News

The lights went out at Mount Allison University on March 20, but it wasn’t a blackout. The university was just getting a jump on the growing “Lights Out” event, which officially occurs on Earth Day, April 22. On that day, schools are encouraged to turn off their lights as an environmental gesture. The event has […]

Deadline for bids was March 31, but the federal government still must decide when, where and how the money will flow

A panel of international experts agrees: Social scientists around the world need to do a better job of selling themselves. The question is, how? Four social scientists – one each from Australia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the U.S. – were participating in a panel discussion about the value of humanities and social science […]

Ten or 15 years ago, most pet owners would likely not have considered treating their animals for cancer, but that is changing, says Valerie MacDonald, a veterinary oncologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine. Cancer treatment for pets can be expensive, but even if it gives owners an extra year with […]

Herzberg Gold Medal, Brockhouse Prize, Steacies and Killam fellows named

Schools are ‘in denial,’ don’t recognize systemic racism on their campuses

André Dulude joined the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada as its vice-president, national affairs branch, on Jan. 5, the day the association publicly called for federal budget investments in campus infrastructure as a stimulus to the faltering economy and in university research to position Canada for a strong economic recovery. “So that first […]

For students and professors, the days of physically leafing through hundreds of books when conducting research is fading fast, but scholars still face the same essential challenge of finding the best information resources. Murray Goldberg is seeking to make that search a little bit simpler. He is the creator of Brainify, a social bookmarking site […]

At first glance, the University of Alberta’s Festival of Teaching, now in its second year, looks like a business conference that’s been crashed by Halloween pranksters. At one end of the room, a group of students dressed as various farm-related objects (including a cow and a gas can) address a small crowd as slides from […]

New CREPUQ marketing campaign targets francophone students from abroad

Thanks to the efforts of one Manitoban parliamentarian, postsecondary stakeholders looking to bend the ear of the federal government have a new outlet for their advocacy. Conservative member of Parliament Rod Bruinooge, who represents the riding of Winnipeg South, recently cobbled together a new postsecondary caucus of Conservative MPs that had its first meeting Feb. […]

A new international discipline is emerging with the launch of Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, says Claudia Mitchell, a professor in the department of education at McGill University. Dr. Mitchell is one of the journal’s founders, along with her late colleague Jackie Kirk and Pennsylvania State University professor Jacqueline Reid Walsh. A peer-reviewed journal published […]

He was one of the world’s first computer-game sensations, yet this “screen capture” of the Nintendo mascot Super Mario is decidedly low-tech: the 3’ x 4’ image was created using 17,000 pushpins by students filling in time between classes at the University of the Fraser Valley’s Student Computing Centre. “We decided on Mario because he […]

Iraqi students and faculty from the University of Basra prepare for a field survey of the marshes in the spring of 2008. As a Canadian project to help restore the fabled Iraqi marshes winds down, the project’s director is optimistic about the future of this culturally and ecologically important region. Barry Warner, a specialist in […]

Some who moved north in Bush presidency have no plans to return

What’s this? Kristine Spence of facilities management at the University of Saskatchewan is feeding used fluorescent light bulbs into the “bulb eater.” The machine instantly crushes the glass tube and reportedly sucks up 99.9 percent of the mercury and phosphorous inside, which is then re-used for the production of new bulbs. According to Environment Canada, […]

Infrastructure spending welcome but research story less rosy

The tragic tale of Aurore Gagnon, a 10-year-old girl from Quebec who is thought to have died from family violence in 1920, continues “to haunt the cultural memory of Quebec,” says John Lutz, a history professor at the University of Victoria and co-director of the website Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History. Launched in 1997 […]

To a medical student, a patient represents not just a potential diagnosis but a learning opportunity. To show their appreciation, the medical students at McMaster University decided to design a card that they could give out to patients “to let them know how important and valued their role is in our education,” says student Tiffaney […]

Eleven Ontario universities are going back to school, or at least into the laboratory of higher learning, in an effort to improve undergraduate student engagement. The project was launched by the Higher Educational Quality Council of Ontario, an arm’s-length research agency of Ontario’s Ministry of Colleges, Training and Universities. The project encompasses 13 experiments in […]