On campus
The honourable ambassador from Ghana would like some poutine
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Some student clubs have problems organizing a bake sale. The United Nations Students' Association of McGill certainly isn't one of them.
The club's organizational chops are respected by sister organizations across the continent. The annual McGill Model United Nations Assembly (McMUN) is generally considered to be "the best of its kind in Canada and among the top three in North America," says political science student Christopher Popowycz, the public relations director for McMUN.
Some 1,300 students from universities across Canada and the U.S. and one from Venezuela will be taking part in this year's McMUN.
"Students from other universities know that McGill will show them a good time," says Popowycz. "They also know that the level of debate is going to be high."
The assembly is modelled closely after the UN and offers delegates the opportunity to take part in 17 different committees that mimic such UN agencies or organizations as the World Health Organization, the Security Council and the International Criminal Court.
Students taking part will play the roles of representatives from different countries.
What adds the spice to the four-day event (January 25 to 28) is that "during the conference, things happen, [fictitious] crises erupt around the world," says Popowycz. This tests delegates' ability to think on their feet while remaining true to the positions they believe the countries they represent would hold on to. "It's like a big improv."
Opening ceremonies take place tonight at a real-life UN agency, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization. Speakers will include former Canadian ambassador to the UN Stephen Lewis and former Canadian ambassador to the Soviet Union Geoffrey Pearson.
Part of Popowycz's job has been to help pave the way for the hundreds of out-of-town students who will be attending McMUN. "I've been going to restaurants saying, 'Look, we have 1,300 students in town. Would you mind giving us a discount?'"
Redpath en français
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For the first time since the museum's Discovery Workshops began in 1994, the language of Molière will be uniquely spoken to the five- to 12-year-olds who come to the Redpath Museum every Sunday to learn about dinosaurs, bats, mummies and the like.
In order to test the waters for offering a full educational program in French, Campbell Rolian, the museum's science educator, will offer the workshops every second Sunday, beginning this weekend with Les Dinosaures du Crétacé. The alternating weeks will be in English.
The Redpath is already highly frequented by francophones; 85% of all visitors list French as their maternal language and half of the guided tours given to groups and school groups are in French. "So, it made sense to offer the children's workshops in French too," says Rolian.
Having been educated in French in Geneva, before coming to McGill to study biology and anthropology, Rolian is perfectly bilingual so he's not worried about introducing la momie nor teaching the children how to faire un dinosaure en pâtes alimentaires in French. Finding the support materials in French, such as short films, may prove a little tougher at McGill, but he's prepared to look farther afield.
What's proven a little more difficult is publicity. Rolian has placed notices in La Presse and Le Journal de Montreal and with Radio-Canada's radio programming. But there's no French-language equivalent to the magazine Montreal Families where he regularly advertises the English workshops. However, his notice in the magazine mentions the alternating French-English format and already he's had calls from francophone parents.
Salty cineast
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It's certain to be one of the more, um, evocative titles for a lecture heard at McGill in recent months.
Award-winning Canadian filmmaker John Greyson will be delivering a public lecture at the University on February 7 entitled, "When you pop a boner in the shower: 15 years of making queer media."
Greyson will actually be spending a few days at McGill as the Department of English's Reynolds Atelier artist-in-residence. Apart from his lecture, Greyson will also be conducting informal workshops with students interested in making videos or films or in writing scripts.
Greyson's movies include Zero Patience, Uncut, Lilies (winner of the Genie Award, Canada's answer to the Oscars) and the just-completed The Law of Enclosures with Sarah Polley and Diane Ladd. He also directed a couple of episodes of the new TV series, Queer as Folk. He's won an armful of prizes from film festivals over the years.
Students interested in meeting with Greyson should contact English professor Natalie Cooke at 398-6570. He will be meeting with students on February 6 and 8 in the afternoon.
His talk on February 7 will take place at 6 pm in room 26 of the Stephen Leacock Building.
Sites to behold
Find out about the industry that made the University's founder, fur trader James McGill, a rich man. |
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Access to a wealth of documents held at McGill is now available outside the University's libraries. McGill has transformed thousands of physical resources -- from texts and maps to photos and images -- into five new digital information banks that are fully searchable through the web.
