The first colloquium was intended to be a single event. It happened like this. Peter, who was stricken with ALS (Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis; Lou Gehrig’s disease; motor neuron disease), had been turning down speaking invitations due to inability to travel. A colleague at another university, hearing of this, thought that if Peter could not go to a meeting, then a meeting could go to Peter. So he suggested to Prof. Kevin McCann of Guelph’s Zoology (now Integrative Biology) Department that the University of Guelph should host a meeting in Peter’s honour. A group of colleagues at Guelph quickly put together a meeting, with the support of Dr. Michael Emes, Dean of the College of Biological Science.
That Colloquium was a two day meeting with five keynote speakers, a poster session, a banquet, and a limit of 150 attendees (some invited). The event turned out to be so informative, so relaxing, so conducive to conversation, so full of people one wanted to converse with, so . . . . enjoyable, that it was decreed by the Dean that it would be a semi-annual event. As all were agreed that the somewhat unusual format had worked extraordinarily well, it was decided to retain that.
Peter Yodzis was a researcher and professor at the University of Guelph from
September 1, 1979 until he retired on July 1, 2004. He passed away the following
year in 2005.
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