Campus News

Beginning around 1:50 today we had reports of  Gryph Mail degraded service lasting for approximately 15 to 30 minutes.  Service has returned to normal and our service provider is investigating to determine root cause.

A University of Guelph study on how substrate pH affects a popular plant in “green roofs” is already proving a boon to local growers and green roof plant suppliers.

The study, “Optimal Growing Substrate pH for Five Sedum Species,” was published recently in the agricultural journal HortScience.

In the study, researchers led by Prof. Youbin Zheng and research associate Mary Jane Clark, School of Environmental Sciences, looked at the effect of varying growing substrate acidity on sedums. This plant is a favourite for rooftop green space, as it withstands winter conditions and drought.

The market for rooftop plants in North America has exploded recently, as more buildings recognize their environmental benefits.

The team found optimal pH ranges for Sedum plants. Sedum plants within these ranges can grow many times faster than those grown out of these ranges. This is the first research to provide optimum growing substrate pH levels in order for growers to efficiently and rapidly produce good quality Sedum plants to meet the demand in many horticultural applications, including green roof plantings.

“Manufacturers had always followed the example of European manufacturers, who had gone with a pH level that was more alkaline,” explained Zheng. “But they found the plants weren’t growing fast enough. In our studies, we found the plants did not grow at that level as well as they would at a slightly lower level. But going too low with pH and making the substrate too acidic was also a problem. So we had to find the best levels for these plants to thrive.”

Industry partners Sedum Master and LiveRoof have used the study results in their facilities, said Zheng. Both companies helped fund the study.

“These plants are widely used in Europe, and there is more demand for green roofs in North America now,” he said. “In North America, installed rooftop areas had doubled from 2010 to 2011. Manufacturers were having difficulty making enough of the sedum to satisfy the demand. In most cases, orders would have to be placed months to a year in advance.”

Green roofs can help manage stormwater runoff, and they can help cool buildings in summer, reducing hydro costs substantially. Some municipalities have enacted bylaws, including Toronto in 2009, requiring green roofs on new developments.

“With the results of this study, manufacturers can produce sedum much faster,” said Zheng. “They don’t need as much lead time, and it saves labour, time and land space. As the need for green roofs increases, the market will grow, leading to more jobs and a thriving industry.”

For more information:

Prof. Youbin Zheng
Tel: 519 824 4120X52741
yzheng@uoguelph.ca

The maintenance has been successfully completed.

On Saturday, April 27, from 5:00 AM to 12:00 PM, CCS will be performing maintenance on the two core network switches and telephony servers. During this time the core switches chassis will be replaced in order to continue with Cisco support. The campus wireless network will be interrupted for a short period of time. No data network interruption is expected.

University of Guelph researchers tackling one of the largest challenges in plant genetics received $220,000 today from Genome Canada.

A team led by Prof. Lewis Lukens, Department of Plant Agriculture, and Prof. Cortland Griswold, Department of Integrative Biology, will use bioinformatics tools to understand how organisms that are well adapted to their environments can be selected to speed up development of new plant varieties.

Their work will be funded by the Government of Canada through Genome Canada and the Ontario Genomics Institute (OGI). It was part of the 2012 Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Competition, a partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

“This research will provide vital information about how organisms adapt to harsh climates and other conditions, giving insight into how to address global challenges such as the impact of climate change on our food supply,” said Mark Poznansky, OGI's president and CEO.

“Tools to identify specific traits within the genome will help us selectively breed new plants that are well-suited to their environment. OGI is pleased to support professors Lukens and Griswold’s research, which has broad applications in plant and animal breeding.”

Kevin Hall, Guelph’s vice-president (research), added: “This is another great example of how Guelph researchers are using their minds and discoveries to find solutions to critical issues, in this case to food and plant sustainability,”

Selective breeding of plants and animals generates populations with desirable traits such as high quality, high yield and the ability to grow in difficult conditions. Selective breeding helps ensure sufficient production for food, fuel and raw materials and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.

Factors such as climate change and population growth make selective breeding more important than ever. But researchers have faced challenges in identifying genes and other genetic material that help improve environmental adaptation, and using this information in breeding programs.

Lukens and Griswold will use novel methods to integrate genomic signal processing and genomic selection.

