Learning can change our lives
A gifted student who seemed to lose direction when he was an undergraduate, Matthew Firth dropped down to one course a semester in his third year and went to work in downtown Guelph as a bartender and in a tattoo shop.
“It wasn’t exactly the place I expected to end up,” he says. “It was fun at the time, but I came to realize it wasn’t very stimulating work and I missed science.”
When he landed a job with pathobiology professor Pat Shewen as a part-time lab assistant, Firth found his purpose. And Shewen discovered how important it is for universities to find new ways to deliver programs that motivate bright students who may be uninspired by current approaches.
Firth finished his B.Sc. in 2004 and a master’s degree in 2006, then went on to earn the University’s prestigious Brock Doctoral Scholarship. He has helped Shewen’s lab make considerable progress in the quest for a bovine gene they will use in vaccine studies.
The Guelph difference is clear
The University of Guelph claimed the No. 1 spot in the 2006 Maclean’s ranking of universities. U of G was named the top comprehensive university in Canada and was ranked first in five of the key areas that determine the placements — quality of students, graduation rates, classes taught by tenured faculty, quality of faculty and student services.
The magazine defines comprehensive universities as those with a significant amount of research activity and a wide range of programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Wowing employers
Paula Gomes of Brampton, Ont., says attending the University of Guelph-Humber “was the best decision I’ve ever made.” She received a bachelor of applied arts degree in June 2006 as a member of the institution’s first graduating class. “I went for four interviews for four different companies and received a job offer from all of them.”
A joint initiative of the University of Guelph and the Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Guelph-Humber enables students to earn both an honours degree and an applied diploma in four years.
Poetry in motion
Dionne Brand English professor Dionne Brand received the Harbourfront Festival Prize in October 2006. The $10,000 award honours individuals who have made a contribution to the world of books and writing. She also received the Toronto Book Award for her novel What We Long For.
Geoffrey Taylor, director of international readings at the Harbourfront Centre, said Brand’s importance to Canada’s literary community is reflected both in her writing and in her commitment to her students at U of G.
Trinidad-born Brand is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including the acclaimed Land to Light On, which won a Governor General’s Award, and thirsty, which won the Pat Lowther Award for poetry.
Always up for a good debate
John Coombs Not one to shy away from a good discussion, political science student John Coombs was happy to appear on a local Rogers Cable TV show with Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities, Chris Bentley, and U of G president Alastair Summerlee.
Coombs, who is external commissioner for the Central Student Association (CSA), had organized Guelph student participation in a nationwide Day of Action to Stop Tuition Fee Hikes in co-operation with the Canadian Federation of Students. He has also held leadership positions in residence and with the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences student association, the University Senate and CSA board committees. He was appointed to Board of Governors as a student member in fall 2006.
Excited about learning
Bill Winegard Former University of Guelph president Bill Winegard has created three lectureships to bring esteemed scholars to Guelph to enhance learning for faculty and students. He supports lectureships in new materials engineering and condensed matter physics, as well as the Winegard Visiting Lectureship in International Development. The lectures are always free and open to the public.
Winegard says he was inspired to establish and endow the lectureships “out of appreciation of my long association with the University. I also have great passion for teaching and research and have always been grateful for the opportunities I experienced as a student to meet with and learn from visiting lecturers.”
The undergraduate experience is the lifeblood of our efforts to transmit knowledge and to invite students to join faculty on the important journey of research.
Comic delivers a serious message
A comic strip based on unique research by Guelph sociologist Terisa Turner has been included in a collection of the finest comics in North America. The graphic narrative titled “Nakedness and Power” appears in the inaugural edition of Best American Comics 2006, published by Boston-based Houghton Mifflin.
Turner wrote the text for the nine-page comic strip with Guelph graduate Leigh Brownhill, MA ’94. It focuses on a 2002 revolt against petroleum pollution led by nearly 600 Nigerian women who staged mass protests against the petroleum industry using the “curse of nakedness” as their weapon.
Leigh Brownhill, Ruth Wangari wa Thung’u and Terisa Turner in Kenya The curse refers to a cultural belief held by many Africans that purposefully exposing female genitalia to men who have caused anger results in the men’s “social death.” “No one will cook for them, marry them, enter into any kind of contract with them or buy anything from them,” says Turner, who notes that every statement in the comic is 100-per-cent accurate.
“By sharing our research in this way, we are able to explain the struggle of these African women and the issues of survival they’re facing in a way that’s easy for a wide and diverse audience to understand.”
In search of the origins of life
A newly discovered microbe that may hold clues to the origins of life on a harsh young Earth has been discovered by an international team of scientists that includes U of G microbiologist Terry Beveridge.
Terry Beveridge The new microbe belongs to a group of single-celled bacteria-like organisms called archaea, which often live in extreme environments. It’s the first acid-loving archaeon found around deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Superheated water (about 400 C) emitted from the vents mixes with ordinary sea water and releases minerals that support organisms able to “breathe” sulphur or metals instead of oxygen. Those conditions are believed to resemble those that nurtured the first life forms on Earth 3.6 billion years ago.
“We’ve suspected that microbes there resist strong acids and high temperature, but no one has been able to isolate one,” says Beveridge, who holds a Canada Research Chair in the Structure, Physical Nature and Geobiology of Prokaryotes.
Robotic submersibles were used to collect samples from ocean vents, and Beveridge used a suite of sophisticated instruments to analyze the microbe’s structure. Studying how these organisms thrive may also yield ideas for improvements in high-temperature industrial processes or the development of new materials for harsh environments.
Steve Marshall Six-legged creatures abound
Guelph entomologist Steve Marshall has published a new insect book that is so extensive, it’s being called “an insect collection between covers.”
Not only does his 700-page Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity cover just about every family of six-legged creatures in eastern North America, but it also contains never-before-seen photographs, including one taken of a species of bee fly that lays its eggs in wasp nests.
“The bee fly is one of several species discovered for the first time in Canada in the course of this project,” says Marshall, a faculty member in the Department of Environmental Biology.
The book is the first species-level guide to a vast array of insects beyond the standards of butterflies and dragonflies. It deals mostly with insects found east of the Mississippi River and north of Georgia, including the six provinces east of Manitoba. That area is home to an estimated 100,000 insect species.
“Although many new discoveries were made while writing the book, I initiated this project to provide something badly needed by naturalists and students,” says Marshall.
Carin Wittnich Unleashing future leaders
The first student leadership week at the Ontario Veterinary College — titled “Unleash the Leader” — included a mix of speakers, workshops, poster sessions and a community-service event with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Keynote speaker was 1976 OVC graduate Carin Wittnich, a professor of surgery and physiology at the University of Toronto and the OVC Alumni Association’s 2005 Distinguished Alumna.
DNA sheds its wings
 Paul Hebert Through DNA bar-coding ― a technique that identifies living things by genetics rather than appearance ― a team of researchers found evidence of 15 overlooked species of North American birds.
DNA bar-coding was developed at U of G by Prof. Paul Hebert, Integrative Biology, who is also director of the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario. Bar-coding was used in a recent study involving Hebert, Guelph colleagues and scientists from Rockefeller University, the Canadian Wildlife Service, the Smithsonian Institution and the Royal Ontario Museum in which they examined 93 per cent of the known breeding species in the United States and Canada. In addition to discovering 15 new species, they found 14 pairs of North American bird species with separate identities that are, in fact, DNA twins. They also found three DNA triplets and eight gull species that are virtually identical.
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