The sites deal with everything from the fur trade to hospital architecture:
cac.mcgill.ca/maxwells/
Devoted to Edward and W.S. Maxwell, two turn-of-the-century Canadian architectural leaders, the online resource highlights some 700 Maxwell projects that are documented in 16,000 plans and drawings.
imago.library.mcgill.ca/cab/
This site provides access to the Canadian Architect and Builder. Illustrated with photographs, it offers an aperçu of 19th century Canadian architecture through drawings, plans and elevations.
imago.library.mcgill.ca/hospitals/
Spanning 358 years, from 1642 to the present, the site examines Montreal's hospital architecture. It also contains over 1,000 images, a hospital construction chronology, architectural records and an in-depth case study of the Royal Victoria Hospital.
imago.library.mcgill.ca/countyatlas/
Anyone looking for past land registry records should click onto this site. It features 74,000 property records, a slew of Canadian township maps, portraits and property records, and features 23 of 38 Canadian-published county atlases. Fifteen additional atlases will be added by June 2001.
imago.library.mcgill.ca/nwc/
Navigate back through time by visiting this web address, launched to pay tribute to the impact of the fur trade on the economic, geographic and political history of Canada and Quebec of the 18th and 19th centuries. A major component of the database is a history of the North West Company and its eventual assimilation by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821.
Each web site was created as part of McGill's Digital Collections Program, a project launched in 1996 to provide electronic access to collections from the Library's Rare Books and Special Collections Division. Creation of the five sites was made possible through $340,501 in funding from: Industry Canada's Digital Collections Program, the Canadian Millennium Partnership Program, Quebec's Ministère de la culture et de la communication, the Hudson's Bay History Foundation and Young Canada Works. McGill's previous online projects may be viewed at: imago.library.mcgill.ca
Kudos
Mr. Philip Cauton and Mr. Jonathan Lamoureux, students in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, finished in the top three in the American Society of Agricultural Engineers' Student Design Competition held at the ASAE international meeting. Their project title was "Design of a passive and universal plate orifice chlorine injector."
Professor Vijaya Raghavan, from the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, helped make that ASAE international meeting one to remember for McGill. He was elected to the position of Fellow in the ASAE. He was also recently made a Fellow of the Canadian Society for Agricultural Engineering and nominated as a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Mr. Randy Chevrier, a member of the McGill Redmen football squad, has won the Canadian Interuniversity Athletics Union's J.P. Metras Trophy as the most outstanding lineman in Canadian university football. The defensive tackle was credited with 48 tackles in eight games.
Chevrier and teammate Mr. Ben Wearing were named All-Canadians in their sport by the CIAU. Wearing, a slotback, led his conference in all-purpose yards with 1,442.
Ms. Sarah Ali-Khan, a pharmacology and therapeutics student and track and field athlete, won the Quebec Foundation for Athletic Excellence prize for academic excellence. While establishing herself as one of the top student athletes in her sport in the country, Ali-Khan has managed a 3.72 grade point average.
Ms. Kim St-Pierre, a goaltender with the McGill Martlets hockey team, won the QFAE prize for female athletic excellence in a team sport. St-Pierre led McGill to a silver medal at the national championships last year. She recently led the Canadian national women's team to first place in the Four Nations Cup, a tournament featuring national teams from Canada, the U.S., Finland and Sweden.
Mr. David Bahl, a defenceman with the McGill Redmen hockey team, won the QFAE prize for male athletic excellence in a team sport. Bahl led all university defencemen in Canada in scoring last year.
Ms. Karine Legault, a psychology student and a member of Canada's Olympic swimming team, won the QFAE award for female athletic excellence performed outside the university setting. Legault finished among the top 20 in the world in both the 800m freestyle and 400m freestyle swimming competitions at the Sydney Games.
Professor Edward McKyes, from the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, was made a Fellow of the CSAE (Canadian Society for Agricultural Engineering) for his outstanding contribution to the profession of Agricultural Engineering.
Professor Chandra Madramootoo, from the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, was the recipient of CSAE's Jim Beamish Award for his outstanding contribution to the profession of Agricultural Engineering.
Professor Murray Douglas, from the Department of Chemical Engineering, received the Jules Stachiewicz Medal "for outstanding contributions to heat transfer" in recognition of his insights into "new technologies for drying paper." The award, presented recently at the annual Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference, is named after the late Jules Stachiewicz, a former McGill professor.
Ms. Mariam El-Zein, a PhD student in the Department of Occupational Health, has won the department's Dr. Premysl (Mike) Pelnar Academic Enrichment Award.
Dr. Ray Chiu, chief of cardiothoracic surgery for the McGill University Health Centre, is the new editor of the Cardiac and Vascular Regeneration Journal published by Futura in New York.