“We are very excited to have received this award,” Lukens said. “Widespread sequencing of genomes has revolutionized genetics. In our research programs, we have worked to develop novel approaches for the analysis and utilization of this genomic data. This work will greatly facilitate our progress, and with these funds, we hope to develop an important tool for plant and animal breeding.”

Griswold thanked Genome Canada and the Ontario Genomics Institute for their support. “It allows us to develop new approaches for crop breeding and train highly qualified personnel. I am hopeful that these trainees and approaches will bring lasting value for agriculture in Canada.”

On Thursday May 2nd between 6 AM and 8 AM, CCS will be performing maintenance on the Web Access Management (WAM)/Single Sign On (SSO) module on the RecruitGuelph, Student Housing, and Department of Physics webservers. These services will be intermittently unavailable during the maintenance.

If you have any questions or comments on this maintenance, please contact the CCS Help Centre at 58888help@uoguelph.ca.

On Tuesday, April 30 between 6:00 AM and 8:00 AM, CCS will perform maintenance on one of the database servers that support several Drupal websites. The following sites will be briefly unavailable during this time:

Flags at the University of Guelph will be at half-mast on Sunday and Monday to mark the Day of Mourning in Canada, observed on April 28 each year in honour of those who have lost their lives or been injured on the job.

A ceremony will be held at the flags in front of the University Centre at 11 a.m. Monday, April 29.

A joint proclamation recognizing the day has been issued by U of G and the University's employee groups.

A team of University of Guelph students won second place and the admiration of their competitors at a North American agricultural marketing contest this month in Kansas City, Missouri.

Nine students in agricultural business, science and marketing -- all in U of G’s Ontario Agricultural College -- won second at the National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) student marketing competition. Guelph finished just two points behind the University of Minnesota, and was voted “most favourite team” by the 29 competing teams. The U of G team was only one of two Canadian schools at the event, the other being Saskatchewan.

Teams began brainstorming innovative agricultural products last fall. They created an executive summary, a PowerPoint presentation and speaking notes before this month’s contest.

“For the summary, we research the market and competitive analysis, create a marketing plan with events and advertisements, complete the financial breakdown of what it will cost the company with all expenses included, and finally create a monitoring and measuring section,” explained Emily Den Haan, president of the Guelph NAMA student chapter.

This is the first year Guelph has reached the contest final since placing third in 2007. The team trained twice a week this year and sought comment from local agricultural marketing professionals.

“Having professionals and sponsors watch and critique it helped us to think on our feet during the question-and-answer period, and made us feel confident in our product and marketing plan throughout the three presentations,” said Den Haan, a fourth-year student. “We are thankful for all the Canadian Agri-Marketing Association did for us; their support is the backbone to our chapter and its success.”

For Lucas Meyer, Guelph NAMA treasurer and co-president, winning silver was a bonus.

“After completing each presentation, we all were extremely happy, because we were proud of how we did and felt extremely confident about it,” he said. “It was a great feeling, because even if we hadn’t moved on to the next level, we were happy with our efforts.”

He credits the agricultural marketing courses he has taken with helping him prepare for the event.

“The competition is intense, and the teams are quite competitive,” he said. “The classes we took at Guelph helped with creating the marketing plan for our product.”

Joining Den Haan and Meyer as part of the Most Favourite Team were Rob Bos, Jill Brown, Jeremy Fallis, Eamonn McGuinty, Laura Nanne, Melissa Parkinson and Elizabeth Stubbs.

"We were honoured to win Most Favourite Team," said Den Haan. "Our team had bonded very well throughout the year, and our team dynamic was great. We were all excited to be at the competition and meet other schools’ teams, find out what they have to offer, and learn from them.”

University of Guelph researchers have created a first-ever vaccine for gut bacteria common in autistic children.

The groundbreaking study by Brittany Pequegnat and Guelph chemistry professor Mario Monteiro appears this month in the journal Vaccine.

They developed a carbohydrate-based vaccine against the gut bug Clostridium bolteae.

C. bolteae is known to play a role in gastrointestinal disorders, and it often shows up in higher numbers in the GI tracts of autistic children than in those of healthy kids.

More than 90 per cent of children with autism spectrum disorders suffer from chronic, severe gastrointestinal symptoms. Of those, about 75 per cent suffer from diarrhea, according to current literature.

“Little is known about the factors that predispose autistic children to C. bolteae,” said Monteiro. Although most infections are handled by some antibiotics, he said, a vaccine would improve current treatment.

