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Guelph grads return to campus for lecture, tours, reunions
U of G alumni may not actually fly faster than the speed of light, but they'll be thinking about travelling at nearly 300,000 kilometres per second when they arrive on campus June 23 for Alumni Weekend.
The annual alumni fest kicks off with a special Perimeter Institute lecture co-sponsored by the College of Physical and Engineering Science. It begins at 7 p.m. and features cosmologist João Magueijo, a professor at Imperial College in London, England.
Magueigo has developed the “variable speed of light theory” that suggests the speed of light is not a constant — as Einstein suggested — but has varied during the life of the universe. Magueigo's lecture is free and tailored to the general public. As with all Alumni Weekend events, members of the University community are invited to attend with advance registration.
To round out the first evening, alumni guests will be invited to visit the Department of Physics observatory and attend a jazz session at the Bullring.
Numerous events are planned for Saturday, but the feature presentation will be the traditional President's Lunch with a toast to the golden anniversary classes of 1956 and presentation of alumni awards by the University of Guelph Alumni Association (UGAA).
Peter Hannam, BSA '62, will be named Alumnus of Honour; Martin Bosch, B.Sc. '69, M.Sc. '71 and PhD '04, will receive the Alumni Volunteer Award; and the Alumni Medal of Achievement will go to Crystal Mackay, B.Sc.(Agr.) '92. The Ontario Veterinary College Alumni Association will honour retired pathobiology professor Carlton Gyles, DVM '64, as OVC Distinguished Alumnus for 2006.
The UGAA and other alumni associations will hold annual meetings during Alumni Weekend, and numerous reunion gatherings are planned, including a 10th-anniversary celebration for the Faculty of Environmental Sciences.
Guelph alumni and their families are invited to tour the main campus, the library, Hagen Aqualab, the President's House and the Arboretum. They'll visit Alumni House, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre and the Rutherford Conservatory and Alumni Gardens, and view construction and renovation projects at the new science complex and the Macdonald Institute Building. There will be entertainment at the Bullring, shopping at the University Bookstore and opportunities to use campus athletic facilities.
Alumni Weekend concludes June 25 with an ecumenical service at War Memorial Hall and a farewell breakfast at Creelman Hall.
Anyone interested in attending Alumni Weekend events will find details and registration forms at www.alumni.uoguelph.ca/news_weekend.
Alumnus of Honour
Hannam has become a pivotal figure in Canadian agriculture, specifically the soybean industry. He established First Line Seeds in 1982 and grew the company into one of Canada's largest soybean seed suppliers.
His vision and strong belief in research have helped to propel soybeans to their position as Ontario's largest field crop and to develop value-added soybean products. In 2001, he assisted with the launch of Soy 20/20, a program designed to match soybean research with market opportunities.
Students are best acquainted with Hannam through his creation of Project SOY (Soybean Opportunities for Youth), a contest that encourages students to develop innovative uses for soybeans. His family also made a $1-million contribution to U of G that is being used to promote innovative medical, industrial and nutritive uses, as well as marketing strategies for Ontario soybeans.
Hannam is a member of the OAC International Advisory Council and has received the prestigious H.R. MacMillan Laureate in Agriculture, which is presented every five years to an individual who has made significant contributions to agriculture in Canada.
Most recently, he built the Ontario AgriCentre in Guelph to give new visibility to agriculture and offer a focal point for disparate commodity and professional agricultural groups dispersed across the province.
Alumni Volunteer Award
Bosch is a three-time chemistry graduate who completed his PhD while balancing the demands of his business career. He is chair of the Guelph Soap Co. Inc., a company he established and developed into a major player in the privately labelled soap-processing industry.
In 1987, Bosch established the Guelph Soap Co. Inc. Scholarship, an annual award of $1,200 that recognizes a top chemistry student at Guelph. He has served as a volunteer director on the UGAA board and was an alumni senator. He also played a significant role in developing and promoting the University's recent fundraising campaign and was instrumental in funding and garnering support for the installation of the clock on Rozanski Hall.
Bosch helped a team that submitted a successful application to the Canada Foundation for Innovation for a $3.2-million grant used to found the Electrochemical Technology Centre in 2001. He was also the visionary behind the Historical Plaque Project on campus and continues to work with the College of Biological Science and the College of Physical and Engineering Science to raise funds for the science complex.
Alumni Medal of Achievement
Since graduating from the Ontario Agricultural College, Mackay has been an innovator in agricultural communications. She worked for the Ontario Farm Animal Council (OFAC) from 1993 to 1997.
As program co-ordinator, she worked to improve public awareness and understanding of Canada's agricultural sector and spent more than 100 days a year speaking with audiences across the province.
In 1997, she joined Ontario Pork as a communications specialist and started her own company, Crystal Clear Communications. One of her greatest professional accomplishments was the development of the “Speak Up” team concept, which trained pork farmers to be agricultural ambassadors and media spokespeople in Ontario.
She produced the first “Faces of Farming” calendar in 2001, featuring photographs of Ontario pork producers. In its second year, the calendar sold out in less than a month and was awarded “Best in Show” in the public relations category at the Canadian Agricultural Marketing Awards ceremony.
Mackay was also a key member of the team that developed Ontario Pork's award-winning “Farm to Fork” campaign that emphasized pork producers' commitment to the environment. Her continued dedication to advancing agricultural awareness brought her back to OFAC, where she is now executive director.
OVC Distinguished Alumnus
Since officially hanging up his lab coat last summer, Gyles has been wrapping up research, working with graduate students, and marshalling the resources needed to ensure that OVC is equipped to play an increasingly vital role in public health.
Gyles, who came to Canada from his native Jamaica in the late 1950s, has spent his entire career at U of G, where he successfully combined research with numerous administrative responsibilities as a department chair, associate director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety, dean of graduate studies and interim dean of OVC.
He began studying Escherichia coli more than 35 years ago and was among the first to pinpoint how a toxin produced by E. coli — similar to the toxin produced by cholera bacteria — could cause illness in pigs. His work since then has focused generally on understanding how bacteria cause disease and especially on controlling the risk of contamination through food, water and human contact with animals.
Gyles is the co-editor of a textbook on bacterial pathogenesis and has been a major contributor to scholarly literature on E. coli. His basic research is widely recognized, and his contributions on the public health aspects of the bacteria have helped make Canada's food supply safer.
Last summer, he received the Roche Diagnostics/CSM Award, considered the most prestigious prize of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists. In September 2005, OVC held a special symposium to salute his career and recognize his contributions.
In retirement, Gyles is focusing on the creation of the Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses and planning for a new building to house the Animal Health Laboratory and the Department of Pathobiology.
