about the award. In fact, the 22-year-old Ottawa native admits to being a bit rattled. "Winning this scholarship seems to have opened up possibilities that I thought I'd closed off a long time ago. Suddenly I'm considering a whole lot of different options  and they're all obstructions to sleep and concentration just as I'm preparing for my exams!"

Rhodes candidates must be all-rounders and Hayden, who will graduate this spring with an honours degree in math and physics and who has to date maintained a straight-A record, is a keen athlete (snowboarding, downhill and telemark skiing, tennis, canoeing, mountain biking and more).

He helped start the McGill Novel Society, a reading and discussion group for students from all faculties where they can also present their own work. Hayden says he hasn't gone public with his writing yet, but he was inspired to begin an unusual correspondence with a friend this summer.

"I was working at a research lab in California where I didn't know anybody, so I did a lot of reading at first. I finished Faust and decided to try to think in verse for a day. I started writing poetry to a friend, she answered in kind, and we kept it up all summer."

In his statement prepared for the Rhodes committee, Hayden describes his research experience as consisting mainly of learning to apply mathematical and physical techniques to problems in biology. "My interests are really one step removed from the underlying biology; living systems contain structures more subtle and complex than anything else we have encountered in the universe, and it is studying these complex systems that interests me above all."

The course Hayden currently calls "my front runner" among the offerings at Oxford is known as the PPP (philosophy, psychology and physiology) program, which would give him the opportunity of exploring the mind/brain connection. Philosophy and psychology appeal as well because of Hayden's recently discovered enthusiasm for teaching and the processes of learning and communication.

"Until recently I couldn't do math or physics in public, but I've had the opportunity to give presentations at conferences and I gave a lecture at our Society of Undergraduate Mathematics Students (SUMS) departmental meetings. I really enjoyed doing them and I'd like to learn what motivates people, what gets them thinking."

As president of SUMS, Hayden initiated the series of lectures, most of which are given by professors he recruited. Do they really come willingly to give yet another lecture?

"I've actually been really impressed by the math department at McGill and how committed a lot of the profs are to undergraduate education and how concerned they are about the students."

Hayden, who refused scholarships from Harvard, Queen's and U of T to come to McGill, says he has no regrets about making that choice.

"I've been very satisfied with my time at McGill and with my education in both the physics and math departments. My classes have been surprisingly small about 15 to 20 after first year in the honours programs  and they've been very challenging. The program that I'm taking is very specialized so it hasn't left too much room for electives, but that was a choice I made to go as whole hog into this as I could."

Diana Grier Ayton

The competition for faculty is going to be a nightmare and it relates to the core funding problem. We can recruit brilliant people, but keeping them when they're between 35 and 45 is another thing. Canada is not an island.


Principal Bernard Shapiro speaking to Maclean's about how cash-strapped Canadian universities are going to have a difficult time competing for new professors against non-academic institutions and schools outside the country.

When Peta Tancred accepted a position on the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, they told her the council might have to look at a complaint every six months or so.

Then along came Howard Stern.

The shock jock extraordinaire signed contracts with two Canadian radio stations, including Montreal's CHOM-FM. He promptly called French Quebecers "peckerheads" and "scumbags," hurled similar insults at gays, Japanese, Poles, Sikhs, blacks and Arabs and prompted more than 1,000 complaints to the council.

Tancred, a sociology professor, suddenly found herself spending a lot of time listening to Howard Stern in order to examine the complaints. "By no means a pleasant experience," says Tancred. "It was quite painful listening to it."

The council has limited power on paper, but its judgements carry a lot of weight. Previously, the council's criticisms knocked The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers off Canadian television. Tancred and her fellow councillors gave Stern an official thumbs-down, saying the violation of Canadian anti-discrimination regulation is "ongoing, day after day, episode after episode." CHOM and Toronto's Q107 have until today to decide how they will respond. They can take Stern off the air, try to tone him down or defy the council and keep broadcasting Stern's show. If they opt for that last course, the CRTC could become involved and suspend the stations' licences.

"I am just being crucified," insists Stern, whose performance has helped the two Canadian stations increase their audiences. "It looks like I'm Hitler or something  get a sense of humour. We're goofing."

"There are some things you just don't laugh about," responds Tancred. "There doesn't seem to be anything he won't laugh about."

While many agree with Tancred that Stern goes too far, they wonder if a council such as hers should even be involved. If people don't like Stern, can't they just switch the station?

"It's too simple to say, 'Just turn him off.' For one thing, he's on a time in the day when young people can tune him in. Even he doesn't think his show is suitable for kids  he won't let his own children listen to it!"

To believe in the paranormal is to believe in something that cannot be explained in normal scientific ways. The danger is simply gullibility. If people can be made to believe in these things, they can be made to believe in any exotic political creed..."


Philosophy professor Mario Bunge, expressing his concern to The Gazette about the public's growing belief in such things as extraterrestrial life and the supernatural, fueled in part by television shows such as The X-Files, The Visitor and Psi-Factor.

"Fish odour syndrome" might sound more like a joke than an actual medical condition, but for the individuals afflicted it's no laughing matter. The condition literally causes people to smell like rotting fish.

"These people lose jobs, they lose friends; they're often very isolated," said McGill's Dr. Eileen Treacy in an Associated Press article that has recently appeared in dozens of newspapers throughout North America.

A professor of human genetics and pediatrics, Treacy is also one of the world's leading authorities on the disorder and the head of one of two competing research teams that recently connected fish odour syndrome with a flaw in a single gene. A British team has just published its study in Nature Genetics, while Treacy presented her findings at a conference last month.

Treacy's first experience with the disorder came when she won a McGill travelling fellowship designed to give researchers in her faculty the chance to collaborate with scientists in another part of the world. She used her fellowship to work with an Australian research team that was studying fish odour syndrome.

Treacy went on to lead a clinical trial that proved that antiobiotic treatments can help fish odour syndrome patients alleviate their condition somewhat. She says diet can have an impact as well  seafood and legumes are among the items to be avoided.

The genetic defect cripples the body's ability to produce an effective version of an enzyme called FMO3. The liver needs that enzyme to process a smelly protein called TMA, produced by bacteria in the gut. When TMA goes unprocessed, it seeps out in a person's breath and perspiration, causing the offensive odour.

According to Treacy, there are only about 20 known cases of fish odour syndrome in Canada. "However, with this kind of disorder, the people who have it very often don't realize they have a medical condition. It isn't very well known." The syndrome seems to be more prevalent in Britain, where as many as one in 40,000 individuals might be afflicted.