“This is the first vaccine designed to control constipation and diarrhea potentially caused by C. bolteae and perhaps control autism-related symptoms associated with this microbe,” he said.

Autism cases have increased almost sixfold over the past 20 years, and scientists don’t know why. Although many experts point to environmental factors, others have focused on the human gut.

Some researchers believe toxins and/or metabolites produced by gut bacteria, including C. bolteae, may be associated with symptoms and severity of autism, especially regressive autism.

Pequegnat, a master’s student, and Monteiro used bacteria grown by Mike Toh, a Guelph microbiology PhD student.

The new anti- C. bolteae vaccine targets the specific complex polysaccharides, or carbohydrates, on the surface of the bug.

The vaccine effectively raised C. bolteae-specific antibodies in rabbits. Doctors could also use the vaccine-induced antibodies to quickly detect the bug in a clinical setting, said Monteiro.

The vaccine might take more than 10 years to work through preclinical and human trials, and it may take even longer before a drug is ready for market, Monteiro said.

“But this is a significant first step in the design of a multivalent vaccine against several autism-related gut bacteria,” he said.

Monteiro has studied sugar-based vaccines for two other gastric pathogens: Campylobacter jejuni, which causes travellers’ diarrhea; and Clostridium difficile, which causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea.

The research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Classroom innovations have earned national teaching awards today for two University of Guelph professors.

Profs. Jacqueline Murray, Department of History, and Trent Tucker, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, are among only five Canadian academics to receive the 2013 Desire2Learn Innovation Awards for Teaching and Learning.

The awards are presented annually by Desire2Learn and the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE). Murray and Tucker will each receive a two-year membership in the STLHE and funding to attend the 2013 Desire2Learn annual conference.

Murray was recognized for her work with enquiry-based learning (EBL) in first-year seminars and for distance education (DE) courses.

“My research on learning outcomes demonstrates how powerful it is, even though it is not generally used outside of professional contexts,” Murray explained. “So I wondered about moving this online. Would it be possible to offer the enhanced learning of EBL online to students in the North or the global south who depend on DE but often miss dynamic interaction and collaborative learning?”

Murray now hopes to work with an African colleague on cross-cultural technology and pedagogy.

She said the award recognizes that “taking a chance with pedagogy and going beyond the familiar and comfortable can be rewarding in terms of student learning and experience. I hope this encourages others to experiment and take risks and be supported in the process.”

For Tucker, formerly a business analyst, supply chain manager and software developer, the award validated his decision to become a professor.

“I was excited to get the news — it’s not every day you win a national teaching award,” he said. “At the same time, I found it humbling to be honoured when I know there are many other excellent teachers.”

Tucker was recognized for making innovations in university education accessible to all of his students.

“I try to create a ‘real’ experience for the students. I take things that work well in small seminars and scale them up to my class of 800 students. I also take things that are usually associated with upper-year courses, such as business pitch competitions, and push them down to the first year.”

He added, “I enjoy the energy and ideas I get from people who are younger and smarter than me. It’s rewarding when a student gets it, or when I hear of their successes years later, and know I had some hand in helping them develop and grow.”

They will receive their awards June 21 in Sydney, N.S., at the STLHE annual conference.

Geography professor Barry Smit was interviewed by CBC radio about climate change this morning. He appeared on the Thunder Bay show Superior Morning, talking about how and why weather is becoming more unpredictable and extreme events, more severe.

As Canada Research Chair in Global Environmental Change, Smit studies social and economic implications of climate change and how to manage associated risks and opportunities. He served on a provincial expert panel on climate change adaptation and co-authored the report “Adapting to Climate Change in Ontario’” for the provincial environment ministry. He also served on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) beginning in 1998 and was lead author of the IPCC’s fourth assessment report, issued in 2007.

Prof. Stuart McCook, associate dean of research and graduate studies in the College of Arts, was interviewed by CBC Radio Thursday about coffee rust. The fungus is a growing economic problem for coffee growers in Central America.

The interview was picked up by 22 CBC affiliates, including Victoria, Edmonton, Whitehorse, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax.

McCook, a history professor, studies the environmental history of tropical crops and commodities, looking at the interplay between economy and environment by studying the origins of epidemic crop diseases. He is working on a global history of coffee rust (Hemileia vastatrix). Read more

Physics professor Joanne O’Meara was featured this week on the Discovery Channel's popular science show Daily Planet, where she demonstrated how and why volcanoes erupt. (watch the video: :22 into the segment).

In regular appearances on the show as a resident science expert, O'Meara demonstrates and explains science, physics and engineering to viewers in an accessible and interesting way. In other outreach activities, she runs workshops and physics shows for elementary school teachers and students. She also researches effective ways to improve physics education in university classrooms.

O’Meara received the 2011 Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Canadian Association of Physicists. The award recognizes teachers with exceptional ability to communicate knowledge and understanding.

Prof. John Livernois, a candidate for the position of associate vice-president (research services), will give a public presentation and answer questions April 29 from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. in the University Centre, Room 103.

Members of the University community are invited to attend and to submit comments on the candidate to Kevin Hall, vice-president (research), who is chairing the search committee. Comments must be received by May 10 and should be sent via e-mail to vpres@uoguelph.ca.

Livernois’s appointment as interim associate vice-president (research services) ends on June 30. A full curriculum vitae is on file in the Office of the VP (Research).

Other members of the search committee are:
Tony Vannelli, dean of the College of Physical and Engineering Science; Prof. Madhur Anand, Environmental Sciences; Prof. Stuart McCook, History; Prof. Pat Wright, Integrative Biology; Amanda Naaum, a PhD student in Integrative Biology; and Laura Beaupre, director of research support services.

Stressed-out mothers raise stronger, heartier offspring – at least among squirrels.

In a new study, international researchers – including University of Guelph biologists – say squirrels tailor their parenting to meet the varied conditions facing their young.

For pups born during crowded, stressful times, mama squirrels kick maternalism into high gear. By the time they leave the nest, these offspring are significantly larger than pups raised under less stressful conditions.

The study was published Thursday in the journal Science. It has received significant media attention, including CBC radio and online news, Yahoo! News, and the Ottawa Citizen. Reports were also generated by the United Press International and Post Media News wire services.

Female squirrels listen to social cues during pregnancy and while tending their young, said Andrew McAdam, a professor in Guelph’s Department of Integrative Biology. He conducted the study with Guelph biology professor Amy Newman and lead author Ben Dantzer.

Females listen to sounds of other squirrels. As crowding increases, territorial defence “rattles” get louder and more frequent. That causes mother squirrels to make more stress hormones, which makes their pups grow faster. “If they know the population is exploding, they must do what they can to produce fitter offspring, so that they can make it under such conditions,” McAdam said.

Red squirrels’ territorial behaviour enables them to survive through the winter. When there are a lot of squirrels around, it’s harder to find vacant homes, McAdam said.

“When there are lots of squirrels around, only the fastest-growing squirrels survive,” he said. “But when population density is low, all squirrels survive well, so how quickly they grow doesn’t matter.”

For the study, Newman and Dantzer, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge and McAdam’s former graduate student, tricked mother squirrels into believing that they had more neighbours than they really did by playing squirrel calls recorded in the forest over loudspeakers.

Dantzer and Newman then tested the effects of the stress hormones by feeding some mother squirrels peanut butter laced with stress hormones. Those mothers also raised faster-growing pups than control females.

“Despite the widespread perception that being stressed is bad, our study shows that high stress hormone levels in mothers can actually help their offspring,” Dantzer said.

The team studied groups of North American red squirrels over six years.

“What was remarkable,” Newman said, “is that the perception of high density and elevated maternal stress hormones boosted pups’ growth rates as much as if the mothers had been fed extra food.”

“It proves that complex ecological and physiological factors — and not simply resources — affect reproduction and maternal behaviour,” she said.

McAdam added, however, that squirrels increase their investment in their offspring only during crowding.

Similar principles probably apply to other animals, he said. “In a changeable world, they need to be flexible in their parenting and adjust to current conditions.”

Other researchers in the study were Rudy Boonstra, University of Toronto-Scarborough; Rupert Palme, University of Veterinary Medicine in Austria; Stan Boutin, University of Alberta; and Murray Humphries, McGill University.

Improving high-speed Internet access for rural residents of southwestern Ontario is the goal of a new feasibility study involving University of Guelph researchers.

Working with the Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (WOWC), the Guelph team will survey public-sector organizations, businesses, farmers and residents about their needs for scalable, ultra-high-speed broadband and the availability of network infrastructure.

One in five Canadians — most of them in rural areas — lack Internet access.

In the first of several planned community seminars, rural community leaders met today at U of G to discuss existing and future Internet requirements.

“In recent years, different levels of government and the private sector have teamed up to develop Ontario’s rural broadband infrastructure, but the quality of service and affordability are still major concerns,” said Prof. Helen Hambly Odame, a rural extension expert in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development.

“Today’s meeting was about overcoming obstacles to one of the major drivers of agricultural and rural innovation.”

Wilson Halder, who is studying rural broadband use in Wellington County for his master’s degree in capacity development and extension, will be a research assistant on the project.

Canada was once a leader in Internet capacity, but parts of the country still lack access and rural broadband connectivity, said Halder.

“For me, this study and the community seminar has further illustrated the importance of Internet access and some of the challenges and requirements associated with meeting the concerns of those with limited access to broadband or none at all.”

Nicole Markwick, a recent U of G graduate and now a research assistant with the study, said: “We’re working towards better capacity and connectivity in the area. The social and economic implications are massive.”

Improved Internet access is a key to economic competitiveness and social development, according to WOWC. The organization says government, rural communities, service providers and business enterprises need to work together to overcome geographical, technical and financial challenges.

The study is funded by WOWC, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, and the Ministry of Rural Affairs. To register for upcoming seminars or to complete the survey, visit www.wowc.ca.

The wind will blow in Ontario high school students April 26 for this year's WindENG design competition.

Students from 24 schools from Kingston to Toronto to Windsor will show off their designs for energy-generating wind turbines and compete for cash prizes.

Wind turbine designs will be judged by a panel of practising engineers and U of G faculty, and will be tested in the University's wind tunnel.

Contestants will vie for top three awards as well as prizes for most original and most innovative designs.

The top prize will go to the team whose windmill produces the highest average power output.

The winning entry will be acquired by the Canada Science and Technology Museum for the national collection in Ottawa.

For more information, contact Andrea Woon-Fat, 519 824-4120, Ext. 53730.

The complete set of PIR-Forms is now available on the Program Prioritization Process (PPP) website for viewing by members of our campus community. As I am sure everyone will appreciate, you will need your university I.D. to access the forms. They have been modified slightly to collapse costing data under section 8.3. This is to protect some confidential information related to individual salaries.

This is an important part of the PPP and makes transparent to the community the submissions of all programs and services. The Task Force is currently hard at work assessing and evaluating the forms and is scheduled to complete their report on the 22nd June.

Over the summer this report will be reviewed by the President and the VPs to help inform the allocation of unit budget targets for 2014-15 as well as the development of a process for reinvestment. All of this information including the full report will be shared with the community in the fall 2013 semester.

Maureen Mancuso, Provost and Vice-President (Academic)

With hundreds of trained experts eyeing their every move, Guelph first responders showed this year that their first aid and life support skills are the best in all of North America.

Five University of Guelph first responders won the National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation (NCEMSF) skills competition in Washington, D.C., beating teams from the United States and Canada.

The Guelph First Response Team (FRT) is a student-run, non-profit group of volunteers, and a division of St. John Ambulance. They provide on-call emergency service life support and first aid care to the campus weeknights and 24 hours on weekends throughout the school year.

Team members Kayla Slade and Sam Sanders competed in the final round.

Earlier, the full team – including Guelph alum Alex Hall, and students Rachel De Young and Shelby Michaelson – showed how to react to a medical situation such as a heart attack, a trauma situation such as a shooting or stabbing, and a teamwork scenario in communication and problem-solving.

The final two-member round was a mass casualty scenario involving a chemical lab explosion. Slade and Sanders competed for Guelph against McMaster University and the University of Vermont.

“We were all well-trained and wanted a chance to compete,” explained Sanders. “Competing is an absolute adrenaline rush. Having a couple hundred trained responders focused on you definitely adds pressure but also gives you that chance to represent your team to a large group.”

For Slade, any anxiety vanished as the scenario unfolded.

“When there are about 20 patients and two responders, no one has time for nerves,” she said. “Guelph FRT has extensive training each semester, and as a team we are fantastic at teamwork and communication with each other on scenes, which was a definite advantage for us in the competition.”

Heidi Berry, a biomedical science student at Guelph and an FRT supervisor, said the team was well-prepared for the contest.

“Everyone on FRT becomes very familiar with a large variety of emergency situations and how to manage them appropriately,” Berry said. “In training, all team members respond to staged situations, similar to what was seen in the competition. That said, it’s the large number of real calls on campus treating real patients that we experience which helps us build skills and confidence.”

When Slade learned U of G had won, she “jumped in the air and started to cry, I think; we were all so excited because for the five of us, it was likely our last competition, as we were a team made up entirely of graduating or alumni students.”

Now finishing her degree in history and theatre studies, she said, “Next year I’m pursuing a diploma in paramedic studies so that I can keep on practising everything the FRT taught me and give back to the community.”

A 2012 biochemistry grad, Sanders is applying to medical school and is part of the St. John Ambulance response team in Winnipeg.

“FRT was the defining reason that I chose to pursue a career in medicine,” he said. “The team also builds incredible character, leadership skills, self-confidence and teamwork.”

Guelph First Responders Team (l-r): Alex Hall, Samuel Sanders, Rachel De Young, Kayla Slade, Shelby Michaelson

Julia Christensen-Hughes, dean of the College of Management and Economics, appeared on TVO's The Agenda . She was part of a panel discussion on the future of higher education. Hosted by Steve Paikin, The Agenda is TVO's flagship current affairs program.

Topics covered included college-university partnerships, institutional branding, pedagogy and economics of higher education. Other participants are from George Brown College, the University of Toronto, Athabasca University, Georgia Tech, and the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.

Christensen Hughes is the co-author of a study on academic misconduct in Canadian post-secondary institutions, and recently published a series of columns for the Globe and Mail on teaching in learning. She is the former chair of the Department of Business and former director of Teaching Support Services.

U of G graduate student Rachael Derbyshire appeared on the popular CBC radio program Quirks and Quarks this past weekend. Hosted by Bob McDonald, the award-winning radio science program is heard by a national audience of nearly 500,000 people in Canada and thousands more across the globe through a podcast.

Derbyshire was part of an international team of scientists, including integrative biology professor Ryan Norris, that conducted a new study on monarch butterflies. They found that the insects fly without a map and use basic orientation and landmarks to find their way to their wintering sites, thousands of miles away. Listen to the interview

The study has also drawn attention from the Globe and Mail, CBC, Nature and Discovery and overseas from The Independent.

Five of Canada’s leading humanities researchers – all holders of prestigious University Research Chairs at the University of Guelph – will take part in a free “CommUnity Conversation” April 22 on the role of the humanities in culture and community.

The timing could not be better, organizers say.

Almost every day brings newspaper columns, radio programs, debates or discussions about the “value” of a university education, especially degrees in the arts and humanities, say professors Sky Gilbert and Robert Enright.

More and more, researchers are being asked to demonstrate how their work will add “value” to society, usually through commercialization.

Said Gilbert, a drama professor and holder of a University Research Chair in creative writing, “Universities are and must be primarily for ‘creating creators’: teaching people analytical, critical and original thinking.”

Students should be taught to question and ponder important societal issues, he said, including questioning the role of industry and business.

“These are the focus of the humanities and of universities -- or they should be. This is why such a forum is important: to explain the role of universities in terms of humanities in a modern world which seems more and more focused on the bottom line, capitalism and making a buck.”

Gilbert, an award-winning playwright, filmmaker, poet, author and director, will be among five U of G professors to discuss “Why the Humanities?”

The event will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Hope House, 75 Norfolk St.

He will be joined by English professor Dionne Brand, a poet, novelist and essayist; Enright, University research professor in art criticism and one of Canada’s best-known cultural journalists and art critics; Daniel Fischlin, an early modern literature and music scholar, and professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies; and Elizabeth Ewan, a Scottish studies scholar and history professor.

Enright, who will serve as moderator, said the event will highlight how the humanities help shape community.

“We don’t remember other civilizations for the quality of their roads or for their taxation systems but for the art, writing and music they produced.

“We live in a culture where politicians tend to think that the arts are draining on society, but the arts are society.”

Scholars must remain vigilant in their roles as public intellectuals, he said. Universities, he added, “should be the point where society and ideas meet, and we should articulate that connection to the community by sharing the interests that we have.”

This event is sponsored by U of G’s Office of Research.

"It’s important for our University Research Chairs to lead in community engagement and knowledge mobilization,” said Kevin Hall, vice-president (research).

“When these experts share their work and ideas with the community, everyone benefits.”